History shows that’s never a good idea.
Zohran Mamdani has moved forward in the New York City mayoral race as the Democratic nominee, after beating out former New York Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo in the primary. With Mamdani’s rapid rise to popularity among NYC’s more well-to-do circles comes a slew of promises, all pointed at introducing a new agenda to the Big Apple: socialism.
Mamdani has promised everything from freezing rent and raising the minimum wage to $30, to constructing affordable housing, providing free public transportation, and offering “no-cost” childcare. One of his more far-fetched ideas is to create a network of “city-owned grocery stores,” aimed at lowering costs while operating as “profit-free” entities. According to Mamdani, these city-owned grocery stores would not have to pay property taxes or rent, and would “pass the savings to you.”
While Mamdani’s idea of a city-regulated grocery chain sounds great on paper (as most socialist ideas do), this pie-in-the-sky rhetoric does little else than promise illusory benefits, relying on the hope that constituents vote for a socialist who claims to be “looking out for the little guy.”
‘City-Run’ Means More Costs and More Waste, Not Less
The push for city-controlled grocery stores came into the spotlight after Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson made headlines promising city-run stores to promote “equitable” access to food in Chicago’s so-called “food deserts.” “All Chicagoans deserve to live near convenient, affordable, healthy grocery options… My administration is committed to advancing innovative, whole-of-government approaches to address these inequities,” Johnson proclaimed.
Unfortunately for Chicagoans, this plan never materialized—Johnson failed to apply for Illinois’s funding initiative in time, leaving many hungry and disillusioned.
Mamdani wants to turn America’s largest city into a socialist experiment to lower food prices through aggressive government intervention. Will it work? Basic economics say no.
Market prices are controlled by supply and demand, and NYC’s grocery scene is no exception. In fact, NYC is one of the most competitive markets in the country, from real estate and food to entertainment and employment. With a population of around 8 million and a culture notorious for blocking competitors like Walmart from entering the local market, NYC grocery prices have been on the rise in the past few years. Between 2012–13 and 2022–23, food costs have risen by 56.2%. Mamdani claims that this rise is attributed to corporate “price gouging,” but the real culprits are inflation, caused by never-ending government spending, and nationwide supply chain issues. In fact, the narrative about price gouging is largely a myth: NYC grocery stores see profit margins of around 1–3% after paying NYC’s inflated rent and property taxes—hardly evidence of the “gouging” Mamdani alleges.
Mamdani claims that a city-run grocery chain can operate without a profit motive, but this idea promises more problems than solutions. Existing NYC nonprofits already struggle with keeping prices lower than regular grocery stores, and Mamdani’s plan to regulate the grocery business would be a race to the bottom.
Without a profit margin, Mamdani’s grocery chain would lack any meaningful metric to determine whether or not the program is successful. Under this plan, it doesn’t matter whether each city-run store operates at a loss—even a substantial one. Losses don’t matter if taxpayers are the ones paying.
With each public grocer funded directly by the NYC taxpayer, and further propped up by existing government-subsidized SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits (with $4.9 billion of aid to low-income New Yorkers in 2024 alone), there is no incentive to improve service, lower prices, or ensure customer safety. Mamdani’s city stores may even see a spike in shoplifting and the eventual lock-up of basic products, just as NYC is currently experiencing under soft-on-crime policies.
Mamdani’s plan to carve a substantial portion out of NYC’s food market for “public” grocers, with no way of gauging their effectiveness, is a foolhardy attempt to coax voters into supporting socialism, rather than a realistic effort to help New Yorkers.
Government-Controlled People and Businesses Suffer—History Says So
Government-run food stores aren’t new. The Soviet Union practiced decades of collectivist control over food prices, supply chains, and market competition under the guise of “equitable” redistribution of wealth. The outcome? Soviet grocery stores experienced frequent shortages, long bread lines, and preferential treatment for Communist Party members. In fact, the USSR’s experience in state-run food services led to some of the worst atrocities in human history, one being the Holodomor, a man-made famine which killed millions of Ukrainians.
More recently, Venezuela’s routine food shortages have been attributed to Chávez’s and Maduro’s chokehold on price controls, land expropriations, and the national subsidization of food distribution. Under the Comité Local de Abastecimiento y Producción (CLAP) program, advertised as an equitable distribution of basic food items, government officials only provide supplies to Venezuelans who prove their support to the regime and show government-issued ID.
Socialists Enrich Themselves, While Everyone Else Is Left Behind
Zohran Mamdani claims that “New York is too expensive,” and that he will “lower costs and make life easier.” If socialism’s history has taught us anything, it is that no one eats for free—if they are lucky enough to eat at all. Mamdani’s goal to inject government into every aspect of New Yorkers’ lives—especially their food supply—will leave Americans hungrier and less safe than ever before.
As Friedrich A. Hayek succinctly warned: “The more the state ‘plans,’ the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.”
