Thoughts on the Big, Fascinating, Exciting Mamdani Upset!

The affordability crisis is real. Mamdani's offering solutions where others, including the president, not only have nothing, but are making it worse.

I can’t be the only one who woke up today with many swirling thoughts about the Democratic primary upset in New York City, wherein “Zohran Mamdani, a little-known state lawmaker whose progressive platform and campaign trail charisma electrified younger voters, stunned former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo…building a lead so commanding that Mr. Cuomo conceded.”

Here’s a bunch of reactions, with as many questions as answers. I write from the perspective of a DC progressive political economist—i.e., not an NYC socialist—asking what can we extrapolate from this decisive upset to address the huge hole that exists in the opposition to Trumpism, Republican trickle-down’ism, and the entrenched oligarchy that is actively ruining the country.

--NYC not equal to the nation: Obviously, the city, where I happily lived for decades before moving down here to the swamp (and with 100 degree days upon us, that’s not a metaphor), is solidly Democrat, but can we extrapolate from this NYC D’s to national D’s? The answer is not obvious and will take more polling analysis, expect in one area, where extrapolation is obvious.

--The affordability agenda: Mamdani’s platform (see below) seems highly extrapolatable. I don’t care whether you’re grabbing a slice on Broadway, fracking in North Dakota, waiting tables in LA. Your biggest economic challenge is the lack of affordable housing, child care, health care, and everything else on his list.

I’ll talk about the economics of all this below, but the politics seem crystal clear. They’re also, as I wrote just the other day, up for grabs. It’s not that Trump hasn’t addressed the affordability crisis, as he explicitly pledged to do. It’s that he’s making it worse.

--If this is age-ist, I apologize, but as a 69-year-old, I’m gonna let myself go there. If you're an old D with no new ideas on affordability, who’s just continuing to hold office because you’re well-established and have the funding to keep winning your seat, please do our nation a favor and show yourself out. I’m not saying you don’t have something to offer—perhaps you do. I’m saying the country faces an existential challenge and that just being not-Trump isn’t enough to get elected and block these horribly destructive forces.

--This one is especially important to me: Mamdani’s primary upset—and to be clear, this isn’t over; he has to win the rank-choice vote and then a probably crowded general election—underscores why the Trump/R big, ugly budget plan is so awfully timed (along with being awfully skewed and cruel). It's the opportunity cost. The R majority is on the cusp of squandering literally trillions of dollars in transfers to the wealthy that we desparately need to address and pay for affordability interventions.

--Many articles point out that should Mamdani become mayor, he won't be able to legislate much of what he promised. I’m not an expert on NY politics and policy, but the papers argue that most of what’s on that list, whether its spending or progressive tax increases, requires buy-in from Albany, and those folks ain't socialists.

--But how much does that matter? Does it hurt the progressive cause to raise hopes and then not be able to deliver or, assuming you fought your ass off but lost, does it instead show clearly where the blockages are? I think more the latter.

Now, a big, important question: Are there sound economics behind this platform? By which I mean, given the structure of our economy, can we effectively address the affordability crisis by freezing rents, opening public groceries, providing free transit? Or will doing so, as the WSJ will editorialize and scads of economists will amplify, if they haven’t already, jam market mechanisms and have the opposite effect, dampening instead of expanding supply.

The answer is not as obvious as the WSJ will make it sound. For one, if scarcity itself could solve the affordable child care and housing shortages—if, as traditionists claim, the cure to high prices is high prices (which, through market functions, begats more supply of the scarce good)—then where are the affordable child-care slots and apartments?! If it were that simple, Klein and Thompson wouldn’t have bothered with their deservedly popular book.

However, it’s not as simple as making a bunch of stuff free. For one, when a good or service is inelastically demanded (folks can’t go without it, as in child-care, health care, housing, etc.), simply subsidizing the cost just enables providers, landlords, etc. to capture too much of the subsidy. It doesn’t generate new supply. The Mamdani team seems to get this—they propose both rent freezes and fast-tracked building of affordable housing. Still, it’s a lot easier and quicker to just give people money to buy what they need, which, on its own, is likely to be ineffective in lastingly solving the affordability crisis.

On the other hand, when services are already public, like transit, making them free just means transferring bus fare from the wealthy to the strap-hangers. No competitive issues there (though lots of Albany issues there…).

Then there’s creating public services that are now private, like his public grocery idea. Standard econ would cast this as unfair competition that will put private operators out of business, ultimately leading to shortages, less choice, and even a black market. I’m sympathetic to that but Mamdani’s on solid ground here. If competition were to solve the problem of New Yorkers, too many of whom live in food deserts, spending ever-larger shares of their incomes on food, it would have done so by now.

Which is why this idea is proliferating:

The idea has gained momentum in other cities as a way to address so-called food deserts, where supermarkets are scarce. Chicago and Atlanta are moving forward with proposals, and there are already city-owned grocery stores in Kansas and Wisconsin.

A hybrid, grocery-cooperative system may ultimately make more sense, but the point is the market on its own isn’t doing enough to address this and every other aspect of the affordability crisis.

So you go, Zohran! I’m not saying you have all the answers, the devil’s in the details, the details are in Albany, etc., etc. But man, you are banging hard on all the right questions, and you’re offering solutions where others, including the president, not only have nothing, but are making this affordability crisis a lot worse.

I wish you great success and if there’s anything I—an admittedly old dude—can do to help, let me know.

It goes on…this is all I was able to screen-shoot!