I disagree with the article, starting with the title, and it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine. The contents are not great either, starting with "left-leaning Dutch person calls US leftist politician...
Exemplary
I disagree with the article, starting with the title, and it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine. The contents are not great either, starting with "left-leaning Dutch person calls US leftist politician normal", it would be hard to think of something more banal.
The reality in the post-communist Europe where I live is that the actually leftist democrats like AOC or Mamdani propose a strange mixture of policies, some of which just seem normal like the article claims, and others seem insane and/or remind us of dysfunctional soviet communism.
Usually the difference between mainstream opinions here and in the US is that since about 2010 even the mainstream democrats often are significantly more socially liberal than we are, despite the fact that US far left calls these mild democrats names for not being left enough. But with people like AOC or Mamdani even the purely economic policies are often quite far from normal.
Making public transport free is a radical idea that technically exists in Europe, but it's a very uncommon thing and there's no easy answer to whether it really makes sense or not. Generally services like this tend to be subsidized but not free. Municipally funded grocery stores would never fly here because communism, and also there's no need for it. Rent freeze may make sense, but it is again most definitely a radical idea because any such strong and large scale intervention inevitably always has negative side effects and one needs to be very careful to examine whether it's really worth it - and it very well may be, but it is a radical solution and this is the reason why.
Also seeing Hasan Piker at Mamdani's celebration say that it's a tragedy that the US defeated the USSR in the cold war was fucking disgusting. It may not be related to Mamdani's opinions, but it does bring a feeling of "jesus christ, these are the people in the broader group around him??".
And also in keeping with @taylorswiftspickles request (I actually don't even know who this person is. Edit: Piker, I mean. I like @TaylorSwiftsPickles), this has been something I've found...
Also seeing Hasan Piker at Mamdani's celebration say that it's a tragedy that the US defeated the USSR in the cold war was fucking disgusting.
And also in keeping with @taylorswiftspickles request (I actually don't even know who this person is. Edit: Piker, I mean. I like @TaylorSwiftsPickles), this has been something I've found obnoxious and counter productive in the US Left, lately.
I'm American, I've been to more than half a dozen protests this year and it absolutely irks me that people are wandering around waving Communist/USSR flags. It's just bad optics for a movement, especially an American movement.
Also, I want to see US flags, because you know what, we're far from perfect, but damnit, we're American and we've also done some good for both the world and ourselves. I used to not be big on the Flag here, but the more I've been protesting and the more I've seen the things we are capable of and the good things we've accomplished in the past, the more proud to be an American I am. Let's wave our flag damnit, because we can do cool stuff, we can change our politics if we fight hard enough. We have a history of great Americans that have been at the forefront of change for the better, Jane Addams, W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown, Rosa Parks, Betty Friedan, let's celebrate the fact that we're part of that lineage of Americans and not support an oppressive regime that was the USSR.
It's unexpectedly satisfying to take your flag back. In Canada, the flag became the symbol of the right through the trucker convoy that occupied our capital a few years ago. Today, it's a sign of...
It's unexpectedly satisfying to take your flag back.
In Canada, the flag became the symbol of the right through the trucker convoy that occupied our capital a few years ago. Today, it's a sign of resistance to the Trump administration.
Also, keeping to the request... I think there is some nuance in belief in that statement. I don't think the USSR would have been a better option for the world, but I think acknowledging just how...
Also, keeping to the request...
I think there is some nuance in belief in that statement. I don't think the USSR would have been a better option for the world, but I think acknowledging just how much the US purposely destabilized and undermined the rest of the world is important as we discuss where we go from here. Even in regards to domestic politics, it's still a taboo thing to say you're a socialist - hence why it's being used an insult against Mamdani - even in liberal spaces. Even saying you're a communist is a click to far in many progressive spaces. But in today's landscape the policies many folks see that we need - wealth taxes, UBI, free or subsidized healthcare/childcare/education - are considered socialist. So without making that a less dirty word, it's unlikely we'll see real change on those fronts.
I think it's ok to say you're a communist without it being supportive of the USSR or the PRC. Orwell is a great example of being an anti-Stalinist communist vs Pablo Neruda who is an absolute Stalin apologist. And the bad optics is because so much of the US still lives with a McCarthy era perspective. So if "Cool Girls for Capitalism" is ok, I think "Cool Girls for Communism" is equally ok. Now saying that it's a tragedy that the US defeated the USSR is a pretty freaking hot take, and bad to be associated with anyone progressive's campaign because of where we're at socially, but if you understand the global history and impact of the cold war it's hard not to have conflicting opinions about how things went.
And like you, I do want to see US flags! I would love to take back the flag to mean something progressive, hopeful, and globally supportive. To celebrate the fact that we share GPS with the rest of the world. That USAid helped millions every year. That the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health has done more to combat disease and disability globally that any other institutions. There are some hell yeah buddy moments I get behind with my whole heart. But if we don't face and address the atrocities and betrayals we've conduct in the last century alongside those great benefits, then I think we'll end up continuing on a path where we engage in both. I think it's totally valid to wave an American flag next to a communist flag or an anarchist flag or whatever your belief system is. That is American as fuck!
This is really the crux of it. Everyone talks about how important global trade is to bringing about prosperity and then completely ignores that the USA wages both economic and literal war against...
I think acknowledging just how much the US purposely destabilized and undermined the rest of the world is important as we discuss where we go from here.
This is really the crux of it. Everyone talks about how important global trade is to bringing about prosperity and then completely ignores that the USA wages both economic and literal war against any remotely non-capitalist government.
I posit it much like trade unions: If they were really so bad for the worker, why do companies fight so hard to prevent them from forming?
The most terrifying thing to a capitalist is not an authoritarian communist superpower. It's a prosperous socialist country. Such a country would be a shining beacon which would prove that the top of the wealth pyramid doesn't really need to exist.
Kind request to all commenters, let's not turn this thread into a pro-Hasan vs anti-Hasan shitshow. We already had one with such beef recently and IIRC there were at least a couple of ad-hominems...
Kind request to all commenters, let's not turn this thread into a pro-Hasan vs anti-Hasan shitshow. We already had one with such beef recently and IIRC there were at least a couple of ad-hominems thrown around.
Many policies that Europeans consider normal and that are widespread here get constantly defined as radical or impossible in America - mostly by those that stand to lose power if similar policies...
Many policies that Europeans consider normal and that are widespread here get constantly defined as radical or impossible in America - mostly by those that stand to lose power if similar policies were implemented. The best examples are governmental or EU level, rather than municipal, so applying the principle to Mamdani isn't straightforward. The underlying concept is sound nevertheless.
Some examples: people's right to privacy, adequate annual paid vacation time and parental leave, social security networks, free or affordable high quality healthcare, urban planning that enables healthy lifestyles rather than car-dependency (affordable public transport is just the cherry on top), consumer protections against unfair business practices (for example planned obsolescence and obscure algorithmic consumer manipulation), women's equal rights, divorcing religion from governmental policy, and so on.
Obviously, not every EU country is the same and if you're from somewhere where "communism" is still a touchy subject, your experience may be different.
I think you misunderstand. Yes, attempts at actual communism (not something like "free healthcare" policies) did immeasurable damage to my country, so it is a touchy subject and I hope it stays...
I think you misunderstand.
Yes, attempts at actual communism (not something like "free healthcare" policies) did immeasurable damage to my country, so it is a touchy subject and I hope it stays that way, but also we do have many social democratic policies that leftist democrats call for, like tax paid healthcare and higher education or heavily subsidized public transport and any attempts to reduce those are met with significant protests.
Yet the policies that I mention and that are mentioned in the article go beyond things that we, a relatively well functioning society with policies that many americans would call "socialist", do or propose. And they are quite uncommon in western Europe as well. So my point is that the article tries to normalize Mamdani's policies by putting them into a new context, but the context is fictional. Whether they're good ideas is a separate issue, but in my opinion the article is simply wrong. And I don't think that saying "well in XXXX they do this!" is a good way to defend policies in general.
This is what is so maddening to me about the liberals who claim they want better policies but then go around calling people comrade and talking about how great communism should have been....
Exemplary
Yes, attempts at actual communism (not something like "free healthcare" policies) did immeasurable damage to my country,
This is what is so maddening to me about the liberals who claim they want better policies but then go around calling people comrade and talking about how great communism should have been.
Regardless of why it failed in its various countries, MILLIONS died. People alive today lived in those regimes or are in this country because their families fled.
If you walk up to them and say "hey we'd like to make healthcare easier" they'll be onboard in a heartbeat. If you mention communism they are rationally going to instantly distance themselves from you because it's hideously offensive to pretend that "no it's going to be ok this time, who cares what happened to you or your parents/grandparents".
I know we don't want to go down the Hasan rabbit hole again, but allowing him to say shit like that at your party, and associating with him given the shit he's said in the past, is exactly why I feel that there's good odds Mamdani's going to just further poison the well for any real change.
A pro-communism liberal makes as much sense as a pro-monarchy republican
This is what is so maddening to me about the liberals who claim they want better policies but then go around calling people comrade and talking about how great communism should have been.
A pro-communism liberal makes as much sense as a pro-monarchy republican
Much how Hitler killed a good mustache. I propose we use the term 'Collective ownership with equitable distribution of gains and minimal wealth disparity, governed by a democratic system using...
Much how Hitler killed a good mustache.
I propose we use the term 'Collective ownership with equitable distribution of gains and minimal wealth disparity, governed by a democratic system using advancememts like ranked choice voting to prevent mono-party systems.'
On the other hand, Democratic Socialism is a lot easier to say. It's easy enough to see that the problem wasn't the socialism/communism....it was the authoritarianism (and economic wars waged against the communist countries by the capitalist ones, but that's a bigger discussion).
I don't think identifying it really helps anybody. Identify the issues, not the platform. You start bundling things and lose the connection to the average person and become easily abstracted into...
I don't think identifying it really helps anybody. Identify the issues, not the platform. You start bundling things and lose the connection to the average person and become easily abstracted into a boogyman, or more often then not, wind up stuck justifying the acctually repugnant behavior of those wearing the same label.
If someone else who punches a kid says they want better healthcare, you can say that's obviously not related.
If someone else who punches a kid is part of the same democratic socialist group, well now you have to answer if that's part of your platform.
I realized we're juggling ALL the touchy subjects with this, but since you mentioned democratic socialism, I think there's a LOT of people who are absolutely against the actions of Israel, that take major issue with this statement:
If you want change, focus the issue. The parties and identities of the past existed for a reason, but the rules have changed and I see them as little more than an anchor for real change (while extremely effective for someone's personal success).
I mean yeah lots of people might take issue with it, but that is there position and lots of people likely agree with it too. So is the solution to take no potentially controversial stands? Even if...
I mean yeah lots of people might take issue with it, but that is there position and lots of people likely agree with it too.
So is the solution to take no potentially controversial stands? Even if you believe it is a moral imperative?
I guess I don't see how that isn't focusing on an issue
You have just commingled Democratic socialism with the October 7th attacks. So now when you say “I’d like to make healthcare better” you also get to dive into one of the most toxically difficult...
You have just commingled Democratic socialism with the October 7th attacks.
So now when you say “I’d like to make healthcare better” you also get to dive into one of the most toxically difficult to discuss conflicts of the planet.
Democratic socialism is an economic position now co mingled with an ethical one. If you actually want to affect change getting into the weeds of international conflicts spanning decades or centuries is a bad place start.
And that’s not to say you shouldn’t take a stance but there’s 0 reason the two need to, or should, be related.
The Democratic Socialists of America is a political party with political opinions though. Like the Democrats have an opinion on Gaza. So do the majority of Republicans. So do as it seems do...
The Democratic Socialists of America is a political party with political opinions though. Like the Democrats have an opinion on Gaza. So do the majority of Republicans. So do as it seems do Democratic Socialists of America. If you're a party in 2025 it's assumed that you have some opinion of geopolitics, Gaza probably the foremost as we are actively funding it.
To me DSA is a group that has taken up Democratic Socialism, in the way Democrats or Republicans have taken up Globalism or Capitalism. I think that's maybe the differentiator.
I hear that you're saying that it would be more palatable if DSA, the group that many look to as the de-factor incarnation of Democratic Socialism, would not delve into divisive politics. But as we saw in the last presidential election, being a political party without an opinion (or even a milquetoast one) can be saying as much as having one.
As @rosco said, this is a statement by a political party, not a statement by an economic position. How can they take a stance as a political party without making that stance related to their...
As @rosco said, this is a statement by a political party, not a statement by an economic position. How can they take a stance as a political party without making that stance related to their economic goals.
It may be that it's bad PR, I don't have the experience nor their data to say, but I think they're expressing their beliefs. You think it's a bad idea, ok, were they genuinely going to sway you otherwise?
I'm not a member of the DSA and I doubt I agree with all their views but I am broadly drawn to the progressive stances they take. I feel like 2 years ago they were probably alone, or close to it in their statement and today they would be in a much larger crowd. I'm not sure that's bad PR/marketing/"comingling" of views from an outside observer's POV.
I think the framing of "it's done in Europe" or similar is because those things are generally portrayed as impossible, unrealistic pipe dreams in the US. By itself it's just a statement of the...
And I don't think that saying "well in XXXX they do this!" is a good way to defend policies in general.
I think the framing of "it's done in Europe" or similar is because those things are generally portrayed as impossible, unrealistic pipe dreams in the US. By itself it's just a statement of the policy being possible.
Sometimes I'll see "it's done and works in _______" and that should have some data behind it. But while I definitely get that it doesn't feel like a strong argument out of the American context, within that American context often we're just trying to establish basic facts rather than lay out a more complex or specific argument.
I'm not speaking to these specific points in this article, I'd have to do a lot more reading and I'm not up for that today.
I am also from Eastern Europe, and these sound completely normal to me - in my country, these are so mainstream that they are not even discussed, basically every party agrees (personally, I would...
Some examples: people's right to privacy, adequate annual paid vacation time and parental leave, social security networks, free or affordable high quality healthcare, urban planning that enables healthy lifestyles rather than car-dependency (affordable public transport is just the cherry on top), consumer protections against unfair business practices (for example planned obsolescence and obscure algorithmic consumer manipulation), women's equal rights, divorcing religion from governmental policy, and so on.
I am also from Eastern Europe, and these sound completely normal to me - in my country, these are so mainstream that they are not even discussed, basically every party agrees (personally, I would also add reasonable gun control to that list).
But I have to agree with @V17 and disagree with the article. Things like city-run grocery stores, free transit, and rent control... Not only do I think they are bad ideas, but they do not sound normal to me. They sound radical. As if the polarization in the US reached such a high level that there is no room for moderation anymore, only extremes.
I have mixed feelings about Mamdani although I was happy with a recent interview he did where he said he wanted to provide/foster/promote more 'third spaces' for people to meet each other and...
I have mixed feelings about Mamdani although I was happy with a recent interview he did where he said he wanted to provide/foster/promote more 'third spaces' for people to meet each other and associate with each other. Isolation and loneliness is a big problem here in the US to the extent that a former surgeon general wrote a book about how important isolation is as a factor in poor health and how to possibly overcome it.
I respect your point. Personally, I draw a hard line between democratic socialist policies that I support and authoritarian/totalitarian government of all kinds including communism. Here in the US, the propaganda from the right treats it all as the same and many people don't know how to treat these topics critically and carefully.
At the moment, our danger is fascism, but I agree with you re the USSR and the former governments of the countries behind the iron curtain in Europe.
Personally I think we should also draw a line between democratic socialism and social democracy. The latter is not socialism at all, it's regulated capitalism with welfare, which is what is...
Personally, I draw a hard line between democratic socialist policies that I support and authoritarian/totalitarian government of all kinds including communism.
Personally I think we should also draw a line between democratic socialism and social democracy. The latter is not socialism at all, it's regulated capitalism with welfare, which is what is actually used in Europe, it's much more digestible to most people and it encompasses most of the important ideas like affordable healthcare, education or public transport.
Most of the proposals are like, free pre-K, and completely unremarkable. The city-run grocery store is not replacing any privately owned ones, mereley supplementing them. f the city-run grocery...
Exemplary
Most of the proposals are like, free pre-K, and completely unremarkable.
The city-run grocery store is not replacing any privately owned ones, mereley supplementing them. f the city-run grocery store is such a bad idea, it will fall flat on its face inside of 5 years. I don't think it will, as it's a great secular alternative to 'pray to get fed' religious food pantries. And having been to more than one corner store in a poor neighborhood, you're talking about paying $4 for a box of plain pasta which would normally be $0.75 because the local corner store has a monopoly on groceries for a mile.
Free public transit is not a radical idea at all. It may be pitched by opponents as such, but the reality is that most public transit is already heavily subsidized. And if you want to increase ridership and improve service by banning cars from bus routes to speed them up exponentially, making it free at point of use is a good first step.
My local library actually decreased costs by eliminating late fees. They got more books returned, and they no longer had to deal with the logistics of managing cash at the front desk. There would definitely be cost savings by completely doing away with all fare-collection infrastructure and staff to run it.
And for a practical example, in Philadelphia, the public transit system is SEPTA. It has an annual budget of $3 billion (actually $2.6 but it should be higher). If you amortized that across the whole population of the four counties nearby that rely heavily on it, it comes down to about $80 per person a month. But currently, to subsidize fares for the elderly (and the state not properly funding it), riders pay between $120 and $250. If you were to have every person of the state fund it (given it's the largest economic hub in the state), that's $20 a month.
If you double that to $40 a month, with the rest funding the rest of the large cities, you've provided free fares for the top 20 cities with greater funding than any have them have ever seen, because most of the rest only have ever had a handful of bus routes and no rail. If you funded them at half the rate of philly because of lower infrastructure costs, you've covered pretty much every municipality with more than 5,000 people.
All of this primarily benefiting the poorer folks who cannot afford cars. And would decrease car dependence exponentially.
Let me point out that this is not how the economy works. They will not be supplementing them; they will be competing with them, and it will be unfair competition. Given that grocery stores usually...
The city-run grocery store is not replacing any privately owned ones, mereley supplementing them.
Let me point out that this is not how the economy works. They will not be supplementing them; they will be competing with them, and it will be unfair competition. Given that grocery stores usually operate with very small profit margins, the city-run (=subsidized) stores will push many of them out of the market and crush the livelihoods of locals who own the independent grocery stores (BTW, almost all of them are immigrants and minorities). And I am willing to bet the customers will not benefit from this.
There are too many people in US cities who live in neighborhoods with few to no options for buying food. The corner stores don't stock vegetables or fruit. If there is a better option for...
There are too many people in US cities who live in neighborhoods with few to no options for buying food. The corner stores don't stock vegetables or fruit. If there is a better option for providing healthy food to citizens in the toughest neighborhoods, someone should suggest it.
New York bodegas do tend to have a couple of fruit/vegetable options, but your point is well taken. I think you're right that government intervention might be the way to go -- I think it's worth a...
New York bodegas do tend to have a couple of fruit/vegetable options, but your point is well taken.
I think you're right that government intervention might be the way to go -- I think it's worth a shot, at the very least. That's because if it was economically feasible to open a store with better options in a food desert, people would already be doing it. I think it might be a situation where interest in fresh fruits and vegetables would gradually increase over years of being able to buy them, and no small-scale entrepreneur could run at a loss for that long. And as a friend likes to put it, government at its best is using the absence of a profit motive to accomplish good for society (and government at its worst is taking advantage of a lack of a profit motive to avoid doing anything.)
Edited to add -- however, @honzabe is dead right to point out that city-run stores will compete with private enterprise. While that may be worth it, the only way to do a policy like this effectively is to keep the downsides at top of mind.
Ok, right off the bat: local corner stores have local/geographic monopoly power, which is one type of monopoly, but it is not absolute. The corner store charges a premium: you the shopper can...
And having been to more than one corner store in a poor neighborhood, you're talking about paying $4 for a box of plain pasta which would normally be $0.75 because the local corner store has a monopoly on groceries for a mile.
Ok, right off the bat: local corner stores have local/geographic monopoly power, which is one type of monopoly, but it is not absolute.
The corner store charges a premium: you the shopper can spend 10 minutes and buy a box of pasta for $4 vs. spending 20–60 minutes on a longer trip to a big grocery store where you can buy a box of pasta for $2. The former makes sense if you only need a few things, but if you need to do a whole grocery run, the latter makes more sense.
But if the corner store were to charge, say, $100 for the pasta, it wouldn't be worth the time you save, and, pasta being a substitutable good, you don't have to have pasta, so you'd switch to something else, like rice.
But the local corner store is not making $3+ off a box of pasta. Mainstream grocery store operating profit margins are around 1–5%, while small independent stores' are around 5–10%.
The local corner store has a small sales volume, low inventory turnover, and relatively high operational costs, so it must charge a premium. Costco, for example, manages to achieve cheap prices through high sales volume (and outsized purchasing power), high inventory turnover, and relatively low operational costs (they let customers grab goods directly off shipping pallets, reducing the need to pay staff to manually stock shelves).
I think Mamdani is a good person, but he fundamentally doesn't understand why food prices are the way they are.
Apart from this not being true as somebody else pointed out, it's also a clearly a bad example for the article because, as was my overall point, it's not at all a common thing in Europe. And this...
The city-run grocery store is not replacing any privately owned ones, mereley supplementing them. f the city-run grocery store is such a bad idea, it will fall flat on its face inside of 5 years.
Apart from this not being true as somebody else pointed out, it's also a clearly a bad example for the article because, as was my overall point, it's not at all a common thing in Europe. And this is not just because it reminds eastern europeans of communism too much, it's also because it's solving a specifically american problem: we don't have big sprawling cities with food deserts and without public transport. Turkey is quite far from a typical European country and the reason for their grocery stores existing is likely not the same either.
Regarding public transport, it's really not clear whether it makes sense financially or not. Yes, the systems for collecting fares cost a lot, but for example ticket controllers collect enough fines to pay for themselves where I live, as far as I know, and that is despite the fact that the cost of the fine is limited by law to a relatively reasonable amount (currently it's about 7 hours of minimum wage work). Having to rely on collecting fares also brings incentives for the transport provider to increase the number of passengers.
Anyway, I would argue that completely paying for something so big and expensive is a somewhat radical proposal, but again my point is that firstly it's quite rare in Europe and secondly the whole situation and the problem that it's solving in Estonia is very different from what you or Mamdani say it would solve in NYC as well. Afaik, like most post-communist countries, Estonia already had a complete, developed system that was widely used.
I realize that I basically made two arguments: firstly that the positions mentioned in the article are radical, and secondly that using Europe as a comparison doesn't make sense. I still stand by the former, but it's more subjective than the latter, which I think is clearly true.
So I get what you mean, that some of Mamdani's policy goals don't align directly with European ones. But as someone from the US, I feel like the spirit of what he is proposing aligns with the...
So I get what you mean, that some of Mamdani's policy goals don't align directly with European ones. But as someone from the US, I feel like the spirit of what he is proposing aligns with the spirit of European policy.
Feel free to push back because you are from there and I've merely lived there, but I think the breath of the article is focused on how social support systems are common place. When I lived in the Netherlands we paid $100 a month for both of our healthcare, something that costs ~$2,000 here. Our good friends had paid nothing for their university education - both undergraduate and graduate - while we both spend over $80,000 nearly 2 decades ago for an undergraduate with instate tuition at a public school. When we lived in Amsterdam there were big pushbacks happening to move away from government owned and non-market housing options - something that is almost non-existent in the US (outside of the projects). And that maternity/paternity expectations were still incredibly high. Our wealthy German friends complained that earning above $120,000 euros a year only got you 70% of your salary for a year vs 90% if you earned below it. Here the number of support from the state is zero. And childcare - kindergarden - is free for parents and state subsidized throughout most of Europe while a cheap, subsidized daycare in the US is $2000 a month. All of those things are still wildly progressive compared to what Mamdani is proposing.
So I get that you're saying that his specific policies don't feel like they align with the mainstream European system, but I'd argue they are the few things that could try to replicate some of those social supports that the Mayor of NYC could actually implement. He can't make university free and he can't build a subsidized healthcare system, those both require federal level intervention and funding. But he can subsidize transport options, daycare, and food programs.
I agree with many of your points, but I think this article does a bad job because instead of illustrating what you described quite well the author chose to talk specifically about policies that...
I agree with many of your points, but I think this article does a bad job because instead of illustrating what you described quite well the author chose to talk specifically about policies that are either uncommon or nonexistent because there's no need for them in Europe (municipality owned grocery stores are quite irrelevant here since we don't have sprawling car-centered cities with food deserts). And I think Mamdani is not a good person to illustrate this on in general because anybody who isn't a fan of his will correctly point out that some of his policies indeed are quite uncommon anywhere else.
It astounds me to no end that the vast majority of the American politicians and political commentary can claim that things that exist in other countries and are very successful are impossible....
It astounds me to no end that the vast majority of the American politicians and political commentary can claim that things that exist in other countries and are very successful are impossible.
Turns out if you tax wealthy people, you can get an awful lot of money back to provide services for everyone.To crib from Josh Johnson's great bit on the topic:
Zohran himself has said, yall spending more money on ads to campaign against me to defeat me than I was even going to tax you. You don't want it that bad, and why don't you want it that bad?
Comparing US politics with any European country or City is fools gold in my opinion. Movements or general strife, momentum or feeling yes, but idea, laws and policy to me makes no sense in either...
Comparing US politics with any European country or City is fools gold in my opinion. Movements or general strife, momentum or feeling yes, but idea, laws and policy to me makes no sense in either direction.
Do you feel like there is any benefit in using individual policies as an example to show that those systems can feasibly be built when folks say "that would never work"?
Do you feel like there is any benefit in using individual policies as an example to show that those systems can feasibly be built when folks say "that would never work"?
Welp, the Guardian became unreadable in the past couple of weeks by nagwalling me into accepting tracking cookies. Their loss, now I'll either skip it or archive it.
Welp, the Guardian became unreadable in the past couple of weeks by nagwalling me into accepting tracking cookies. Their loss, now I'll either skip it or archive it.
I disagree with the article, starting with the title, and it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine. The contents are not great either, starting with "left-leaning Dutch person calls US leftist politician normal", it would be hard to think of something more banal.
The reality in the post-communist Europe where I live is that the actually leftist democrats like AOC or Mamdani propose a strange mixture of policies, some of which just seem normal like the article claims, and others seem insane and/or remind us of dysfunctional soviet communism.
Usually the difference between mainstream opinions here and in the US is that since about 2010 even the mainstream democrats often are significantly more socially liberal than we are, despite the fact that US far left calls these mild democrats names for not being left enough. But with people like AOC or Mamdani even the purely economic policies are often quite far from normal.
Making public transport free is a radical idea that technically exists in Europe, but it's a very uncommon thing and there's no easy answer to whether it really makes sense or not. Generally services like this tend to be subsidized but not free. Municipally funded grocery stores would never fly here because communism, and also there's no need for it. Rent freeze may make sense, but it is again most definitely a radical idea because any such strong and large scale intervention inevitably always has negative side effects and one needs to be very careful to examine whether it's really worth it - and it very well may be, but it is a radical solution and this is the reason why.
Also seeing Hasan Piker at Mamdani's celebration say that it's a tragedy that the US defeated the USSR in the cold war was fucking disgusting. It may not be related to Mamdani's opinions, but it does bring a feeling of "jesus christ, these are the people in the broader group around him??".
And also in keeping with @taylorswiftspickles request (I actually don't even know who this person is. Edit: Piker, I mean. I like @TaylorSwiftsPickles), this has been something I've found obnoxious and counter productive in the US Left, lately.
I'm American, I've been to more than half a dozen protests this year and it absolutely irks me that people are wandering around waving Communist/USSR flags. It's just bad optics for a movement, especially an American movement.
Also, I want to see US flags, because you know what, we're far from perfect, but damnit, we're American and we've also done some good for both the world and ourselves. I used to not be big on the Flag here, but the more I've been protesting and the more I've seen the things we are capable of and the good things we've accomplished in the past, the more proud to be an American I am. Let's wave our flag damnit, because we can do cool stuff, we can change our politics if we fight hard enough. We have a history of great Americans that have been at the forefront of change for the better, Jane Addams, W.E.B. Du Bois, John Brown, Rosa Parks, Betty Friedan, let's celebrate the fact that we're part of that lineage of Americans and not support an oppressive regime that was the USSR.
It's unexpectedly satisfying to take your flag back.
In Canada, the flag became the symbol of the right through the trucker convoy that occupied our capital a few years ago. Today, it's a sign of resistance to the Trump administration.
Wave that shit proudly!
I'm so happy I don't cringe anymore when I see a vehicle with a Canadian flag, it sucked feeling like that.
Also, keeping to the request...
I think there is some nuance in belief in that statement. I don't think the USSR would have been a better option for the world, but I think acknowledging just how much the US purposely destabilized and undermined the rest of the world is important as we discuss where we go from here. Even in regards to domestic politics, it's still a taboo thing to say you're a socialist - hence why it's being used an insult against Mamdani - even in liberal spaces. Even saying you're a communist is a click to far in many progressive spaces. But in today's landscape the policies many folks see that we need - wealth taxes, UBI, free or subsidized healthcare/childcare/education - are considered socialist. So without making that a less dirty word, it's unlikely we'll see real change on those fronts.
I think it's ok to say you're a communist without it being supportive of the USSR or the PRC. Orwell is a great example of being an anti-Stalinist communist vs Pablo Neruda who is an absolute Stalin apologist. And the bad optics is because so much of the US still lives with a McCarthy era perspective. So if "Cool Girls for Capitalism" is ok, I think "Cool Girls for Communism" is equally ok. Now saying that it's a tragedy that the US defeated the USSR is a pretty freaking hot take, and bad to be associated with anyone progressive's campaign because of where we're at socially, but if you understand the global history and impact of the cold war it's hard not to have conflicting opinions about how things went.
And like you, I do want to see US flags! I would love to take back the flag to mean something progressive, hopeful, and globally supportive. To celebrate the fact that we share GPS with the rest of the world. That USAid helped millions every year. That the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health has done more to combat disease and disability globally that any other institutions. There are some hell yeah buddy moments I get behind with my whole heart. But if we don't face and address the atrocities and betrayals we've conduct in the last century alongside those great benefits, then I think we'll end up continuing on a path where we engage in both. I think it's totally valid to wave an American flag next to a communist flag or an anarchist flag or whatever your belief system is. That is American as fuck!
This is really the crux of it. Everyone talks about how important global trade is to bringing about prosperity and then completely ignores that the USA wages both economic and literal war against any remotely non-capitalist government.
I posit it much like trade unions: If they were really so bad for the worker, why do companies fight so hard to prevent them from forming?
The most terrifying thing to a capitalist is not an authoritarian communist superpower. It's a prosperous socialist country. Such a country would be a shining beacon which would prove that the top of the wealth pyramid doesn't really need to exist.
I read my post right after clicking Post and realized how it could be misconstrued 😝
Kind request to all commenters, let's not turn this thread into a pro-Hasan vs anti-Hasan shitshow. We already had one with such beef recently and IIRC there were at least a couple of ad-hominems thrown around.
Many policies that Europeans consider normal and that are widespread here get constantly defined as radical or impossible in America - mostly by those that stand to lose power if similar policies were implemented. The best examples are governmental or EU level, rather than municipal, so applying the principle to Mamdani isn't straightforward. The underlying concept is sound nevertheless.
Some examples: people's right to privacy, adequate annual paid vacation time and parental leave, social security networks, free or affordable high quality healthcare, urban planning that enables healthy lifestyles rather than car-dependency (affordable public transport is just the cherry on top), consumer protections against unfair business practices (for example planned obsolescence and obscure algorithmic consumer manipulation), women's equal rights, divorcing religion from governmental policy, and so on.
Obviously, not every EU country is the same and if you're from somewhere where "communism" is still a touchy subject, your experience may be different.
I think you misunderstand.
Yes, attempts at actual communism (not something like "free healthcare" policies) did immeasurable damage to my country, so it is a touchy subject and I hope it stays that way, but also we do have many social democratic policies that leftist democrats call for, like tax paid healthcare and higher education or heavily subsidized public transport and any attempts to reduce those are met with significant protests.
Yet the policies that I mention and that are mentioned in the article go beyond things that we, a relatively well functioning society with policies that many americans would call "socialist", do or propose. And they are quite uncommon in western Europe as well. So my point is that the article tries to normalize Mamdani's policies by putting them into a new context, but the context is fictional. Whether they're good ideas is a separate issue, but in my opinion the article is simply wrong. And I don't think that saying "well in XXXX they do this!" is a good way to defend policies in general.
This is what is so maddening to me about the liberals who claim they want better policies but then go around calling people comrade and talking about how great communism should have been.
Regardless of why it failed in its various countries, MILLIONS died. People alive today lived in those regimes or are in this country because their families fled.
If you walk up to them and say "hey we'd like to make healthcare easier" they'll be onboard in a heartbeat. If you mention communism they are rationally going to instantly distance themselves from you because it's hideously offensive to pretend that "no it's going to be ok this time, who cares what happened to you or your parents/grandparents".
I know we don't want to go down the Hasan rabbit hole again, but allowing him to say shit like that at your party, and associating with him given the shit he's said in the past, is exactly why I feel that there's good odds Mamdani's going to just further poison the well for any real change.
A pro-communism liberal makes as much sense as a pro-monarchy republican
Considering that Republicans aim to dismantle democracy, I don't think it's as far-fetched as you'd say.
There's a reason I didn't capitalize the 'r'
Much how Hitler killed a good mustache.
I propose we use the term 'Collective ownership with equitable distribution of gains and minimal wealth disparity, governed by a democratic system using advancememts like ranked choice voting to prevent mono-party systems.'
On the other hand, Democratic Socialism is a lot easier to say. It's easy enough to see that the problem wasn't the socialism/communism....it was the authoritarianism (and economic wars waged against the communist countries by the capitalist ones, but that's a bigger discussion).
I don't think identifying it really helps anybody. Identify the issues, not the platform. You start bundling things and lose the connection to the average person and become easily abstracted into a boogyman, or more often then not, wind up stuck justifying the acctually repugnant behavior of those wearing the same label.
If someone else who punches a kid says they want better healthcare, you can say that's obviously not related.
If someone else who punches a kid is part of the same democratic socialist group, well now you have to answer if that's part of your platform.
I realized we're juggling ALL the touchy subjects with this, but since you mentioned democratic socialism, I think there's a LOT of people who are absolutely against the actions of Israel, that take major issue with this statement:
https://www.dsausa.org/statements/end-the-violence-end-the-occupation-free-palestine/
And hey guess who's name is in it?
If you want change, focus the issue. The parties and identities of the past existed for a reason, but the rules have changed and I see them as little more than an anchor for real change (while extremely effective for someone's personal success).
I mean yeah lots of people might take issue with it, but that is there position and lots of people likely agree with it too.
So is the solution to take no potentially controversial stands? Even if you believe it is a moral imperative?
I guess I don't see how that isn't focusing on an issue
You have just commingled Democratic socialism with the October 7th attacks.
So now when you say “I’d like to make healthcare better” you also get to dive into one of the most toxically difficult to discuss conflicts of the planet.
Democratic socialism is an economic position now co mingled with an ethical one. If you actually want to affect change getting into the weeds of international conflicts spanning decades or centuries is a bad place start.
And that’s not to say you shouldn’t take a stance but there’s 0 reason the two need to, or should, be related.
The Democratic Socialists of America is a political party with political opinions though. Like the Democrats have an opinion on Gaza. So do the majority of Republicans. So do as it seems do Democratic Socialists of America. If you're a party in 2025 it's assumed that you have some opinion of geopolitics, Gaza probably the foremost as we are actively funding it.
To me DSA is a group that has taken up Democratic Socialism, in the way Democrats or Republicans have taken up Globalism or Capitalism. I think that's maybe the differentiator.
I hear that you're saying that it would be more palatable if DSA, the group that many look to as the de-factor incarnation of Democratic Socialism, would not delve into divisive politics. But as we saw in the last presidential election, being a political party without an opinion (or even a milquetoast one) can be saying as much as having one.
As @rosco said, this is a statement by a political party, not a statement by an economic position. How can they take a stance as a political party without making that stance related to their economic goals.
It may be that it's bad PR, I don't have the experience nor their data to say, but I think they're expressing their beliefs. You think it's a bad idea, ok, were they genuinely going to sway you otherwise?
I'm not a member of the DSA and I doubt I agree with all their views but I am broadly drawn to the progressive stances they take. I feel like 2 years ago they were probably alone, or close to it in their statement and today they would be in a much larger crowd. I'm not sure that's bad PR/marketing/"comingling" of views from an outside observer's POV.
I think the framing of "it's done in Europe" or similar is because those things are generally portrayed as impossible, unrealistic pipe dreams in the US. By itself it's just a statement of the policy being possible.
Sometimes I'll see "it's done and works in _______" and that should have some data behind it. But while I definitely get that it doesn't feel like a strong argument out of the American context, within that American context often we're just trying to establish basic facts rather than lay out a more complex or specific argument.
I'm not speaking to these specific points in this article, I'd have to do a lot more reading and I'm not up for that today.
I am also from Eastern Europe, and these sound completely normal to me - in my country, these are so mainstream that they are not even discussed, basically every party agrees (personally, I would also add reasonable gun control to that list).
But I have to agree with @V17 and disagree with the article. Things like city-run grocery stores, free transit, and rent control... Not only do I think they are bad ideas, but they do not sound normal to me. They sound radical. As if the polarization in the US reached such a high level that there is no room for moderation anymore, only extremes.
I have mixed feelings about Mamdani although I was happy with a recent interview he did where he said he wanted to provide/foster/promote more 'third spaces' for people to meet each other and associate with each other. Isolation and loneliness is a big problem here in the US to the extent that a former surgeon general wrote a book about how important isolation is as a factor in poor health and how to possibly overcome it.
I respect your point. Personally, I draw a hard line between democratic socialist policies that I support and authoritarian/totalitarian government of all kinds including communism. Here in the US, the propaganda from the right treats it all as the same and many people don't know how to treat these topics critically and carefully.
At the moment, our danger is fascism, but I agree with you re the USSR and the former governments of the countries behind the iron curtain in Europe.
Personally I think we should also draw a line between democratic socialism and social democracy. The latter is not socialism at all, it's regulated capitalism with welfare, which is what is actually used in Europe, it's much more digestible to most people and it encompasses most of the important ideas like affordable healthcare, education or public transport.
Most of the proposals are like, free pre-K, and completely unremarkable.
The city-run grocery store is not replacing any privately owned ones, mereley supplementing them. f the city-run grocery store is such a bad idea, it will fall flat on its face inside of 5 years. I don't think it will, as it's a great secular alternative to 'pray to get fed' religious food pantries. And having been to more than one corner store in a poor neighborhood, you're talking about paying $4 for a box of plain pasta which would normally be $0.75 because the local corner store has a monopoly on groceries for a mile.
Free public transit is not a radical idea at all. It may be pitched by opponents as such, but the reality is that most public transit is already heavily subsidized. And if you want to increase ridership and improve service by banning cars from bus routes to speed them up exponentially, making it free at point of use is a good first step.
My local library actually decreased costs by eliminating late fees. They got more books returned, and they no longer had to deal with the logistics of managing cash at the front desk. There would definitely be cost savings by completely doing away with all fare-collection infrastructure and staff to run it.
And for a practical example, in Philadelphia, the public transit system is SEPTA. It has an annual budget of $3 billion (actually $2.6 but it should be higher). If you amortized that across the whole population of the four counties nearby that rely heavily on it, it comes down to about $80 per person a month. But currently, to subsidize fares for the elderly (and the state not properly funding it), riders pay between $120 and $250. If you were to have every person of the state fund it (given it's the largest economic hub in the state), that's $20 a month.
If you double that to $40 a month, with the rest funding the rest of the large cities, you've provided free fares for the top 20 cities with greater funding than any have them have ever seen, because most of the rest only have ever had a handful of bus routes and no rail. If you funded them at half the rate of philly because of lower infrastructure costs, you've covered pretty much every municipality with more than 5,000 people.
All of this primarily benefiting the poorer folks who cannot afford cars. And would decrease car dependence exponentially.
Let me point out that this is not how the economy works. They will not be supplementing them; they will be competing with them, and it will be unfair competition. Given that grocery stores usually operate with very small profit margins, the city-run (=subsidized) stores will push many of them out of the market and crush the livelihoods of locals who own the independent grocery stores (BTW, almost all of them are immigrants and minorities). And I am willing to bet the customers will not benefit from this.
There are too many people in US cities who live in neighborhoods with few to no options for buying food. The corner stores don't stock vegetables or fruit. If there is a better option for providing healthy food to citizens in the toughest neighborhoods, someone should suggest it.
New York bodegas do tend to have a couple of fruit/vegetable options, but your point is well taken.
I think you're right that government intervention might be the way to go -- I think it's worth a shot, at the very least. That's because if it was economically feasible to open a store with better options in a food desert, people would already be doing it. I think it might be a situation where interest in fresh fruits and vegetables would gradually increase over years of being able to buy them, and no small-scale entrepreneur could run at a loss for that long. And as a friend likes to put it, government at its best is using the absence of a profit motive to accomplish good for society (and government at its worst is taking advantage of a lack of a profit motive to avoid doing anything.)
Edited to add -- however, @honzabe is dead right to point out that city-run stores will compete with private enterprise. While that may be worth it, the only way to do a policy like this effectively is to keep the downsides at top of mind.
I mean he was endorsed by a president of bodegas too https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/nyregion/mamdani-bodegas-endorsement.html
Ok, right off the bat: local corner stores have local/geographic monopoly power, which is one type of monopoly, but it is not absolute.
The corner store charges a premium: you the shopper can spend 10 minutes and buy a box of pasta for $4 vs. spending 20–60 minutes on a longer trip to a big grocery store where you can buy a box of pasta for $2. The former makes sense if you only need a few things, but if you need to do a whole grocery run, the latter makes more sense.
But if the corner store were to charge, say, $100 for the pasta, it wouldn't be worth the time you save, and, pasta being a substitutable good, you don't have to have pasta, so you'd switch to something else, like rice.
But the local corner store is not making $3+ off a box of pasta. Mainstream grocery store operating profit margins are around 1–5%, while small independent stores' are around 5–10%.
The local corner store has a small sales volume, low inventory turnover, and relatively high operational costs, so it must charge a premium. Costco, for example, manages to achieve cheap prices through high sales volume (and outsized purchasing power), high inventory turnover, and relatively low operational costs (they let customers grab goods directly off shipping pallets, reducing the need to pay staff to manually stock shelves).
I think Mamdani is a good person, but he fundamentally doesn't understand why food prices are the way they are.
Apart from this not being true as somebody else pointed out, it's also a clearly a bad example for the article because, as was my overall point, it's not at all a common thing in Europe. And this is not just because it reminds eastern europeans of communism too much, it's also because it's solving a specifically american problem: we don't have big sprawling cities with food deserts and without public transport. Turkey is quite far from a typical European country and the reason for their grocery stores existing is likely not the same either.
Regarding public transport, it's really not clear whether it makes sense financially or not. Yes, the systems for collecting fares cost a lot, but for example ticket controllers collect enough fines to pay for themselves where I live, as far as I know, and that is despite the fact that the cost of the fine is limited by law to a relatively reasonable amount (currently it's about 7 hours of minimum wage work). Having to rely on collecting fares also brings incentives for the transport provider to increase the number of passengers.
Anyway, I would argue that completely paying for something so big and expensive is a somewhat radical proposal, but again my point is that firstly it's quite rare in Europe and secondly the whole situation and the problem that it's solving in Estonia is very different from what you or Mamdani say it would solve in NYC as well. Afaik, like most post-communist countries, Estonia already had a complete, developed system that was widely used.
I realize that I basically made two arguments: firstly that the positions mentioned in the article are radical, and secondly that using Europe as a comparison doesn't make sense. I still stand by the former, but it's more subjective than the latter, which I think is clearly true.
Interesting example with the library though.
That would be between about $50 -$100 here. I think that's far too steep a fine for failing to pay for a fare, personally.
Worth noting his name is spelled "Hasan"
thanks, fixed
So I get what you mean, that some of Mamdani's policy goals don't align directly with European ones. But as someone from the US, I feel like the spirit of what he is proposing aligns with the spirit of European policy.
Feel free to push back because you are from there and I've merely lived there, but I think the breath of the article is focused on how social support systems are common place. When I lived in the Netherlands we paid $100 a month for both of our healthcare, something that costs ~$2,000 here. Our good friends had paid nothing for their university education - both undergraduate and graduate - while we both spend over $80,000 nearly 2 decades ago for an undergraduate with instate tuition at a public school. When we lived in Amsterdam there were big pushbacks happening to move away from government owned and non-market housing options - something that is almost non-existent in the US (outside of the projects). And that maternity/paternity expectations were still incredibly high. Our wealthy German friends complained that earning above $120,000 euros a year only got you 70% of your salary for a year vs 90% if you earned below it. Here the number of support from the state is zero. And childcare - kindergarden - is free for parents and state subsidized throughout most of Europe while a cheap, subsidized daycare in the US is $2000 a month. All of those things are still wildly progressive compared to what Mamdani is proposing.
So I get that you're saying that his specific policies don't feel like they align with the mainstream European system, but I'd argue they are the few things that could try to replicate some of those social supports that the Mayor of NYC could actually implement. He can't make university free and he can't build a subsidized healthcare system, those both require federal level intervention and funding. But he can subsidize transport options, daycare, and food programs.
I agree with many of your points, but I think this article does a bad job because instead of illustrating what you described quite well the author chose to talk specifically about policies that are either uncommon or nonexistent because there's no need for them in Europe (municipality owned grocery stores are quite irrelevant here since we don't have sprawling car-centered cities with food deserts). And I think Mamdani is not a good person to illustrate this on in general because anybody who isn't a fan of his will correctly point out that some of his policies indeed are quite uncommon anywhere else.
Yeah, I agree it's hard to talk about parallels when we coming from such a different system.
It astounds me to no end that the vast majority of the American politicians and political commentary can claim that things that exist in other countries and are very successful are impossible.
Turns out if you tax wealthy people, you can get an awful lot of money back to provide services for everyone.To crib from Josh Johnson's great bit on the topic:
The quoted bit is at 31:00.
I didn't mind listening to the full thing, but I think it would be nice to include a timestamp for such long videos.
You are right, but I was supposed to be sleeping.
Comparing US politics with any European country or City is fools gold in my opinion. Movements or general strife, momentum or feeling yes, but idea, laws and policy to me makes no sense in either direction.
Do you feel like there is any benefit in using individual policies as an example to show that those systems can feasibly be built when folks say "that would never work"?
Welp, the Guardian became unreadable in the past couple of weeks by nagwalling me into accepting tracking cookies. Their loss, now I'll either skip it or archive it.