Zohran Mamdani’s democratic socialist movement is the key to combating harsh wealth divides, crime and poverty — which is exactly why his ultra-rich opposition relies on slander to distract voters from the profit elites make off the suffering of the working and middle classes.
To begin, I think it is necessary to set some definitions. Throughout his campaign, New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has seen endless scrutiny over his public persona as a “democratic socialist.” Though right-leaning legacy media has attempted to characterize Mamdani as “radical” and President Donald Trump continues to refer to him as a “communist,” taking a few minutes to read Mamdani’s policy proposals makes it clear that he is neither. Evidently, common fearmongering about Mamdani’s campaign relies on misunderstandings of socialism, communism and Mamdani’s politics in general.
So, let’s clear some things up.
In brief, socialism is a philosophy that calls attention to class inequality in society, leading to disproportionate power that is dictated by one’s class status. This inequality appears socially, politically and economically. Socialism is critical of capitalism as it argues that private ownership of property, resources and the means of production (the means through which our goods are produced) creates an unequal divide between workers and employers. Said divide ultimately leads to harsh wealth stratification.
Most socialists advocate for a more equal playing field at the economic level; if property, resources and the means of production are owned publicly, the profit incentive no longer serves private interest, and therefore capital is invested back into the community. Such an arrangement ensures that everyone has their basic needs met via state-funded social services, rather than having capital disproportionately allocated to very few people — that’s capitalism, the situation that we’re in now.
Democratic socialism is an ideology that functions as a sub-category of socialism. Democratic socialists believe in securing a socialist political reality through our democratic political system (wherein the people rightfully vote for the leader they want).
Oftentimes, as explored by Joseph Schwartz in his piece for Jacobin, socialism is misunderstood as authoritarianism. Authoritarianism occurs when citizens effectively do not have political power; if a state has power centralized in the hands of a few bureaucrats and restricts citizens’ political agency, it is authoritarian. The Soviet Union is an example of authoritarianism, not democratic socialism.
Finally, communism is a hypothetical society without classes envisioned by the philosopher Karl Marx wherein the public owns the means of production, private property ceases to exist while wealth and resources are distributed based on one’s needs. An easy example here is that a parent with four children would occupy a larger house because their family unit requires more space, whereas single childless individual would inhabit a smaller living space.
Mamdani identifies as a democratic socialist. He believes that wealth should not be centralized in the hands of few while everyone else is left to toil and suffer, and that it should be distributed more equally through democratic means, not authoritarian ones.
To get an idea of how Mamdani’s democratic socialism plays out on a political level, it is worth exploring a few of his campaign promises.
Firstly, Mamdani plans to combat crime by creating a “Department of Community Safety.” This department is responsible for ensuring that the most appropriate professionals can attend emergency scenes so that the responsibility of navigating all crises does not fall onto the police. The Department of Community Safety will push forth mental health, crisis response and gun violence prevention programs across the city while investing in outreach workers and increasing hate violence prevention program funding by 800 per cent. By enriching New York City’s social services through state means, Mamdani is combatting crime at some of its root causes: social inequality, deteriorating social welfare programs and a lack of access to mental health resources.
Mamdani also promises to provide “high quality,” universal, free childcare for all children aged six weeks to five years old. In doing so, he plans to raise the wages of childcare workers to match those of public-school teachers.
Another prominent campaign promise from the mayoral candidate is to provide city-owned grocery stores that skip out on expenses from profit seeking, rent and property taxes to make groceries more affordable, as they are a necessity for survival.
Evidently, Mamdani’s campaign centres around alleviating New Yorkers from financial burdens and providing wider access to services that currently operate behind monetary barriers to ultimately make stability more accessible for all.
To me, these promises illustrate hope; in making meaningful services available for all to access, Mamdani is also envisioning a world where core stressors — like class imbalances, subsequent generational trauma and chasmic gaps in social privilege — are finally being addressed at the legislative level.
So, why is Mamdani facing so much slander from his opposition for his democratic socialist approach to mayoral candidacy?
To finance these aims, Mamdani has proposed a corporate tax increase to 11.5 per cent (the same as the one in New Jersey) and a two per cent tax on the wealthiest one per cent of New Yorkers (those with an annual income above one million dollars).
Evidently, the ultra-rich have not been pleased to learn that the mayoral candidate plans to redistribute (a marginal amount of) their wealth — nor are the politicians that these very millionaires and billionaires fund to keep their capital safe and hoarded.
As Adam Gabbatt explores in his piece for The Guardian, Mamdani’s opposition Andrew Cuomo — the former Governor of New York whose father held the same title before him and happens to have been accused of sexual harassment 13 times — has essentially become the political representative for the ultra-rich.
Cuomo has taken to fearmongering about Mamdani’s democratic socialist approach, attempting to turn the New Yorkers who would benefit from Mamdani’s politics against him. His aim is to exploit most of the population for their vote and uplift the wealthier classes even further.
In an appearance on Fox News, Cuomo stated that if Mamdani becomes mayor, New York will shift to a “socialist economy” from which “the city will not survive […] and it will not recover for a long time.”
Now, I am not quite sure what Cuomo means by this — most likely because he is relying on vague language and a lack of understanding surrounding socialism to make New Yorkers afraid of Mamdani rather than actually trying to make a point.
The only ones that may be inconvenienced (not destabilized nor made to be financially insecure) by Mamdani’s so-called “socialist economy” are the one per cent who would have to finally invest a margin of their wealth back into the wellbeing of society — and that is exactly who is using their wealth to support Cuomo. So far, they’ve pitched in $40 million to protect their hordes of wealth from a two per cent tax increase that could guarantee childcare and cheaper groceries.
In addressing Trump’s mischaracterizations of him as a “communist” which he has discredited, Mamdani perfectly summed up the motives behind anti-socialist fearmongering attempts to discredit his platform:
“The president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I’m from, who I am, ultimately because he wants to distract from what I’m fighting for. And I’m fighting for the very working people that he ran a campaign to empower and has since then betrayed,” said Mamdani.
We are reaching the last days of the New York City mayoral election, and it is crucial to consider why Cuomo is dead against Mamdani’s platform. Cuomo, New York’s elites and generally the ultra-rich and powerful rely on classes that are readily available to exploit for their own gain. Social equality undermines their class superiority.
As fearmongering about Mamdani’s democratic socialist stance continues, I urge you to use this as an opportunity to ask the question: who benefits from misconstruing Mamdani’s expression of democratic socialism to incite widespread fear?
Here’s a hint: it’s not the average voter.