Mamdani's election as mayor of New York City has revived a certain
enthusiasm for a reformist left that has been in a state of prostrationand confusion since Trump's presidential victory. Mamdani first won the
Democratic primary and then defeated both the Republican candidate and
former Democrat Cuomo. From the beginning, he was attacked by Trump, who
labeled him a communist who would destroy NYC. Being attacked
by the White House tenant, having forced the Donkey Party to shift
significantly to the left in one of the major US cities, as well as one
of the world's leading cities, as well as his sharply critical stances
toward the Israeli government, have built considerable credibility among
left-wing public opinion, including radical left-wing opinion, globally.
Mamdani's victory was possible because millions of citizens, both from
the working classes whose living conditions have been devastated by
decades of rampant inflation-we're talking about one of the most
expensive places in the world-and from the intellectual bourgeoisie and
liberal-democratic political activists, placed their trust in him and
his program. His proposals for expanding social spending were Mamdani's
winning card, as was his ability to appeal to a demographically diverse
electorate, even attracting MAGA voters.
But can these godchildren of the intellectual bourgeoisie-for that's
Mamdani and that's his entourage-represent a way out of the
authoritarian trajectory that neoliberalism has been pursuing for years?
Social democratic political proposals-but it would be more correct to
call them demo-socialist, as not even theoretically did they set the
goal of overcoming mercantile society, as historical social democracy
did-during the twentieth century served as a sinister prop for capital,
ensuring, with an accordion-like opening created by class power
relations, the redistribution of a portion of profits. But this was
possible with an economy based on industrial production, often with high
added value, and with the contribution of value extracted from the
periphery of the world system through colonial plunder. With the end of
large-scale industrial concentrations in the West, the post-colonial
reshaping
of relationships with peripheral territories, and with new dynamics in
class relations largely favorable to the ruling class, the
redistribution mechanism entered a crisis from which it has never recovered.
The era of US public spending coincided with an American industrial
economy that produced surpluses and sold them abroad, a trade balance in
its favor that allowed it to distribute part of the profits. Recall that
for many decades, the American working class was the most prosperous
globally, along with that of the Nordic social democracies. However,
starting in the 1970s, this phase ended with the upheaval of the end of
the Bretton Woods agreements, the concomitant oil crisis, and the
transformation of the US economy into a deficit economy, supported,
however, by financialization and the ability to exert extraordinary
military power. This trend strengthened greatly in the Reagan decade and
continued throughout the 1990s and 2000s, until the financial crisis of
2008.
Throughout the 2010s, despite the Obama administration's interventions,
a mechanism was effectively strengthened that increasingly undermined
the American middle class and its minimal social safety net. Consider
the "Obamacare" healthcare system or the lockdown relief measures,
which, however, failed to reverse the trend. The price hikes of the last
two years have hit the working classes hard and further eroded the
incomes of an increasingly impoverished middle class. In New York, there
has also been a simultaneous increase in real estate values, which has
led to higher rental costs, making more and more neighborhoods
unaffordable for former residents.
Mamdani may try to revive expansionary public spending policies by
redirecting them toward social spending, but everything that moves
within the confines of capitalist compatibility must abide by the rules
of the game. A game in which resources are transferred from the suburbs
to the center, at best guaranteeing the working classes in the center
better living conditions in exchange for social peace. Is this possible
in a city that essentially relies on advanced services and finance? The
answer is multifaceted: greater distribution is possible, but only if
the drainage of resources from the peripheries to the center continues.
Consequently, a partial improvement in the living conditions of New
York's working classes is possible, provided the federal administration
does not block funding and the city bureaucracy does not get in the way,
but only if the rest of the world system maintains a subservient
relationship with the center.
Despite some serious contradictions, Mamdani, who has never renounced
the militant, homophobic, and anti-Semitic Islamist circles led by Siraj
Wahhaj, Imam of a prominent Brooklyn mosque and a former member of the
Nation of Islam, yet simultaneously presents himself as an "ally" of the
LGBTQ "community" and has managed not to alienate New York's Jewish
electorate too much (with the exception of the Hasidic elements, both
Zionist and anti-Zionist, who historically vote Republican), has managed
to reconcile economic issues with civil liberties.
Given this, it's difficult to understand the enthusiasm in these parts
of the world other than the symbolic aspect of the victory. But
symbolism doesn't feed, especially when US public spending could end up
being financed by even greater rounds of financialization of the
European economy or by the purchase of US war technology for the
rearmament of NATO countries.
It is clear that a comprehensive critique of the economic system and the
social structures that ensure its reproduction and expansion is needed,
taking into account that the regulatory aspects of the system, which the
state plays even within the most pronounced neoliberalism, cannot
provide the tools to break the cage of compatibility that guarantees the
exploitation of man by man and the irrational capitalist economy.
Aside from this, it should still be noted that the New York vote, and
the resulting enthusiasm it generated in the rest of the West,
demonstrates how issues of living conditions are central to any
political proposal aiming to gain mass consensus. Reformist approaches
are short-lived and unable to address the global reality of a profoundly
irrational system, but the fact that they are gaining consensus across
large segments of society demonstrates how more and more people feel the
need to bring issues that directly impact the material conditions of
their lives back to the center of political debate. Neoliberalism has
emptied political debate of meaning by reserving for the state only the
role of maintaining order and administering the ordinary, presenting a
unique economic structure as a "natural fact." But issues pushed out the
window tend to come back in through the front door.
If Mamdani's election and a possible leftward shift in local government
will never address fundamental issues, as we have seen, it is
nevertheless indicative of a shared feeling that must be taken into
account, keeping in mind that New York and the other large coastal
cities, with the addition of Chicago, represent themselves and not the
entirety of a country of almost continental dimensions. In these cracks
in the consensus toward the neoliberal order, those who operate on the
terrain of internationalism, class struggle, and freedom from all forms
of oppression will have to find a way to forcefully penetrate.
lorcon
https://umanitanova.org/svolta-socialdemocratica-a-nyc-lelezione-di-zohran-mamdani/
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