Collectivism's "Warm Embrace"
Mayor Zoran Mamdani promises to "replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism”. The idea of New York City being a place of rugged individualism isn't crazy. As the song goes, “if you can make it in the city that never sleeps, you will be king of the hill”. Mamdani overlooks the fact that New York succeeded because of its intense competitiveness. Mamdani also overlooks the fact that collectivist movements have failed consistently and massively.
There are good reasons to expect bad results from any collectivist system. A subfield of economics known as social choice theory has proven that it is impossible to define collective interests in economically meaningful ways. Frustration over inadequacies of democratic socialism in practice leads to consolidation of power. The most ruthless and unprincipled people have a comparative advantage in gaining and retaining the consolidated powers of any collectivist state. Hence, the worst people rise to the top of any socialist system, sooner or later1.
Collectivism of the Left is an invention of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism posits that there is an inevitable class conflict between all workers and their capitalist employers. Conflict between capitalists and workers will lead to a dictatorship of the proletariat. Mamdani claims to be a Democratic Socialist, but economic theory tells us that democratic socialism is unworkable and leads to tyranny. Does experience with Marxism confirm economic theory? Historian Rudy Rummel amassed data on the murders committed by communist states during the 20th century.
The record of 20th century Marxist movements is appalling. Marxist regimes are responsible for the worst atrocities in human history. If anything, the list just above underestimates the barbaric nature of Marxian socialism. Millions of the victims of socialism died slowly of starvation, such as was the case in the Ukrainian Holodomor. Marxist regimes also tortured people, imprisoned people unjustly, and suppressed free speech and free exercise of religion.
Collectivism of the Right got its start during World War I, inside Imperial Germany. Germans were pressured to set aside private interests (Gesellschaft) and focus on national interests (Volksgemeinschaft). Hitler and his national socialist Nazi party added a strict racial qualification for being part of the “Volk”, which led to the mass murder of other groups. The following chart lists murder by key nationalistic regimes, alongside the worst Marxist regimes.
Nationalist collectivist movements (the Axis powers during World War II, Nationalist China) murdered tens of millions of people, as opposed to over 100 million people murdered by Marxist-collectivist regimes.
The warm embrace of collectivism never has and never will exist. The notion of rugged individualism may seem cold, to those who don’t understand economics. The emergence of global capitalism over the past three centuries has enabled people to increase their productivity. As Adam Smith and David Ricardo recognized long ago, we produce more when we specialize our labor according to individual advantage. Capitalism enables us to each pursue our own individual comparative advantages. Socialism prohibits pursuit of individual interests. This is the choice that we face; continued progress through individualistic capitalism or the tyranny and poverty of socialism.
Does Mamdani have the authority to turn New York City into a socialist collective? No. However, Mamdani and his supporters seek to enact gradual change in the United States. Would Mamdani win a political struggle in a future socialized United States? Perhaps not, but whoever ended up winning such a political struggle would be every bit as much a tyrant as any socialist dictator of the past.
See Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 1945, Duncan Black, The Theory of Committees and Elections, 1958, and Kenneth Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values, 1951.