Mamdani Pushes Socialist “free stuff theory” with Government-Run Grocery Store
As a typical left-wing socialist, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani pushes policies that are founded on the misbelief that governance can provide a range of “free stuff” for the people. He defies the simple wisdom of Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman, who famously said “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” So, who pays for all that free stuff? The taxpayers, of course.
Socialism is an increasingly voracious redistribution of wealth. One way or another, someone pays for all the so-called benefits provided by government. And when government undertakes services that could be provided by private sector enterprises, the costs increase exorbitantly – that is until the socialist system eventually crashes. And it always does. As former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher correctly noted, “You eventually run out of other people’s money.”
There is no better example than Mamdani’s “free” grocery.
One can almost picture the scene in the mayor’s office: Zohran Mamdani, with the starry-eyed certainty of a true believer, announces that the city will build and operate its own supermarkets. The first one, slated for East Harlem’s La Marqueta, carries a startup price tag of $30 million for a mere nine thousand square feet of retail space. That works out to more than $3000 per square foot – four times what a competent private operator would spend to construct a similar store.
Industry experts note that a comparable supermarket could be built for under $10 million. But why let mere facts interfere with socialist genius? The total bill for five such city-run emporiums across the boroughs clocks in at $70 million in capital funds alone. And that figure does not even touch the feasibility studies, the bureaucratic overhead, or the endless delays. The first store will not open its doors until late 2027 or early 2029 — depending on which set of shifting promises one chooses to believe.
The ongoing operating costs promise to be even more breathtaking. Experts predict that each of these government groceries will lose at $300,000 each year in perpetuity — even though the city provides the land rent-free and absorbs the construction debt. (Meaning taxpayers will pay since government never pays – it only redistributes the money.)
No profit motive also means no incentive to control costs. Prevailing wage rules, union mandates, interagency red tape, and political patronage will ensure that every head of lettuce arrives at the shelf wrapped in layers of taxpayer-funded inefficiency, waste, and fraud.
Private grocers, by contrast, operate on razor-thin margins precisely because competition forces them to innovate, negotiate, and eliminate waste. Government has no such discipline. It simply raises taxes, prints more money, or borrows from future yet unborn taxpayers to cover today’s free stuff.
Beneath that thin covering of good intentions lies the hairy mess of inefficiency, waste, and ultimate failure that defines all such government intrusions.
This is why socialist programs become so costly, and why they inevitably collapse under their own weight. Bureaucrats do not answer to the customers or the taxpayers. They answer to political patrons. There is no bottom line to watch, no shareholders to satisfy, no fear of bankruptcy to sharpen the mind. Every decision becomes a jobs program for cronies, every price reduction a subsidy extracted from the productive. The result is not abundance but scarcity sold at premium prices.
Mamdani’s scheme is classic creeping socialism – the slow poison that begins with “affordable” staples and ends with bread lines. It does not storm the Bastille with bayonets. It sneaks through the back door with press releases and photo ops. Yet the results are the same — bigger government, higher taxes, and fewer choices for the very people it claims to help.
History offers a grim parade of such failures. Look at Venezuela, once the richest nation in Latin America. Socialist strongman Hugo Chavez and his successor nationalized industries, seized private farms, and promised free food for all. The result? Empty supermarket shelves, hyperinflation that turned millionaires into paupers, and citizens reduced to scavenging garbage dumps or eating zoo animals. Millions fled the paradise of “free stuff theory” for the realities of capitalist neighbors.
In Cuba, decades of state-controlled rationing have produced chronic shortages and a black market that thrives on desperation.
The Soviet Union, that grand laboratory of pure socialism, delivered famines that killed millions while party elites dined on caviar. Even the creeping variety has its victims.
Britain’s postwar nationalization of industries led to the “Winter of Discontent” — with striking workers, rotting garbage in the streets, and an economy on life support until Thatcher administered the necessary corrective measures.
Closer to home, American cities that embraced heavy-handed redistribution now boast sky-high taxes, fleeing businesses, and residents who cannot afford the very basics their leaders swore to provide “free.” American style socialism has driven such cities as Detroit to the edge of bankruptcy.
With socialism, the people will always suffer — eventually. Under socialism, the poor do not get better groceries. They get longer waits, lower quality, and fewer options. The middle class watches its earnings vanish into the maw of government inefficiency. Entrepreneurs who once stocked shelves with variety and value pack up and leave – as Target and Whole Foods have already begun to do in New York City. What remains is dependency — a population trained to look to City Hall for its daily bread rather than to the marketplace where innovation actually occurs.
Mamdani’s “free” grocery is not a solution. It is a warning. Socialism does not deliver free lunch; it delivers an enormous bill and an empty plate. Taxpayers of New York would do well to remember Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher before the next round of the “free stuff theory” empties their wallets and their pantries.
The only thing that come free with socialism is the suffering it inevitably imposes on everyone – from the supposed beneficiaries to the overburdened taxpayers. When will we learn from the unbroken line of socialism’s failures?
So, there ‘tis.
Just recently, the socialists in Kansas City tried the free supermarket fantasy and it failed miserably. But socialists/communists always think they can succeed where everyone else, for at least a century, have failed.
What about Trump having stakes in companies like Intel and looking to help out Spirit Airlines? The farmer’s bailout? The tax breaks for the rich that add to the deficit? That’s socialism folks. Besides, the grocery store is not talking about free. It is geared to lower prices on fruits and vegetables while costing the same as other stores on the rest. Set in areas that no private company wants to build. Instead of hating on Mamdani, how about giving him a chance. So far he has done a great job. He is the most liked politician in the US for a reason. He is getting things done. Tired of billionaires spending millions to bribe politicians and then won’t pay thousands to help the city take care of the less fortunate. This author is biased.
Richard Curtis … you are correct. I am biased in favor of free-market capitalism. And your examples of government subsidizes can be good or bad, but they are not socialism,. The companies remain private, owned by shareholders. I am not a great fan of bailing out corporations, but that is a mostly a political issue based on philosophy. It is not about socialism. And with Mamdani, it is about a much bigger range of big government socialist policies. A range of polls show his favorable rating in mid 40 percentiles. Hardly the most popular politician in America. I feel quite confident that Mamdani’s policies will eventually bring down the New York City economy — which means hardship for the residents. He is doing what turned Detroit into a tragic bankrupt city. Coleman Young was highly praised when first elected, mayor but his policies destroyed the motor city over the years.. The badness of big government socialist policies is not theory. We have many examples to point to. Socialism is like a drug addiction. At first, it seem great … but the long term consequences are always the same.
I would never have voted for Mamdani. Just seeing if he gets voted out or fired or whatever probably the sooner the better. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that he was not the right person for the job. What were the New Yorkers thinking? He pulled the wool over their eyes!
I do not think government-grocery stores (GGS) are a good idea for NYC in the manner Mamdani plans to roll the first one. The issue is not socialism or capitalism, but “food deserts” and competitive prices. A food desert is defined as a low-income, residential area with limited access to affordable, nutritious food—specifically fresh fruits and vegetables. IOW – a place where capitalism does not serve. Trump’s USDA defines them as census tracts with high poverty rates (20%+) where at least 500 people or 33% of the population live over 1 mile (urban) or 10 miles (rural) from a supermarket. That’s a clear, defined definition, however, “affordable and nutritious” seems a bit grey.
Here’s the problem. In East Harlem, there’s over a dozen markets less than a half mile away. I think good grocery competition with lower prices is a good idea and while GGS will provide competition, it may not be good. For example, NYC suffers from a lack of big box stores and their competitive prices. Smaller bodega type stores don’t have the volume to get the best discounts from distributors, thus higher prices. However, East Harlem has Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Foodtown and Aldi’s all within a half mile; good luck GGS in competing with Aldi’s on price.
I think this idea, in this location, will fail, and hurts competition and the GGS concept because it’s not needed based on the USDA definition of food deserts.
FYI: Kansas City GGS suffered from losing customers leading to less volume-priced products and then, even less customers. It ran for ten years, not exactly an abject failure, and if customers found better digs over time, that sort of means capitalist groceries entered the area, in which case, the GGS accomplished its goal of providing better access to competitively priced goods. Atlanta just opened a store where all stores are over a mile away after trying to invite one in for over a decade. Hopefully, like KC GGS, their success will put them out of business too. Madison shortly will add one too, for the same reasons. Of course, Larry offers no alternatives between GGS and a food desert. He just whines about socialism. This works better when you focus on problems, objectives, and solutions over political and economic systems. While “Benito Mussolini made the trains run on time” is a myth, the concept that trains running on time is more important to people than political ideology or party is important and solution success is the goal.
The rationale for food deserts makes sense where capitalism fails to provide close access to reasonable prices. In the case of Kansas City, Atlanta, and Madison, that’s what happened. And in KC, it took a decade for capitalism to find a way to put them out of business. That’s how it should work.
Mamdani is breaking food desert rules so seems bound to fail: fast. Or he’s attempting something else, which since undefined, will probably fail too.
More on Larry’s off-base, emotional, trope-based fear mongering in a later post.
Your viewpoint is far too biased. There is no question that capitalism is failing far too many people. The distribution of wealth has become far too skewed toward the “haves” and less so to the “have nots”. Virtually every city in the U S suffers from homelessness, streets and other infrastructure in disrepair, and overall out of control, reckless and unaccountable military spending that reduces all other government programs at every level that further reduces the quality of life for the majority of Americans. We are in a new “GILDED AGE” rather than any mythical “golden age” as a certain would-be dictator has promised! The U S has fallen to about 24th in the world in overall quality of life for its citizens behind every so-called “socialist democracy’” in Western Europe, despite being the richest nation in the world. Travel in Europe and you will visibly experience much better-run societies. Everyday(like yesterday, April 26)the news transparently exposes the ills of our society which our broken political system continually fails to address. Without going into details a solution lies in developing a new “progressive era”, similar to the progressive era that followed the gilded age of the 19th century. The Maga Cult currently in power is completely incapable of implementing any lasting real reform and must be voted out for any forward progress to happen!
John Durham … I totally agree with your that boardroom compensations are way out of line. i started writing about the problem more than 40 years ago — and the disparity was bad, but nothing like it is today. But I do not believe socialism is the answer. I would rather tweak free-market capitalism.
IMO, Larry is incorrect leaning on tropes instead of facts to rail against Mamdani’s Government Grocery Stores (GGS). He seems to favor feelings and emotions instead of logical facts, as he prejudges based on a lifetime of all those old fear mongering misconceptions to pull at your heartstrings, stoke your fears, and feed your frustrations. He’s not alone, it’s an old, tried and true, Republican explanation of life. A very binary guy; socialism bad, capitalism good. Democrats bad, Republicans good. Danger bad, Horist good.
At its core, socialism is where the government, the people IOW, controls the means of production. Capitalism is where the private groups, the people IOW, controls the means of production, some publicly traded, others private investment, much of which is groups of investors, and some, individually owned small businesses (SB). Larry knows, but won’t tell you, that most modern, well-run, governments and economies feature a blend of capitalistic and socialistic programs and policies. Frankly, today, people like Larry define almost all government programs as socialist just because they are managed by the government. Somehow, the government is tagged as inefficient, ineffective, and incompetent while 20% of SBs fail in year one, 50% in first five years, and 70% in ten years. Ask Larry IF someone owns his business today, or is it gonzo. Point is there is success and failure in both the private, public, and government sectors. But only government can do what needs doing that capitalism just won’t do.
Historically, Eurocommunism softened adding capitalistic tendencies in the 70’s and 80’s only to revert on a lot of this under Trump’s buddy, Putin. The Euro-Socialism experiment of the 90’s failed, and they have increased capitalism since then in their economies.
Larry’s core concept is that government cannot manage costs, cannot manage programs, and generally, I guess, sucks at management. His cure is to cut taxes, cut government, and let the market solve all. He knows that does not work either. His answer is that whatever needs doing, to do it elsewhere, not by government. With this thinking, we would not have Eisenhower’s highway system, Hoover’s Dam, Lincoln’s Transcontinental Railroad, Kennedy’s Moon Landings, Roosevelt’s Panama Canal, Social Security, Johnson’s Medicare, and Franklin’s Public Library. I can think of nothing better than zooming down Interstate Route 80 in my convertible propelled by gas paid for with my social security check while looking up at the full moon, reading a book, and listening to my Medicare-paid pacemaker hum along. Life is good, some socialism can be good, life can be fair. All things in moderation.
In the end, socialism is like community. We all pitch in, gain economies of scale, and reap the rewards of a well-managed program like Social Security, or even Medicare. Are there issues? Sure. Enron went bankrupt for example. Blockbuster wasn’t. Everyone has issues.
Larry supports grocery socialism and he doesn’t even recognize it. The largest GGS is the military PX: global, 240 locations, 177 in the US. The PX has not destroyed the grocery market. Funny how Larry has not protested that egregious act of socialism destroying the very fabric of our culture. Must destroy him to see this Americanism advertised across the globe. Point is the government stepped in where capitalism feared to tread to create a GGS in a food desert.
The bottom line should be the bottom line. It should not matter whether a program is Democratic, Republican, socialist, capitalist, Martian, or Plutonian. My solution is to pick good programs, monitor and control them well, manage accordingly. It starts with defining the problem, something Larry is still working on. In this case, his perceived problem is socialism, especially since a liberal is doing it, when the real problem is a food desert as defined by Trump’s USDA. Larry hates the socialistic program but offers no alternative over doing nothing while claiming he’s advocates free markets that are not providing viable, efficient, effective, and economic solutions. He has no fix.
IMO, one federal government function is to do things that no one else can do or will do that needs to be done. This is in the Constitution under the “general welfare and ensure domestic tranquility” clauses. You know, Hoover Dam, etc., you know the list. Some great stuff with great paybacks too. Socialism can be a good thing, in moderation.
IMO, capitalist businesses exist to profit as mightily as they might. They strive to satisfy customers while making as much money as they can, legally. Somehow, doing things for profit seems different; almost in direct juxtaposition to doing many things that still need to be done. Worse yet, American capitalism mostly only does what’s profitable to do in a very short time. We are “graded” on annual business plans where annual metrics force many actions. Capitalism does not do as well for longer-term endeavors. It does work, but it is certainly harder to pull off. And that’s a definite advantage for private companies over public companies traded on the exchange. Government has far less constraints of time, profits, and the annual business plan.
In sum, communes fail. But not all communes fail. Businesses succeed, but not all businesses succeed. Fraud, failure, bad practices, happen in both socialistic and capitalistic endeavors.
The point is that if you look at successful economies from almost any sovereign nation on the planet, you will see a mix of socialistic and capitalistic programs and policies. Yes, Socialism does not work as a guiding principle to run a sovereign nation; capitalism does better. But 100% pure capitalism will not work either; never has.
Larry says: “Policies that are founded on the misbelief that governance can provide a range of “free stuff” for the people.” The people still pay for groceries at the GGS. This a a bogus, fear mongering sentiment not supported by facts. Republicans go hyper on this stuff all the time exaggerating and misbranding things for spin.
“Socialism is an increasingly voracious redistribution of wealth.” Larry cannot prove “increasingly” or “voracious,” he’s being hyperbolic for more fear mongering. It is redistribution as is every capitalistic program funded by taxpayers. You don’t think the Iran War isn’t a massive redistribution of wealth every time a million dollar bomb drops?
He dithers: “when government undertakes services that could be provided by private sector enterprises, the costs increase exorbitantly – that is until the socialist system eventually crashes.” Again, he cannot prove this, and Social Security alone proves him wrong. Costs have not increased exorbitantly and the system has not crashed for 90 years now. FYI: that’s why we elect these fools to manage this stuff —- both parties. There’s the rub that needs scratching.
Larry loves Trump policies. Perhaps Larry should start his “war on socialism” closer to home. Under Trump, Larry has expanded true socialism, the government owning the means of production at levels never seen in our history. That’s what Republicans like Larry always do: stand against something they already do and then blame Democrats for doing it. Under Trump and Larry’s beloved policies, the federal government invests private companies out the ying-yang and in one year, he’s got a government hand in controlling all sorts of production and private enterprise:
Intel: 9.9% stake via Commerce Dept. for domestic chip manufacturing.
Lithium Americas: 5% stake via Dept. of Energy supporting the Thacker Pass project.
MP Materials: 7.5%–15% stake via Defense Dept. for rare earth elements.
Vulcan Elements: Partnered for a rare earth magnet supply chain with billions in federal support.
Westinghouse: Construction financing for nuclear plants.
U.S. Steel: Support for domestic production.
Korea Zinc: 40% stake in a Tennessee smelter joint venture.
And now they want to take over Spirit Airlines so Kash can get his new plane, I guess. Larry is the biggest supporter of socialism with the Federal Government intruding on more private businesses than the US has ever seen.
Larry’s Federal Government owns $20 billion in private equity across 16 different deals. In one year. That’s a lot of lettuce for a lot groceries and it’s socializing a lot more than a few heads of cabbage. Seems to me Larry is talking out one side of his mouth for Mamdani and out the other side of his mouth for Trump. And that’s what he does: blames you for the very things he is doing while blaming you for it.
Republicans need to build more than ballrooms, bathrooms, arches, and pleasure-palace-planes.