Mamdanis grocery scheme is foolish but theres method to the madness

Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has a lot of dumb ideas.Of course, these days that’s pretty much assumed when you hear the words “Democratic mayoral nominee.”But — though the competition is stiff — the dumbest of his ideas may be his plan for government-run grocery stores. In fact, it’s so obviously a terrible idea that even Democrats seem to know it. So there must be another agenda, and I think I know what it is.Business owners across New York City and the nation have denounced Mamdani’s plan as a Soviet-style disaster.

“You can’t force us to pay taxes and then be our adversary,” said Bronx bodega owner Rafael Garcia.He’s on to something.In the old Soviet Union the government did in fact run the grocery stores. Shelves were often empty. Lines were absurdly long. Product quality and service were, to put it mildly, horrible.In fact, things were so bad in the government-run grocery stores (and department stores, and clothing stores) that there were separate stores for the big shots, the nomenklatura as Soviet citizens resentfully called them. (The term arose because the leaders of the Workers’ Paradise were those with the right names — in essence, the Communist aristocracy.)Imagine a supermarket with the sluggish, low-grade service of the Department of Motor Vehicles. And unlike the DMV’s standardized product line (there aren’t quality distinctions to be made with driver’s licenses and tags), you can bet the products offered in government-run grocery stores will be subpar.Not, of course, in any city-run markets located in neighborhoods occupied by the influential and well-off. Who don’t need help buying groceries. It’s such a bad idea that the wildly unpopular Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson considered it, too — and gave it a pass. Johnson conducted a feasibility study that he never made public, but was apparently such a disaster that he never even tried to claim subsidies the state of Illinois had made availabl...