Addressing Socialism in America

by Luke Berends

Recently, Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim, was elected major of New York City as a self proclaimed democratic socialist. In his inauguration speech on Jan 1 he declares, “This will not be a tale of one city, governed only by the 1 percent. Nor will it be a tale of two cities, the rich versus the poor” (Mamdani). Mamdani is saying that he plans to remove class from NYC. He shows socialist themes to abolish the rich in NYC. There are several problems already with that, that will lead to the downfall of NYC, one of the most important cities in America, but I will continue on. He claims the New York people will be in charge. He states that only the rich have freedom and that he will re-enable this long lost freedom. “For too long in our city, freedom has belonged only to those who can afford to buy it. Our City Hall will change that” (Mamdani). Mamdani quotes Bernie Sanders and one of his socialist quotes. “What’s radical is a system which gives so much to so few and denies so many people the basic necessities of life” (Sanders). I am going to address all of the holes and problems with Mamdani’s speech and the problems with having a socialist as New York’s mayor. First off let us define socialism. “a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates  that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole” (Oxford Languages). The problem with socialism, is “community” often times is actually government. The government has never been fair or given rights to the people in the past. At first socialism sounds nice; like a good idea, but humans are not perfect and whoever is in charge of a socialist regime always corrupts.