“”State capitalism is a two-way street. Many businesses, by aligning themselves with Trump’s agenda, elicit better treatment—in their ability to sell to China, the tariffs they pay, how they are regulated, and what mergers are allowed,” wrote Greg Ip, The Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator, in a recent piece about how CEOs are navigating Trump’s state capitalism. “In other words, state capitalism doesn’t just serve the interests of the state, but of favored capitalists.”
And the Trump administration does not seem likely to place its own limits on this behavior. Asked recently about the logic behind these acquisitions, Trump said, “We should take stakes in companies when people need something.” That’s an answer that lacks any limiting principle.”
“Two of Mamdani’s executive orders directly address that latter goal. One creates a Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development (SPEED) task force dedicated to identifying and removing bureaucratic barriers to new housing construction and leasing.
The second creates the Land Inventory Fast Track (LIFT) task force that will identify city land that can be used for housing construction.
Both are fine ideas. They’re also not exactly novel.
Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, likewise convened task forces to speed up the city’s permitting process and to identify city-owned land that could be used for housing.
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Perhaps a Mamdani administration will be able to squeeze more juice out of new task forces.
But as the Manhattan Institute’s Eric Kober details in a new report, substantially increasing new supply will require more comprehensive legislative changes to city zoning and permitting laws.
The end goal of those reforms, like many of the zoning reforms the City Council passed under the Adams administration, is to induce private developers to add more units to the housing-starved city.
Several of Mamdani’s other initial housing moves may well make them less likely to do that.
On his first day in office, Mamdani appointed Cea Weaver, a tenant activist and one of his campaign advisers, to lead the city’s Office to Protect Tenants.
A few days later, the New York Post reported on Weaver’s long history of hard-left social media commentary. She’s called for seizing private property and derided homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy.”
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In addition to appointing Weaver, Mamdani has directed city agencies to host a series of “rent ripoff” hearings, in which tenants will be given a public forum to complain about conditions in their buildings.
Mamdani, beginning his administration by appointing communists and scheduling housing struggle sessions designed to demonize landlords, might not be the most surprising development. It’s not entirely unprecedented either. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio liked to talk about seizing private property from time to time.
It’s nevertheless worrisome for anyone who does care about private property protections. It’s also maddeningly hypocritical.
Weaver was a primary proponent of New York’s 2019 rent stabilization law that made it much more difficult for landlords to fund maintenance and building improvements through higher rents.
As recent lawsuits and reports have highlighted, the result has been declining housing quality and a growing number of units sitting empty because their owners cannot finance needed, often city-mandated repairs.
Neither Mamdani nor Weaver can expropriate private housing all by themselves. The U.S. Constitution provides some protection against that. They can, however, scapegoat landlords for problems that are caused by overbearing regulation.
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Housing production has plummeted in Montgomery County, Maryland, which borders Washington, D.C., following the implementation of a local rent control ordinance.
In 2023, the county council approved a rent control policy that caps annual rent increases at the lesser of inflation plus 3 percent or 6 percent.
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multifamily housing permits have fallen by some 96 percent since the implementation of rent control. County planning officials report that the multifamily projects that are getting permitted are generally for-sale units.”
Calling a political opponent a communist is silly. Not even the Soviet Union or China called themselves communist. They called themselves socialist. Communism is when the productive surplus is controlled by the workers themselves. The government owning a business and deciding what to do with a surplus is just a government elite controlling the surplus instead of an owner or manager elite. Communism would be not a government elite or capitalist elite controlling the surplus, but the workers controlling the surplus. The socialist governments were supposed to be a transition phase to true communism. The closest things to this might be cooperatives where the workers also own the business, although those are done within a larger capitalist system.
“NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has agreed to remain atop the nation’s largest police department once mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani takes over in January.
Her decision caps months of speculation over whether the high-society scion would work for a democratic socialist mayor and creates immediate tension for the embryonic administration.”
“”Mamdani won about 62% of the vote among New Yorkers under 30, and more than half among those aged 30 to 44,” Spain’s El Pais noted in an analysis of the election, which was followed around the world. “By contrast, among voters over 65, he drew just 29%.”
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In March, Gallup found that “since 2010, young adults’ overall opinion of capitalism has deteriorated to the point that capitalism and socialism are tied in popularity among this age group.” Among millennials and Gen Z, support for both stood at about 50 percent. But among the youngest in that cohort, socialism is winning out over its freedom-friendly rival.”
“Despite Trump promising to stand “with the good people of Cuba and Venezuela,” his administration has fast-tracked deportations for victims of communism.”
“Freezing the rent: Mamdani’s signature campaign promise was to freeze the rent for more than 2 million tenants living in rent-controlled housing. But the city’s cost of living has grown unabated despite decades of rent control—which, coupled with restrictive zoning, has made the city’s housing shortage worse.
$30 minimum wage: There’s good reason for New Yorkers to be skeptical of Mamdani’s plan to raise the minimum wage. When the city raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2018, the predictable result was increased unemployment and black markets in labor. Nearly doubling the current minimum wage of $16.50 by 2030 would produce similar consequences.
“Free” buses: On the campaign trail, Mamdani promised to eliminate the fare on every city bus to make them “fast” and “free.” The plan would cost taxpayers $600 million–$800 million annually and likely result in slower speeds, which is what happened when the city piloted five fare-free bus lines in 2023 and 2024.
Government-run grocery stores: Mamdani has proposed not-for-profit, government-run grocery stores—subsidized to the tune of $140 million a year—to reduce prices at the checkout counter. New York’s grocery stores, like others across the country, operate on razor-thin margins. The profit motive isn’t to blame for high grocery prices; inflation and supply chain disruptions are.
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$5 billion corporate tax: Naturally, Mamdani promises that you won’t pay for his multi-billion dollar programs—greedy corporations will! If Mamdani manages to convince state lawmakers to increase the city’s corporate tax rate from 7.5 percent to 11.5 percent, New Yorkers should expect companies to reduce salaries, benefits, and headcount to remain in business. Some might opt to abandon the city altogether, leaving the taxpayers of the People’s Republic of New York to foot the bill for their socialist utopia.”
“Nuclear power is clean, reliable, and safe, but forcing taxpayers to bet on its future success is risky. After thriving throughout the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, the industry has been plagued by P.R. disasters and project failures that have hampered nuclear power for much of the last 30 years.”