NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani

By Walter E. Block

Photo by Bingjiefu He – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia

Propriety dictates that I should congratulate Mr. Mamdani, now Mayor elect Mamdani, for his recent strong electoral victory. Sorry, I cannot bring myself to do any such thing. The man is a Communist despite his protestations to the contrary. And they, as far as I am concerned, are worse than Nazis. According to most historians, Hitler killed only 11 million people; 6 million Jews and 5 million Romany, homosexuals and other non-Aryans. In contrast, Stalin gets “credit” for 20 million, and Mao for an astounding 60 million.

Let us forget about the fact that this Mayor of New York City intends to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu if he ever dared show up in the Big Apple. Let us ignore that Mamdani hates Israel with a purple passion, supports Hamas and is, ugh, an avowed socialist. (He has learned nothing from the rare in social science almost totally controlled example of East and West Germany, nor North and South Korea). Apart for the moment from all of that, will he make a good Mayor?

Not from an economic point of view. His main campaign priority, apart from the above, was to make this city a good place for poor and working class residents to live. That is why he supports government run groceries, which would sell foodstuffs at bargain basement prices; e.g., at a loss which will have to be financed through tax increases. In other words, he will convert the entire city into a larger version of the South Bronx (for out of towners, that’s not good).

Imagine picking up groceries from the same type of folk now in charge of the Post Office or the Department of Motor Vehicles. Think about when the public sector unions in charge of these emporiums go out on strike as is their wont. No food for the likes of you! These stores, moreover, will spread like wildfire. Profit seeking grocers will not be able to compete with concerns giving away the product practically for free. Their demise, and the demand for more such government enterprises, will demonstrate the “success” of this initiative. You can bet your bottom dollar that this will lead to more and higher taxes to make up the difference. Tax levies will be progressive, not proportional or regressive, if Mamdani has anything to say about them. Wealthy people, the foundation of the economic success of the metropolis, will move to greener grass places such as Texas or Florida, leaving their previously occupied city more economically precarious for their absence.

Let us consider yet another economic policy he will soon introduce. He intends to strengthen rent control. Paradoxically, this policy raises rents, it does not lower them. Think of the supply and demand diagram you were introduced to, a while ago, when you took introduction to microeconomics 101. Will this program shift the demand curve? Not so much that anyone will notice it. Given rent levels, there is no reason to expect that people will change how much real estate they wish to occupy at any given price.

How about the supply curve? You can bet your boots it will move. But in which direction? Go to the head of the class if you said “to the left.” That is correct.

Fewer funds than otherwise will be spent by landlords, builders of rental units, for repairs, upgrades, new structures, etc., than would otherwise have been the case in the absence of this pernicious legislation. But, given downward sloping demand curves, this necessarily means a rise in real estate prices, including rental units. (Yes, some tenants of long standing, not necessarily the poor by any means, will payer lower rents, and receive commensurate decreased housing services.) It is no accident that this diabolical policy causes homelessness: at artificial lowered legal rents, shortages develop, and demand exceeds supply.

Stated even Swedish socialist economist (a redundancy) Assar Lindbeck: “In many cases, rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city except for bombing.” In the view of fellow Swede and Nobel Prize Winner

Gunnar Myrdal: “Rent control has in certain western countries constituted, maybe, the worst example of poor planning by governments lacking courage and vision.”

Rent control is so bad that if you want to help tenants via regulation, the best way to do so is to control the prices of everything else under the sun except for residential rental units. Then, investment will flow out from all these other areas and into this one, increasing the quantity of rental housing, and thus lowering rents!

No one should have voted for Mamdani. But Jews who voted for this man? A shonda. No, a double shonda. A Mayor Mamdani, ugh, has promised to arrest the Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu! Need I say more? Ok, I’ll say some more. Israel is a Jewish nation. Bibi is Jewish. Have we not had enough anti-Semitism without you self-hating Jews piling on in support of this Hamas lover? Evidently not, based on his support from our community in the Democratic primary and now in the recent election. There is a low rung in hell reserved for those who seek suicide not only for themselves but, as well for others, such as their Jewish co-religionists, whether political or otherwise.