Zohran Mamdani Tells Jon Stewart Socialism Is Just Having a Library

Now that democratic socialism is having a moment, political figures who adhere to the ideology or belong to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are fielding questions about it. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who self-identifies as a socialist, is a savvy politician, and so he quite deliberately misrepresents the definition of socialism in order to make it seem benign and unobjectionable. He is doing this frequently enough—and consistently enough—that he may be succeeding in tricking a great number of people into accepting a nonsensical, discredited, and dangerous ideology.

He has help from comedian and political commentator Jon Stewart, who interviewed Mamdani on his podcast this week. Their conversation is incredibly characteristic of Mamdani’s approach to the socialism question. Stewart asks Mamdani to define democratic socialism, and gets this answer: “It means making the choice every day to fight for working people. It means you believe that everyone in your city deserves to live a dignified life, no matter how much money is in their pocket.”

This definition is similar to the one Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) offered in 2018: democratic participation in one’s economic dignity. But when she said this to MSNBC host Chris Hayes, he at least pushed back, since that’s a vague and pleasant-sounding sentiment that most people would fail to associate with socialism. Stewart, on the other hand, half-heartedly followed up with a joke about nationalizing the industries, and let Mamdani quip that he was here to seize the means of production of Stewart’s podcast. They have a laugh and moved on. Eventually, Mamdani said this:

If you and I were to introduce the idea of a building that lends out books for free, we would be slandered in the same way that so many new ideas are slandered today, and yet that’s the library. The same thing with the fire department, the same thing with public schools.

So what he’s basically saying is: Socialism is just, you know, having a library.

This is all completely ridiculous. If a government provides some public services, this does not mean the government is socialist. Socialism should not be defined as maintaining a slightly more generous welfare state. Socialism is a political and economic system in which the means of production are owned in theory by the workers themselves rather than fat-cat capitalists. In actually existing socialist systems, the means of production is owned or at least controlled by a powerful central government with sweeping powers to allocate resources, set prices, and determine who does what. The strictly two-class system—workers and capitalists—envisioned by socialist theorist Karl Marx in the 19th century does not really exist, as there is no clear distinction between the two. In the modern economy, the relevant factor is public vs. private. Socialist governance is characterized by the hollowing out of the private sector and sharply limiting the free market in favor of top-down, centralized control of the economy—often via the nondemocratic aspects of the state such as regulatory bureaucracies.

It’s not as if the DSA really denies that this is their agenda: replacing capitalism and the free market with a system of government control. The program of the DSA calls for the end of capitalism quite explicitly. Their documents assert that their enemies are “the entire system of global capital” and that the U.S. Constitution must be scrapped entirely in order to create a “democratic socialist republic.”

And while Mamdani studiously avoids praising socialist and communist dictators, other figures in his orbit are not so careful. Darializa Avila Chevalier, for instance, has previously tweeted favorably about the Soviets, Fidel Castro, and Mao Zedong. Hasan Piker recently dressed in a uniform quite reminiscent of communist dictators.

When one considers recent developments within the DSA, none of this is really surprising. At its birth in 1982, the DSA’s bylaws implicitly excluded communists, per the wishes of founder Michael Harrington. But in recent years, the organization has begun to welcome communists, according to The Atlantic‘s Jonathan Chait.

When asked whether he’s comfortable sharing a movement with people who harbor more radical views, Mamdani quipped that he’s never met two socialists who agree on everything. That’s a diplomatic way of admitting that he does not want to exclude communist influences. Quite obviously, he doesn’t. He’s working tirelessly to get Avila Chevalier elected to Congress.

In the future, when commentators have a chance to grill self-described socialists on their views, they should not let them get away with saying that socialism just means more libraries. The DSA’s handbook calls for eliminating capitalism—the economic system of every modern, prosperous, and free country on Earth—and replacing it with a command-and-control economy. It does not meekly suggest that we make the welfare state a bit larger.

I made a version of this same argument on Free Media this week; watch it here.

I saw The Odyssey! My verdict is: great at some points, boring at other points, overall meh. Watch me and Christian Britschgi review it on this week’s episode of Freed Up.