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How far can a socialist city government actually get?

Jacobin

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How far can a socialist city government actually get?

From Red Vienna's housing blocks to Ada Colau's Barcelona — where an anti-eviction organiser became mayor, fined banks for sitting on empty flats, took on the tourist rental market and set up a municipal power company — the municipal left won big wins but kept running into the same wall. National law, the courts, the bond market, and capital flight.

Filmed weeks before Mamdani entered City Hall, this panel takes his campaign as the live case and asks the older question: what a city can deliver on housing, transit and public ownership, what is structurally out of reach, and whether municipal victories can be the basis for a revival of a bigger and more radical socialist politics.

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Jacobin is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture in print and digital formats.

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13 Comments

@punksk8a29 11 days ago

Peculiar this was posted so long after it's recording, but interesting to see how much more successful Zohran has been than anyone on this panel could have imagined.

@leningradcowboy2953 11 days ago

It’s like being given permission to dream again

@Orcakitty 1 hour ago

Nervous guy in blue shirt and glasses is no Fred Hampton

@donnyg1942 10 days ago

One of the ways to understand how we got to this point in the United States, is to watch the film Heist: who stole the American dream. It’s available free on YouTube.

@gotgodcomplex1874 5 days ago

As far as people let it . . .

@shaneelliott9045 10 days ago

While losing your insurance bill which is way more than that and it wouldn't cost 20% it'd be more like 3

@Interesting_times_enjoyer 11 days ago

Sadly it can be reduced at managin capitalism better than the ccapitalists.

@SugarShane-t2p 11 days ago (edited)

I'm gonna call bullshit municipalism is superior to any form of statism. Murray Bookchin would laugh at you all

@olgadebartolome1332 11 days ago

Take the win

@alonsofrancescutti4956 8 days ago

En el primer mundo el tema Palestina es importante porq ellos le estan dando las armas para el genocidio. En Argentina no nos movilizamos porq el Estado argentino no es clave para el genocidio (incluso con Milei).

@RACC2763 10 days ago

Well he isn't actually a real socialist. At most, he is a social democrat. Real socialists? They are either dead or in jail.

@___.51 11 days ago

Way to go jacobin, consolidating our expectations right on cue as mamdani fever subsides and realization sets in. You guys are experts at your craft.

@MarkKoerner-c8c 11 days ago (edited)

How far? Milwaukee's socialists did wonderful things. Some other socialist city governments did good jobs, too. But it is also true that if you raise taxes beyond a certain point, rich people and businesses will leave. The question is: what is that point? Conservatives and many "liberals" say any increase in progressivity will do it. This is false, and Mamdani knows it. On the other hand, governing is different now than it was in the heyday of municipal socialism. In those days, city governments had to be self-supporting. Today, they don't. They can lobby for more aid from Washington, increasing the federal deficit and, inadvertently, starving out federal agencies. That way, they can spend more money without taxing their own people. (Given a choice between increasing the budget for the Fish and Wildlife Service vs. giving more aid to New York City, how is New York's Congressional delegation going to vote?)