Class warfare returns

Critics have derided New York’s self-proclaimed socialist mayor for his mishandling of Snowmageddon, internal coalition disputes, inexperienced staff, and a host of other problems. But we should all be watching the implementation of his radical housing agenda. For years, he has championed socialism—referencing the “seizure of the means of production,” calling to “take back our power,” and glorifying collectivism in his inaugural address.

Housing, real estate, and what some call the “affordability crisis” allow us to see that Mamdani’s political program comes from the classic Marxist playbook. It relies on statism, envy politics, and class warfare.

Mamdani’s housing agenda targets New York’s home and property owners, painting them as fat-cat villains causing a rent and affordability crisis. Indeed, the city has advertised with posters and on social media—in the red and black of the revolution—and held public “rental rip-off hearings” where tenants denounce “bad landlords.”

Learning nothing from failed price controls in the past, Mamdani also seeks to freeze rent and expand subsidized housing by fast-tracking development and building new homes on city-owned land while threatening a 9.5% property tax increase.

Mamdani’s agenda is bluntly statist, abusing government power by choosing winners and losers. Under the guise of “protecting tenants,” Mamdani has created what Hannah Arendt called the “objective enemy”—a class of people that deserve censure and punishment. According to this view, all landlords are bad and all property owners are suspect. Tenants are good.

In this system, government has ceased to be a neutral arbiter seeking the common good. Instead, through patronage, subsidies, and mobilization, Mamdani is creating not just a constituency but a class (i.e., renters) entirely dependent on government.

But, not surprisingly, it is government that has caused much of New York’s housing problem. An overwhelming, out-of-touch bureaucracy and government manipulation have led to the exorbitant costs of rezoning and building. The government has created such perverse incentives that it is sometimes more cost-effective to keep units empty.

While Mamdani and his cronies see bureaucratic government as the solution, market incentives for investment and development have succeeded in other cities and states. Take for example Milwaukee, which finally turned its back on intrusive regulation and high taxes. When Milwaukee shifted to lower taxes and less regulation, its property and rental markets rebounded. Connecticut is another case in point.

Mayor Mamdani’s administration is fomenting envy politics. This is not surprising, as Mamdani’s director of tenant protection, Cea Weaver, has explicitly targeted traditional families, particularly white families, as obstacles toward her democratic socialist vision of collectivism. As reported widely, Weaver said,

For centuries, we’ve really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good, and … transitioning to treating it as a collective good and towards a model of shared equity, will require that we think about it differently. … Families, especially white families, but some POC families who are homeowners as well, are going to have a different relationship to property than the one that we currently have.

Thus, it is not surprising that the Mamdani administration has pledged an integrated campaign of public mobilization, shaming, and legal action targeting landlords. This is not to say that real problems do not exist, but the sins of the few are being used sensationally to justify a politics of envy.

The larger picture is Marxist class warfare—even though many of New York’s property and business owners are small local franchises. Targeting landlords, alongside calls for subsidized groceries, free transportation, free higher education, and other freebies fosters an entitlement mentality among people. This attitude disintegrates into the suspicion that anyone perceived to have more is denying us our fair share. Furthermore, someone still has to pay the bills.

Throughout history—whether in the Soviet Union, revolutionary China, Castro’s Cuba, or elsewhere—Marxist movements have stoked envy and engaged in class warfare.

All of this is a chilling reminder that Vladimir Lenin began a crucial address, delivered upon seizing power from a democratically elected government, by stating, “The Provisional Government has been overthrown. … [We] will secure the transfer of the land of the landed proprietors, the crown, and the monasteries to the peasant committees without compensation.”

When such cadres come to power, their promises are only half-kept. Authoritarian bureaucracy often brings about an impoverished equality, not true prosperity. It is a downward spiral toward the lowest common economic denominator, not a general rise in everyone’s standard of living.

Only time will tell whether threats of higher taxes, public shaming of landlords, and heavy-handed bureaucracy from Mamdani & Co. will further erode New York’s business climate and harm its citizens. There are zero examples of such policies leading to greater good will, freedom, or prosperity. One can only hope New York changes course before it is too late.