You can’t go anywhere without hearing about the mayoral race for New York City. Three cartoonish candidates each of whom are polarizing people not just across the city, but across the nation. So far in the lead of the race is Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has promised to institute generous social policies, such as free public transit and rent freezes. New York appears to be eating him up, with some polls having Mamdani lead by more than 10 points. The other two candidates, Andrew Cuomo (I) and Curtis Sliwa (R), also have their respective platforms, policies, and patrons, but if things continue to go the way they’re going, Mamdani is likely the next mayor of New York City.
As someone who is left leaning, especially when it comes to fiscal policy, I very much agree with the excitement of Mamdani’s fans, but yet like others, I also have some skepticism. The main reason why I’m a skeptic is because some of his socialist policies could lead to major problems, with plans for free public buses serving as an example.
While free public buses would likely increase ridership and lower traffic, there are many caveats that arise when something is free. When a product or a service is offered for free, people value it less and tend to treat it more carelessly–and public transit is no exception. If fares are eliminated, buses could become less safe and less reliable as homelessness and crime rise. Mamdani will often point to a trial period where the city ran a few buses that were fare-free. He emphasizes this period as a success, but in reality the program wasn’t sustainable and didn’t achieve its goals. Although I love seeing parts of the city become more affordable, making buses free isn’t the solution.
Another Mamdani policy that will likely fall short is rent freezes. While rent freezes do work in short term periods, they can cause long term problems. When freezes are in place, landlords often withdraw units from the market and are less incentivised to create more housing. To offset this, Mamdani supports policies that would create more affordable housing. He is not only promising two-hundred-thousand affordable units by 2030, but also claiming that all one-hundred percent affordable housing projects will be fast tracked.
Yet Mamdani is by no means all bad, and he has many well thought out policies. My personal favorite policy of his is regulating delivery driver apps. GrubHub was founded back in 2009 and many other delivery apps followed shortly. Since the pandemic these delivery apps have exploded in popularity; they’re great for the most part, but they have one major problem. They don’t treat their delivery drivers well. Most of these delivery drivers are making less than minimum wage outside of tips, and that’s not including the cost of gas and wear on their vehicles. Mamdani has plans of putting in regulation that would require companies to at least pay minimum wage.
Given all of my gripes with Mamdani’s policies, one would assume that I’m worried about his term, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, I’m ecstatic. In recent years, economically social policies have been shunned. As my views have become more fiscally liberal, the world has grown increasingly fiscally conservative. We’ve had many years of multiple Trump presidencies solely focused on budget and tax cuts, followed by a Biden administration whose economic policies were limited in scope, outside of his stimulus package.
Biden’s stimulus was amazing and saved millions of people. Over 30 Million people were facing evictions, but because of the stimulus package many of them were able to stay housed. It was so great that it also had bipartisan support. According to the Morning Consult the bill had both majority republican and democratic support. There’s a constant fear of socialist policies, with people often jumping to a conclusion that they don’t work. And although these conclusions are well thought out, they’re also often wrong. A good example is my argument against Mamdani’s free buses. Yes, free products and services are treated worse, but who’s to say this treatment will necessarily apply to free buses. Many universities will provide free public transit to their students as part of tuition, and often these uses of free transit for students end up successful. It’s about time we try out more of these socialist policies. It’s not justifiable to claim that a democratic socialist mayor would ruin a city or a state without an example. And who’s to say Mamdani’s term will end well? It very well might not, but trying is the point. In the next few years we might learn that his policies are too extreme, but we won’t know until we see them through. And what’s to lose? Honestly, I never liked New York City that much anyway.
