Amid the growing cost of living crisis, Marxist firebrand Zohran Mamdani has been elected to the position of Mayor of New York. Mamdani’s popularity, which is based largely on unease about prices, most notably rents, augurs a possible American turn towards radical collectivism.
Mamdani’s brand of leftist politics is not socialism as practised, for example, in Sweden, which never nationalised its main industries, embraced home ownership and whose welfare state was financed by a dynamic export-oriented economy. The founder of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the late Michael Harrington, would barely recognise his offspring. He warned against Leninist control of the “commanding heights” of the economy, detested communism and its Third World offshoots, and supported Israel’s right to exist. The current DSA and its supporters, as writer Pamela Paul points out, believe that “capitalism isn’t something to be regulated or balanced, but is itself the problem.”
So, how did leftist socialism become a force in the politics of the capitalist heartland? Housing is the key, which is by far the biggest contributor to inflationary concerns. Overall, young Americans rank housing as their top financial concern, and they worry that they may not attain the foundations of middle-class life, most notably, spacious and affordable housing. This concern is rooted in reality. An Institute for Family Studies report published in March 2025, found that since 1970, the share of young adults who own the home they live in has declined from fifty percent to around 25–30 percent.
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