New York City’s Marxist Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani just appeared on Theo Von’s podcast, and on Thursday, video began circulating of the mayor defining the term “socialism” — by Friday evening, the video had a million and a half views.
This was not surprising; after all, Mamdani is one of the highest-profile exponents of the Democratic Socialist faction that is rapidly taking over the Democrat Party and making the likes of Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer look like the discredited guardians of the reactionary old guard. What he thinks socialism is, or what he wants us to think socialism is, is supremely important, for young leftists look to this man for guidance, and he is altogether too happy to supply it. If this is what Mamdani thinks socialism is, this is also what myriads of young leftists also think it is, and so patriots are going to be reckoning with people who have this understanding for decades to come. If not longer.
Theo Von began by saying “I want to talk a little bit about socialism, right?,” and he had not even gotten the whole phrase out before Mamdani responded enthusiastically by saying “Please!,” as if there were nothing else he would rather talk about. And that very well may be the case, although if Theo Von had asked him about Islam, he might have been just as enthusiastic.
Theo Von went on: “Because it's a buzzword, right? Because — socialism, will you define socialism for us? Because people say it a lot and don't know what it is. And sometimes those people are me.”
Mamdani, looking as if he wanted to appear delighted but not quite pulling it off, said: “I'm so happy to be with those people right now.” Then he got right to the point, and delivered his definition of socialism: “Socialism to me, it means that you will have whatever you need to live a dignified life. And that it is the government's job to deliver on that.”
This is an echo of a famous phrase that Karl Marx himself wrote in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Programme. He said that a truly communist society would operate according to this principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Mamdani, of course, went his communist mentor one better, as he cannily omitted all mention of having to work in order to contribute to the system. He also added that one would receive not just what one needed to live on a subsistence level, but whatever one needed “to live a dignified life.”
On the face of it, especially if you’re a teenager with no life experience and no understanding of economics, this sounds wonderful. You work as much as you can, and in return you get everything you need. The problems with this idea only begin when you start thinking about it for more than five or ten seconds, and it’s worth repeating them here and now, because our society is increasingly filled with teenagers of all ages (some are in their 70s) with no functional life experience and certainly with no understanding of economics.
Related: Iran Touts Islam's Teachings of Equality. Reality, As Always, Is Different.
Mamdani was also clearer than Marx in explaining that this was not just a share-and-share-alike program, but a matter of total government control: the government would be supplying what you need to live a dignified life. Who would decide what you need to live a dignified life? Not you, but the government — or at least that is how it has worked in every socialist society the world has ever seen, and that’s how it has to work: if every individual decided what he needed to live a dignified life, there would quickly not be enough to go around.
And there won’t be, anyway, because once people fully realize that no matter how much they work, they aren’t going to get any more than what some government bureaucrat thinks they need, and that even if they stop working, they’ll still get enough to live on, because that’s the whole idea of the system, they’ll stop working even up to the level of their ability. Why bother, when the outcome is the same either way?
And that’s when people have to be forced to work, which is where the gulags come in. Mamdani didn’t mention those to Theo Von. But if he ever gets his way, they’ll be along.
