Mamdani’s NYC Mayoral Rise A New Age Manifesto Against Capitalism

The two individuals in question may be quite far apart but have similar origins, tracing back to India but via Africa.

Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old in a fight to become mayor of New York City, and Rishi Sunak, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Zohran was born in Kampala, Uganda, while Sunak’s parents were born in Tanzania and Kenya. Sunak himself was born in England.

Here is where the first and important contrast comes in. Sunak worked as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs and various hedge funds before moving into politics. Mamdani, on the other hand, worked as a housing counsellor and a C-list rapper before moving into active politics.

It is Mamdani — not Sunak — who is in the news now as an Indian-origin politician making a mark in Western political systems. And the differences could not be more stark.

Mamdani represents a radical departure from Sunak, or for that matter, most contemporary Western political and economic thought.

“Democrats rightly deplore the Republican Party for capitulating to Donald Trump and an agenda that threatens democracy and decency. But we’d better pause and note how our own party, the Democrats, is creeping dangerously close to an agenda that’s equally outlandish and radical,” wrote William Daley, White House Chief of Staff from 2011 to 2012 and US Commerce Secretary from 1997 to 2000, in an article last week in The Wall Street Journal titled Mamdani is as extreme as Trump.

New York Votes, Old Ideas Return

Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), whose primary stated objective is the abolition of capitalism.

If Karl Marx had written his Communist Manifesto today instead of in 1848—some 177 years ago—I’m quite sure there would be striking parallels.

From abolishing capitalism to advocating state control of key economic levers, the similarities are astounding.

The Manifesto called for the extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, while the DSA program calls for the nationalisation of railroads, utilities, finance, tech, and critical manufacturing.

Both the Manifesto and the DSA want workers to have far greater say and share, though the DSA focuses on nationalised industries only, as opposed to the complete worker control envisioned in the move toward a classless society suggested over 170 years ago.

Of course, the Communist Manifesto called for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of communism, which the DSA does not, as far as I could see.

If I were to distil the spirit of all this—without getting into more excruciating detail—this is the India we sought to build after independence, where capitalism was a bad word and socialism ruled the day.

It took a crisis in 1991 to reverse that trend and bring us to the path we are on today: a mix of capitalism and state intervention and ownership, barely more of the former than the latter.

Which is why we should be careful about what lessons we take away from Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayoral race.

Rethinking State Power And Capitalism

For instance, the DSA calls for the nationalisation of railroads, water, gas, electricity, telecommunications, media, internet service providers, and other critical sectors.

It also proposes similar nationalisation of institutions involved in monetary policy, insurance, real estate, and finance.

While railroads and water may merit nationalisation or government ownership, arguing for the ownership of telecom, electricity generation, and internet services would be counterproductive to both the nation and the consumers.

Yes, there is a nuance in all this that New Yorkers might do well to understand—and perhaps learn from—by looking at where experiments in socialism have worked and where they have not.

Of course, the DSA does not represent the Democratic Party’s views, as the horrified Daley clearly writes in his article.

But this isn’t about New York, which now has to deal with Mamdani and his dramatic arrival on stage.

This is about India.

India is still investing heavily in public sector units and extending state intervention in the economic sphere, even while it encourages private sector participation.

The problem is that the private sector has pulled back its capital expenditure in recent years, even as the government has spent more. There is a $1 trillion new infrastructure pipeline currently underway.

Infrastructure may be the preserve of the government, but there are many other businesses that are not—and should not be.

The government should be exiting more businesses than entering them. The challenge of ensuring that capitalism is both seen to play and actually does play a positive role in economic growth and wealth creation for all is now squarely upon us—and our elected representatives.

New York’s Shifting Political Sands

America is seeing polar opposites emerge in the form of Donald Trump nationwide and Mamdani in New York. These opposites also reflect people’s choices—what they want, and what they don’t.

Mamdani has been dismissed by many as a social media phenomenon who rose to popularity by making alluring TikTok videos about himself and his campaign message.

Be that as it may, few successful politicians anywhere can claim not to have benefited from the sheer reach—and sometimes manipulation—of social media.

We must accept that the vote for Mamdani from the people of New York—often called the greatest city on earth, home to Wall Street and the beating heart of capitalism and global financial markets—reflects shifting sands.

Freezing rent control in New York and redistributing wealth, as Mamdani has proposed, might sound socialist or even communist to everyone else. But clearly, that is what many of the city’s residents want.

The vote for him is also an indirect, or perhaps even direct, slap to capitalism for not fulfilling the promises it was supposed to.

And that is a lesson elected representatives everywhere should absorb carefully.