The recently elected Mayor of New York City, supported by the majority of its citizens, has absolutely no business experience, and has never managed a single employee. In fact, he has never had a real job!
He has never run a budget, let alone a large organization; he can barely manage his own finances, and to make matters worse, he actively hates business.
On the other hand, he is a relatively eloquent, charismatic guy. He has a beautiful smile.
He also offers some really exciting ideas—though none of them hold up to serious scrutiny. His ideas are reminiscent of the high school class president election, where a candidate promised to put Coca-Cola in the water coolers.
In practice, we know that ideas alone are of no particular value. It is the execution that counts.
It’s easy to lament the election of a self-proclaimed Socialist. But the reality of New York is that many people are suffering. They’re struggling more than ever—and they don’t understand why.
Voters don’t understand how years of city-wide mismanagement and waste have led to a significant decline in municipal services. Crime rates are rising, and even the basics of daily life, like garbage collection or the rat plague, continue to get worse.
Nor do they understand how the state’s stupid policies have driven productive people and businesses out of New York State to friendlier places like Florida, leading to a shrinking tax base (and thus a decline in services and quality).
They also don’t understand how the surge in federal spending—especially since the pandemic—has led to higher inflation. And they certainly don’t understand the vagaries of monetary policy and how the Federal Reserve’s mistakes have fueled the inflation problem.
Most voters don’t understand any of this. (Nor does Mamdani.) All they know is that they’re falling further and further behind, and they want change.
Well, they got change. But it probably won’t be a good change. Because what voters don’t understand is Socialism. These days, most people who like the idea of socialism are younger—too young to remember the Soviet Union.
When they think of Socialism, they think of Norway. They believe that it is possible to have free healthcare, free education, generous pensions, social safety nets, low unemployment, and a strong economy all at the same time. The reality is very different.
Scandinavia has achieved some success in its welfare systems because, at least until recently, they were societies with high trust, relatively low corruption, and high levels of technocratic efficiency in public administration.
The best practical example of Socialism is Venezuela — a society with very low trust, where inexperienced, corrupt, incompetent people regulate every aspect of the economy. The end result has been everything from widespread hunger to endless economic recession.
With the election of Mamdani, the “ingredients” look much more like Venezuela — incompetence, inexperience, over-regulation, etc. And yet the world, with great naivety, expects a Scandinavian-style outcome.
We talk about why high-trust societies require shared values and social cohesion—and New York has none of that. We also discuss the biggest thing voters are missing out on.
One of the biggest problems in the US is that it has terrible leaders. You just have to look at AOC, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Jasmine Crockett and ask yourself: how do they get elected over and over again? Voters are completely naive. And it’s hard to imagine that the US will solve its problems if voters keep sending incompetent, destructive politicians to represent them.
