Mamdani’s Grocery Plan Is No Bread, All Circus
New York City’s self-described democratic socialist mayor is promising to solve the problem of expensive food by … having taxpayers pay for it.
“Bread and circuses” is a concept that originated with the poet Juvenal in ancient Rome, who criticized politicians’ appeasement to distract the people. Well, the origin is either that or the 1968 Star Trek episode.
In any case, the phrase came to mind because New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is advancing plans to establish publicly owned grocery stores across all five boroughs. What also came to mind is his fellow socialist Bernie Sanders once saying that bread lines are a “good thing.”
“You know, it’s funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is because people are lining up for food,” Sanders said in 1985, three years before he honeymooned in the Soviet Union. “That’s a good thing. In other countries, people don’t line up for food. The rich get the food, and the poor starve to death.”
No, Bernie, people line up for bread because central planning causes shortages.
Undeterred by the cruel reality of socialism everywhere it’s been tried, Mamdani promises it’ll be different this time. “I was elected as a democratic socialist, and I will govern as a democratic socialist,” Mamdani told a crowd while celebrating his first 100 days in office on Sunday.
He plans to open the first store in East Harlem soon. But that’s not exactly what leftists like to call a “food desert.” There are already grocery stores in East Harlem — Aldi, Costco, and Target are the biggest, but several other markets operate in the borough. In fact, the from-the-ground-up Mamdani Market will be built on a vacant lot next door to La Marqueta, a marketplace the city already owns. It’ll cost $30 million (insert snicker here for the underestimate). A new Publix would cost half that. And it’s nearly half of the $70 million he announced for all five stores.
Spending all that money will do wonders for the city’s $5.4 billion budget gap.
With a wave of Mamdani’s socialist wand, though, he’s going to feed the masses. “At our stores, eggs will be cheaper. Bread will be cheaper. Grocery shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation,” he said. “Now, some will insist that city-owned businesses do not work. That government cannot keep up with corporations. My answer to them is simple: I look forward to the competition.”
He has Sanders’s blessing. “So, when we talk about making decent-quality food affordable to all people, it’s not only the right thing to do, but at the end of the day it’s going to save money,” Sanders said. “Making sure kids eat healthy food is not a radical idea.”
We don’t have to look abroad for examples of the failures of socialist grocery stores. A Kansas City, Missouri, store closed last year after eight years of steep losses. The same thing happened in Baldwin, Florida.
Again, Mamdani swears that doing the same thing will yield different results. His administration says each private operator chosen for each store will “be contractually required to pass savings directly to customers on a core basket of everyday staples.” They call it “economic justice.” On Tuesday, the mayor added, “The difference in this approach is that we are not hoping for affordability. We’re guaranteeing affordability.”
Oh, well, if it’s guaranteed!
What problem is Mamdani trying to solve? In short, grocery prices in New York City have risen nearly 66% over the last decade. But why is that? It has far more to do with Democrat tax-and-regulate policies that raise costs across the board than it does with any failure of the free market.
That doesn’t stop Mamdani from blaming capitalism. “When corporations control every part of the food supply chain, prices go up, basic necessities become luxuries, and workers and customers both lose,” he said. “A public option allows us to intervene where the market has failed. We cannot accept a status quo where even the most fundamental needs — putting food on the table — feel out of reach. This is about ensuring that every New Yorker, regardless of income or ZIP code, has access to fresh, healthy food at a price they can afford.”
That all sounds really wonderful. Socialism and communism usually do. Yet both utterly fail to account for human nature, which means both utterly fail. Every. Time. Guaranteed.
