So I saw people fighting about this on Twitter (sorry I refuse to call it X) and I thought it was, in it’s own strange way, a good way to illustrate differences between ideologies in contemporary American politics.
My main objection to this plan isn’t that it’s “communism” (it isn’t, just look at any number of municipal booze stores in Minnesota) but rather it wouldn’t work as any such store actually owned and run by the City of New York would inevitably be bogged down by an absurd number of rules and requirements ($28 an hour starting wage, union transported and locally sourced food, how do we know these casavas were ethically sources? etc.) so it's easy to see these stores operating in the red (while probably not have a great array of products or service).
There are of course grocery stores like this in America, and they tend to get shut down (such is the logic of a market economy) but I guess they could be run indefinitely if the city decided to keep hemorrhaging money to keep them running?
Anyway I do think the question of “how should the next Mayor of New York City address the issue of food insecurity in our communities?” is helpful to differentiate ideologies. Here’s roughly how I see most important political ideologies in America these days answering:
- Left Ideology (think Zohran Mamdani himself): Capitalism simply can’t work, read Marx, it will inevitably fail. So the solution is to build a system of grocery stores run by the City of New York that will operate at a loss to provide food to those who need it.
- Current Liberal Ideology (think Joe Biden or Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey): The city should give grants to NGOs and community based organizations to distribute food, this should be monitored through a rigorous process of grant reporting and such.
- New Liberal/Neoliberal ideology (think this book): Just give people who need food a debit card to buy it, we could call it SNAP
- Old Conservative ideology (Think Scott Walker): They can get a SNAP card but it needs to be worth less and we need strict rules on what can be bought…no sharp cheddar!
- MAGA ideology (Think Elon): The “food insecure” will be sent to one of our new Kennedy Wellness Centers, where a program of rigorous vegetable/fruit harvesting and group therapy sessions will make them whole and cure them of the woke mind virus. (Note failure to report to your Wellness Center may result in deportation to El Salvador or being turned into biodiesel)
