New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to seize the means of production, starting with landlords. He recently pledged to crack down on what he considers bad landlords, saying the city will work to “transfer ownership” to “responsible stewards including community land trusts and nonprofits.”
Peter St. Onge
His plan will do for America broadly and New York specifically what the Bolsheviks did for Russia. It will lower housing quality and create shortages as the government destroys the incentive to provide the very thing it seeks to “redistribute.”
E.J. Antoni
This confiscation of private property would run alongside Mamdani’s plan to build 200,000 public housing units at a cost of tens of billions of dollars, according to critics. He also wants to impose rent control on hundreds of thousands of privately owned housing units, which will make those units unprofitable, ultimately decreasing housing supply, canceling out the units he wants to build.
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This is all an extremely costly and inefficient way to not make things better — a total waste of money. Waste is not something New York City can afford right now, considering its recent deficit. Mamdani’s going to need a whole lot more taxes. Or debt. Or both.
As bad as this sounds, it’s not surprising. Mamdani told voters he’d do this. During COVID, he said his "end goal" is "seizing the means of production," later adding that socialism would work this time because "we will bring in the best and brightest to deliver it."
It’s the apex of arrogance to think that the problem with socialism is that everyone else who tried it failed and only you are bright enough to make it work, like an intellectual savior for those who just aren’t very smart. This is standard socialism. The Soviets used an army of Ph.D.s to centrally plan, which still led to starvation.
People are willing to listen to Mamdani because he won his race for mayor largely on the housing issue. New York City is one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. and world. Median rent is about $3,600 per month. Yet housing has been growing slower than population because of the anti-landlord measures Mamdani’s going all-in on.
New York City has union and licensing mandates, miles of other bureaucratic red tape and rent control to make sure landlords can't make money. This has left roughly 50,000 apartments empty — because landlords can't make money renting them out — despite a vacancy rate of 1.4%.
Milei
Mamdani could have slashed all this by doing what Javier Milei did in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Milei cut rents and doubled housing supply by getting rid of the red tape. Instead, like fictional mob boss Tony Soprano on a job site, Mamdani is sending code enforcement to find excuses to seize properties.
The situation with New York housing is already bad enough, and it’s going to get worse. What landlord is going to want to take the risk of being burned by “the warmth of collectivism” under Mamdani? His policies will drive up prices further and increase shortages.
Of course, that’ll just give Mamdani ammunition for his next campaign where the low-information voters of New York get to shoot themselves in the other foot. The worsening housing situation will require even more government intervention, or so the story will go.
Mamdani
Mamdani gives the game away by handing over the seizures of housing to non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Like other liberal big-city “solutions” to social crises, from homeless encampments to migrant hotels to scam “learning” centers, the goal isn't helping people.
Instead, the goal is to seize resources for the crony NGOs who run those cities into the ground but channel plenty of funds to the political party in power. Mamdani is just the latest stooge, operating this time under the democratic socialist banner.
St. Onge and Antoni are economists at the Heritage Foundation. They wrote this for Tribune Content Agency.
