<p>Despite my background in economics and despite my being no fan of the Communists (Donald Trump dismissively called Zohran Mamdani one), I find it difficult to describe Mamdani’s win in New York’s mayoral election in terms other than ‘A New Hope’. Admittedly, this was the sentiment echoed by millions around the world, including me, after Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. Of course, in a mayoral election, the stakes are lower; the political platform matters, too – Mamdani has identified himself as a Democratic Socialist. What does Zohran Mamdani’s ascendancy mean for the Left, which has been hollowed out around the world in a cascade of election victories for the rising Right? Can the symbolism of his win spell ideological and political revival for a beleaguered Left?</p>.<p>On Donald Trump’s election in 2016, I wrote that this seems not so much a win for an anti-establishment Right but rather a disfigured Right; a Right that represented much of the same causes that the Right has stood for since the 1970s; a Right that had simply marketed itself differently as the champion of the working people, all the while promoting tax cuts for the rich, and being anti-affirmative action and anti-abortion. Thus, I wrote that Donald Trump was the paragon of American Capital winning in the beacon of capitalism, America. Trump’s victory was the logical endgame of a Left that abandoned its base and made deals with the Devil. Since Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher, the Left parties in the Anglo-Saxon world have increasingly colluded with the Right to favour the rich and the powerful. This was the New Left, which promoted economic growth in the hope of taxing a bit more than the Right, redistributing a bit more than the Right, all the while hoping, with everyone else, for trickle-down economics to do its magic.</p>.<p>Zohran Mamdani abandons this playbook lock, stock, and barrel and proves that grassroots movements on the Left can work. Freeze the Rent – a slogan that should send chills down my spine – seems to make sense in an era of unbridled inequality. Every economist knows that price is a function of supply and demand; that you cannot legislate a price without unintended consequences; that if you freeze the rent below market standard, you create an artificial mismatch between supply and demand, taking supply off the market, creating an even greater problem. But then, how else do you make housing more affordable in the short term? Capitalism may work and may work especially well in the long run, but in the long run, as Keynes said, we are all dead.</p>.<p>A higher minimum wage, similarly, cannot work. But how do you ensure fair wages for low-income people? You can invest in education, skilling, and improving productivity, of course, but those are generational investments. How do you improve living standards now, for real people?</p>.<p>Of course, there is no free lunch. Democratic Socialist agendas come with costs that will be borne by the taxpayer. But in the final analysis, is small-government, low-tax capitalism better for the average worker? That worker gets the latest iPhone, not to mention cheap Chinese toys for the children, but is that much help when he or she gets laid off after being diagnosed with cancer? Capitalism makes luxuries affordable and necessities unaffordable, and this is what Mamdani seeks to fix.</p>.<p>I must say, however, that the loss of Bernie Sanders and the win of Zohran Mamdani send a cautionary signal to the Left that radical policies may work in isolation, in mayoral elections in the bluest of cities, but they are unlikely to gain traction in major Presidential races for the simple reason that running a country is far more complex and its scale significantly different from administering a city or state.</p>.<p>Policies like freezing the rent and ensuring a living wage get more traction than Utopian pipe dreams like a Green New Deal. Micro interventions, rather than macro readjustments, may just be the way forward for the Left. This is neither Old Left nor New Left but maybe just pragmatic, responsive Left – a Left that listens to the average person and gives them what they want rather than prescribing and pontificating from high horses the ‘best’ or ‘correct’ solutions they just know would fix everything that may not need fixing.</p>.<p><em>(The writer is a Director of The Printers Mysore Pvt Ltd, publishers of Deccan Herald and Prajavani)</em></p> <p><em>Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.</em></p>
<p>Despite my background in economics and despite my being no fan of the Communists (Donald Trump dismissively called Zohran Mamdani one), I find it difficult to describe Mamdani’s win in New York’s mayoral election in terms other than ‘A New Hope’. Admittedly, this was the sentiment echoed by millions around the world, including me, after Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. Of course, in a mayoral election, the stakes are lower; the political platform matters, too – Mamdani has identified himself as a Democratic Socialist. What does Zohran Mamdani’s ascendancy mean for the Left, which has been hollowed out around the world in a cascade of election victories for the rising Right? Can the symbolism of his win spell ideological and political revival for a beleaguered Left?</p>.<p>On Donald Trump’s election in 2016, I wrote that this seems not so much a win for an anti-establishment Right but rather a disfigured Right; a Right that represented much of the same causes that the Right has stood for since the 1970s; a Right that had simply marketed itself differently as the champion of the working people, all the while promoting tax cuts for the rich, and being anti-affirmative action and anti-abortion. Thus, I wrote that Donald Trump was the paragon of American Capital winning in the beacon of capitalism, America. Trump’s victory was the logical endgame of a Left that abandoned its base and made deals with the Devil. Since Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher, the Left parties in the Anglo-Saxon world have increasingly colluded with the Right to favour the rich and the powerful. This was the New Left, which promoted economic growth in the hope of taxing a bit more than the Right, redistributing a bit more than the Right, all the while hoping, with everyone else, for trickle-down economics to do its magic.</p>.<p>Zohran Mamdani abandons this playbook lock, stock, and barrel and proves that grassroots movements on the Left can work. Freeze the Rent – a slogan that should send chills down my spine – seems to make sense in an era of unbridled inequality. Every economist knows that price is a function of supply and demand; that you cannot legislate a price without unintended consequences; that if you freeze the rent below market standard, you create an artificial mismatch between supply and demand, taking supply off the market, creating an even greater problem. But then, how else do you make housing more affordable in the short term? Capitalism may work and may work especially well in the long run, but in the long run, as Keynes said, we are all dead.</p>.<p>A higher minimum wage, similarly, cannot work. But how do you ensure fair wages for low-income people? You can invest in education, skilling, and improving productivity, of course, but those are generational investments. How do you improve living standards now, for real people?</p>.<p>Of course, there is no free lunch. Democratic Socialist agendas come with costs that will be borne by the taxpayer. But in the final analysis, is small-government, low-tax capitalism better for the average worker? That worker gets the latest iPhone, not to mention cheap Chinese toys for the children, but is that much help when he or she gets laid off after being diagnosed with cancer? Capitalism makes luxuries affordable and necessities unaffordable, and this is what Mamdani seeks to fix.</p>.<p>I must say, however, that the loss of Bernie Sanders and the win of Zohran Mamdani send a cautionary signal to the Left that radical policies may work in isolation, in mayoral elections in the bluest of cities, but they are unlikely to gain traction in major Presidential races for the simple reason that running a country is far more complex and its scale significantly different from administering a city or state.</p>.<p>Policies like freezing the rent and ensuring a living wage get more traction than Utopian pipe dreams like a Green New Deal. Micro interventions, rather than macro readjustments, may just be the way forward for the Left. This is neither Old Left nor New Left but maybe just pragmatic, responsive Left – a Left that listens to the average person and gives them what they want rather than prescribing and pontificating from high horses the ‘best’ or ‘correct’ solutions they just know would fix everything that may not need fixing.</p>.<p><em>(The writer is a Director of The Printers Mysore Pvt Ltd, publishers of Deccan Herald and Prajavani)</em></p> <p><em>Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.</em></p>
