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Democratic Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> is focusing on affordability. But his “free stuff” policy agenda would flunk an introductory economics midterm.<\/p>\n For example: Free bus rides will<\/a> increase demand and cause overcrowding as service deteriorates. Can you envision New Yorkers queuing up like Londoners? Ditto free childcare, with risk of fraud. Ditto rent freezes, which are not likely to spur a rent-relieving housing supply surge.<\/p>\n Does Mamdani really think public employees will work the same long, intense hours at city-owned grocery stores that private-sector owners do to earn a living, while building their generational wealth? Or that it\u2019s a good idea to shutter natural gas plants<\/a> supplying 500 megawatts of reliable energy, which New York\u2019s Independent System Operator extended beyond their planned retirement in mid-2025 lest the city suffer blackouts. At much lower renewables grid loads than Mamdani wants, Germany had to import dirty coal to keep from going dark.<\/p>\n TOP MAMDANI APPOINTEE FACES HEAT AMID PROMISE TO MAKE NYC MORE AFFORDABLE: ‘EMBODIMENT OF INFLATION’<\/a><\/p>\n Remarkably, however, these attempts to revoke the laws of economics aren\u2019t even his worst ideas.<\/p>\n Still more dangerous for New York \u2014 and the nation, if the anti-progress “progressive” left continues making political inroads \u2014 is Mamdani\u2019s deep hostility to capitalism and capitalists. What an oddity for the mayor of the capital of global finance. Nothing could be a greater threat to prosperity, especially the aspirations for upward mobility\u00a0of\u00a0the very groups that helped elect Mamdani.<\/p>\n The most fundamental force for prosperity is the drive of people to improve their lives and their children\u2019s lives. For two and a half centuries, it\u2019s been well understood why competitive capitalism and free market incentives<\/a> \u2014 not socialism, not what Mamdani calls “the warmth of collectivism” \u2014 are the surest route to affluence.<\/p>\n In “The Wealth of Nations,” Adam Smith observed, “It is not to the beneficence of the baker, butcher and brewer that we owe our daily dinner, but rather their regard to their own self-interest.” When President George H.W. Bush put me in charge of our assistance programs after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germans described the collectivist sapping of incentives more tartly: “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” No wonder their cousins in West Germany enjoyed such dramatically higher living standards.<\/p>\n SOCIALIST MAYOR MAMDANI INAUGURATED ALONGSIDE BERNIE SANDERS AND AOC ON NEW YEAR\u2019S DAY<\/a><\/p>\n “I don\u2019t think we should have billionaires,” Mamdani has declared. For the political left, “billionaire” has become an epithet, dripping with disdain. But most of us still admire the talented inventors and entrepreneurs who create the products and processes that expand our opportunities and improve our well-being. Yes, there is disruption along the way, and our safety net systems need to better mitigate the harms. But when was the last time you heard the pioneering builder of Tesla and SpaceX referred to in mainstream media as this generation\u2019s greatest entrepreneur, rather than contemptuously as “billionaire Elon Musk”?<\/p>\n For New Yorkers, already straining under the city\u2019s exorbitant taxes<\/a> (with far from exemplary public services to show for them), Mamdani proposes both a wealth tax on the very rich and the highest corporate tax in the nation. Time will tell if he gets the necessary approvals from Albany. But the likely consequences would include an exodus of successful businesses, their well-paying jobs and highly taxed people,\u00a0plus\u00a0the jobs of many more who provide them with services. If you doubt it, look at high-tax, fiscally mismanaged, overregulated California hemorrhaging private sector jobs.<\/p>\n CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION<\/a><\/p>\n More fundamentally, it is not possible to tax the rich without also taxing\u00a0those trying to become rich. “Aye, there\u2019s the rub,” as Hamlet might say. Mamdani and his consiglieres Bernie Sanders<\/a> and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes want us to emulate democratic socialist Sweden and Denmark<\/a>. But the lessons that should be heeded are\u00a0startlingly different\u00a0from their misleading vision.<\/p>\n