{"id":363862,"date":"2026-10-03T23:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T23:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/363862\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T23:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T23:00:13","slug":"mamdanis-definition-of-socialism-sounds-like-state-controlled-totalitarianism-critics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/363862\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani’s definition of socialism sounds like state-controlled ‘totalitarianism’: critics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Far-left New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani <\/a>offered an impassioned definition of socialism this week \u2014 one critics say rivals state-controlled totalitarianism \u2014 claiming in a podcast interview<\/a> that it\u2019s the job of the government to ensure the masses have \u201cwhatever you need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSocialism, to me, it means that you will have whatever you need to live a dignified life and that it is the government\u2019s job to deliver on that,\u201d Hizzoner told comedian podcaster Theo Von<\/a> on Thursday when asked to define the political and economic system he\u2019s pushing on the city.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani offered an impassioned definition this week of what socialism means to him, claiming in a podcast interview that it\u2019s the government\u2019s job to make sure the masses aren\u2019t \u201cpriced out of dignity.\u201d Youtube\/Theo Von<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a belief that you shouldn\u2019t live in a place where all you can do is pick your own leaders,\u201d added the card-carrying Democratic Socialists of America member.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should also be able to have that power in the rest of your life, right? People talk about it as the extension of democracy from the ballot box to the rest of your life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do people mean by the rest of your life? They mean your workplace, your home, things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people say dignity, I want to be very clear, we\u2019re talking about the things that allow you to take a breath: housing, childcare, public transit,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cNo one should be priced out of these things. These are non-negotiables; you need these to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

City Council Minority Leader David Carr (R-Staten Island) said Mamdani\u2019s definition of socialism \u201csounds a lot like\u201d state-controlled \u201ctotalitarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t imagine even his most ardent supporters would want to live in a state where the government determines everything you need to live a dignified life, whatever that is,\u201d said Carr. <\/p>\n

Mayor Mamdani was a guest of comedian Theo Von\u2019s \u201cThis Past Weekend\u201d podcast. Youtube\/Theo Von<\/p>\n

Other critics scoffed at Mamdani\u2019s remarks, telling The Post Saturday that the mayor\u2019s tax-the-rich, anti-capitalist agenda is pie-in-the-sky planning that is driving investors, residents and businesses out of the Big Apple.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mayor says it\u2019s government\u2019s job to deliver \u2018whatever you need.\u2019 I have a different view of government\u2019s job: keep us safe, educate our kids, pick up the garbage, maintain the roads and make New York affordable enough that people can build the lives they want for themselves,\u201d said Councilman Frank Morono, a Staten Island Republican. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Members of the Democratic Socialists of America gather outside of a President Trump-owned building on May Day in New York City on May 1, 2019. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven how hard City Hall sometimes finds it to deliver the basics, I\u2019m not quite ready to put it in charge of delivering \u2018whatever you need.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also weighed in, saying on X that \u201csocialism is an economic and political system where the \u2026 government owns and controls the major means of production.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the same entity running the Post Office in the US, would be responsible for everything. Anyone who supports this does not have sound judgement,\u201d said the senator.<\/p>\n

The Israel-hating Mamdani also used his appearance on Von\u2019s \u201cThis Past Weekend\u201d podcast to state that, if he had it his way, the US would join the International Criminal Court <\/a>and enforce an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Far-left New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani offered an impassioned definition of socialism this week \u2014 one critics…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[57,9,24,55,54,56,1211,58,82],"class_list":["post-363862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-socialism","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}