New in PJ Media:
Comrade Zohran Mamdani, the Communist Twelver-Shi’ite Mayor of New York, on Tuesday unveiled his plan for government-run grocery stores as if they were actually a good thing. Dear Mayor, who always has the best interests of The People at heart, has set aside $70 million for this foray into government-sanctioned theft and redistribution, and says that this exercise in vote-buying and making people dependents of the state will be operational in late 2027. So there’s something to look forward to, at least if you’re in the habit of collecting signposts on the highway to civilizational destruction.
Fox News reported Tuesday that Mamdani has threatened, uh, that is, promised, “to open one such store in each borough,” and said that “the city will subsidize basic grocery items while a private operator runs the stores under city rules requiring lower prices.” Most of the people who read that sentence likely came away thinking that the city would cover some of the cost of some grocery items, so that they would be cheaper for New Yorkers to buy.
That is, however, not the case, and that’s the dirty trick of socialism. The city government of New York, like all other governments everywhere, doesn’t produce anything that anyone wants to buy. It only has money because it confiscates that money from people who have worked and sweated and expended their energy to earn it. Socialism claims to be the politics of justice and equity, when actually it is the politics of envy and theft. Mamdani’s highly touted grocery stores will not provide low-cost items by rewarding people more fairly for their labors, but by rewarding some people less fairly for their labors so that others who did not labor at all can enjoy the benefits.
That’s how socialism works. That’s how it always works, and always has worked, and that’s why it always fails. As Mamdani himself quoted Margaret Thatcher the other day (in the process of trying and failing to refute her), “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
In full socialist states, high walls and guards with machine guns keep the productive people from fleeing, and the threat of the gulag keeps them working. In Mamdani’s New York, the productive people will grow tired of paying for everyone’s groceries, and will leave the city. Unless Mamdani can figure out a way to tax everyone who has ever lived in New York City, his socialist grocery stores will fail.
Mamdani, however, is all for trying the socialist “experiment” again anyway, despite unanimously negative results. “New York City,” he said with grandiose ebullience, “it is time for a grand experiment once again, just as LaGuardia used government to respond to the challenges of the Great Depression, we will use government to respond to rising prices and unaffordable groceries.”
There is more. Read the rest here.
Frank Anderson says
It has always been true and will never change that there is NO FREE LUNCH. ALL costs must be paid somehow. Whether the payment is hidden in the form of subsidies from government taxes or direct payment from the customer, all costs must be pad for any business or enterprise to continue.
Tony says
While “Islamizing” NYC with Islamic Law, Our Dear Muslim Leader uses every strategy war against Non-Muslims to make Islamic Law supreme in the land(Qur’an 1:5; 3:51,1 01, 118; 5:48, etc.). Allah expects all Muslim believers to war against all non-Muslims with MUSLIM MONEY and with MUSLIM LIVES until the Unbelievers convert to Islam or face Muslim violence to make Islam supreme. Allah in Qur’an 8:39 says, “And engage in war with them[Non-Muslims] until there will not be sedition and the religion will be completely to Allah…”
Ugly 312 says
Mandummy is proving once again that socialism does not work in America and never will. I hope for the goid of New Yorkers and the United States that everything he does fails. Maybe Bernie can pitch in a few more dollars since he lives the mayor so much. Young people were in favor of this. Easy to do until you have to pay for it yourselves, kids.
Socialism, for those that have nothing.
Frank Anderson says
+1
Has socialism worked anywhere? How about Cuba and Venezuela?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Speaks to the world’s education system – dunno whether he went to school in Uganda or South Africa or the US – that all the lessons from 1989 to 1992 in Eastern Europe – which led to all those countries going from communist to capitalist – is lost on today’s youth and aspiring leaders, like Mamdani. Somehow, we’ll all have to go through these experiments again
It’s like inserting one’s pinky in the live terminal of an electrical outlet to see what it’s like, despite people generally knowing that one would get a shock
Kepha Hor says
Sigh…
As persons older and wiser than Uncle Kepha told his much younger self…
“You don’t understand. It isn’t that Communism is flawed, it’s just that the Russians and Chinese are backwards peoples…”
In short, blame it on the Slavic Uentermenschen and “Primitive Asiatics” while calling the rest of us “racist”.
Taffy says
The fault lies with the voters of NYC who were (and are) too stupid to see the ramifications of putting Mamdani in office. And the City Council is ready to kick out one of its council members (Vicki Paldino), a Republican from Queens, for her “Islamophobia,” leaving little financial oversight of the City’s coffers.
Troybeam says
You hear the word “FREE” and instantly your brain starts to go into overtime.
Nothing is ever free as there is always a catch to it, when its government free its the working tax payer who is actually paying for people who chose not to work and live off that FREE stuff.
Illegals & refugees are pro’s at getting FREE stuff, had a nurse tell me when someone enters the country they learn upfront to go to a hospital, FREE HEALTH CARE, go to other government offices for cash, food card or WIC cards.
All this is democrat created all the while our elderly pay through the nose for healthcare and medications while freeloaders get it for FREE.
WPM says
He also made city run buildings exempt from providing air condition to every tenant in them all privately run rental buildings must provide air condition by his new law . The city run “projects” large scale heavily subsidized rent according to the tenants income have the most open violations for health and safety. They where largely built from 1946 to the middle 1970s .All of them are known for their crime ,grime ,poor maintained poorly and drug traffic . They bring every community and neighborhood they occupy misery and everyone who can afford to move out does leaving behind welfare tenants .Most of the privately held homes in those areas go section 8 that get tenants that the government pay heavy subsidized rent with landlords who live from from the mess socialism causes .Vacant building that landlords abandon get swatters ,or turned into drug dens .This was very common from 1970s to 1993 when only democrat mayors where running the city .Non democrats ran the city from 1993 to 2013 the city turn around .Hard on crime ,real policing in all neighborhoods .Even areas around projects improved greatly with many middle income and upper income people moving back and private landlords investing renovating buildings and renting on the open market . Now this communist is not only enlarging the failed city landlord dream of good affordable housing(the city is the largest landlord in the city now ) he is doing the Castro thing and getting involved in government run grocery stores. Yes what can go wrong with this it has not worked in the 80 years the city was in the massive “project” building game and running them .It has not worked in the old USSR or Cuba that well. Ask any emergency service worker police ,fire ,EMS about what the projects are like ,when they do emergency service work in them.
Westman says
When my car is old and worn out and costs more than its benefits in repairs, it is replaced. When a US city is old and worn out, the cost of maintenence becomes very high and requires a personal level of effort – yet many citizens will assume that it is the job of someone else or government. There will be trash in the streets, tar bumps from careless roof repairs, broken sidewalks, etc, and a general malaise about upkeep, and a portion of citizens who don’t care about anything, not even their personal health.
Along comes a young leader, promising a future bright city without any citizen effort and the image of a city savior is born. In their minds, the wealth-gleam of corporate skyscrapers will flow into their lives by some magical taxation means from this new personality. But it won’t, that goes to executives and shareholders.
Does Mamdani have the cult of personality of a Mao to get New Yorkers to care about the city, pick up trash, and police each other? Or can he inspire them to have the pride and orderliness of the Amish? How many New Yorkers actually have a plan for their life and a vision of its purpose?
New York City’s decline can’t be fixed with more taxation, a solution that never worked. Without common vision and fully-distributed personal efforts there will be no pride in maintaining the city. Whatever is done it must include the youth, who will become the future citizens, in projects that give them a personal investment in the city.
WPM says
The people who are productive ,who care about their families safety and future will leave. The corporations who want a safe return on their investments will invest elsewhere .What is the incentive to living in an increasing unsafe city with a government that wants to steal your hard earn investments and your life savings and give it to unproductive unmotivated people for votes. New York elected a South Africa style mayor who fuels class and racial warfare in the name of “equality of out come” not on working hard planning and saving people . This drama kid mom’s boy will be in for surprise by the hollowing out tax base and lack of funds for his candy land communist paradise as it collapses right between his smiling Islamic eyes..
WPM says
64 million to build one “free” grocery store in upper Manhattan (Harlem)that will take 3 years to build ?It took private investors 1 year to build the Empire State building during the1930s it is a grocery store not a moon shot. There are hundreds of grocery stores in the city big ones and small ones .All privately run some small mom and pop shops run by new hard working legal immigrates some run by large corporations . None cost 64 million to build and none took 3 years to get to be in running shape. Another “learing center ” money scam to drain taxpayers money into the the black hole of democratic wealth stealing.
Taffy says
The NY Post reported that supermarket executives analyzing Mamdani’s proposal say that the cost to build and open a supermarket in Harlem should be about $10 million and not the $30 million earmarked for the project. They also claim that existing supermarkets in Harlem are already working on very low margins, and that Mamdani’s store will put them out of business. How can 5hey compete with “free” goods? Watch the food shortages come to Harlem and elsewhere in the City!
https://nypost.com/2026/04/13/business/mamdanis-30m-plan-to-open-nyc-owned-supermarket-stuns-grocery-executives/
WPM says
Most of the small stores selling grocery and house hold items are run by new legal immigrates that are Hispanic or from the Middle Eastern in those neighborhoods he will put them out of business? The larger ones will just close up the profit margin is very small in the super market trade .So owning small rental property with 10 units or less or running grocery stores both traditional things new hard working legal immigrates get involved in NYC will be gone? My immigrate great grand father ran a bakery and made real money buying and renting two to four family dwelling in the south Bronx between 1910-1930 .He owned maybe 5 before he died .He also bought alot of stock in 1930 after the crash he died around 1937 he was 62 .My great grandma never wanted for money she lived to 90 dying around 1962 in the Bronx.. The communist hate indepence from the government be it native born Americans or new immigrates ,be it brown people or white people.
OLD GUY says
Yes nothing is FREE. And if the government is involved the cost will skyrocket.