Originally published at: Zohran Mamdani Is Brushing Off The Backlash Against His Public Grocery Stores - TPM – Talking Points Memo
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani knows what they’re saying about his grocery plan. Conservative media outlets and right-wing commentators have, for more than a year, been practically apoplectic about Mamdani’s push to open five municipal stores to sell discounted food. Local Republicans have responded to the initiative by comparing Mamdani to Fidel Castro and…
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Nothing for the people but WAR is FREE!!!
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As noted LaGuardia, who was a model for many subsequent mayors created public markets, the most famous being La Marqueta in East Harlem and the Essex street market on the Lower East Side. My grandmother and great grandmother would shop at the Moore street market in Williamsburg. Bloomberg subsidized supermarkets in underserved areas via the market fresh program.
There is also the example of package stores which were created after prohibition ended. The states were allowed to regulate liquor sales. Some states chose the state owned package stores approach others opted for licensing private liquor stores.
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This feels like a capital-I Important experiment. I hope it succeeds.
I haven’t studied the dismal science of economics deeply enough to judge the likelihood of its long-term success. In particular I can’t judge the likelihood of unintended consequences, e.g. people abusing the new stores. I’m not thinking of the welfare queen stereotypes, but rather of people who buy in bulk and sell on the grey market elsewhere at a higher price. Maybe there are steps in place to prevent that.
Or, perhaps a greater worry, capital will work hard to make it fail, in the courts or in lawmaking bodies at the city/state/federal level.
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The real fear by the right is that everyone else will be forced to moderate their price increases. Food prices popped up because of supply shortages in the pandemic and then never came down, allowing a lot of profit taking. This is especially true of distributors, who get monopolistic pricing. When there are stores outside of their monopolies, their gravy train is over.
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“Fox Business published a dramatic piece featuring interviews with “descendants of socialism” from Eastern Europe and Cuba“
Meanwhile, as a result of the 10% stake in private company Intel, using your tax dollars:
Cry me a river, Fox. You’re as stupid as they come.
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Socialist communistical grocery stores? Great - how much is milk and a dozen eggs? Sign me up.
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The GOP is scared shitless that this will be greeted by the people with cheers. I am sure the centMillionaires and up will be crying communism, because some how this will cut into their profits… but fuck em.
GO Zorhan
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Nice article. It makes a lot of sense to use experienced outfits to run these, grocery margins are typically very low (1-2%) though inflation let them ramp this up closer to 3%, so they really know what they are doing. And the subsidy being on the rent rather than turnover (at least initially) gets the price down on the key items that way. Putting them in underserved areas also makes sense. So hopefully this succeeds and makes a difference for a relatively low investment.
We got a new Whole Foods in downtown San Diego, it’s really nice, though there are 4 security guards at all times, at least one with a firearm as well as a taser, to stop it devolving like the Ralphs and Albertsons have.
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It is not apocalyptic, it is not Cuba or the Soviet Union. It is just stupid. It is empty and meaningless, expensive performative nonsense. It is one store, There are 23,000 food markets in the city. 99% of the people won’t even notice it exists.
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“I think you simply have to prepare and expect for this kind of backlash. What it is, is a backlash to any kind of change. And if you want to avoid backlash, then all you will do is just steward the status quo. And that is exactly what has gotten us to this point,” he said. “It is critically important that we stop the act of constructing an ever-lowering ceiling on our ideas.”
well said.
is there any real qualitative difference between these stores and the state-owned rest stops along I-87 and I-90?
Maybe Kudlow, et al, should get out more and see what’s on offer in their precious rural areas of New York state.
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