Time and again, New York City’s dependence on the rich and private corporations has led it into fiscal crisis. As mayor, Zohran Mamdani has the opportunity to start building an economic base that better serves the needs of the city’s working class.

Zohran Mamdani ran his campaign for New York City on two messages: making the city affordable and taxing the rich. This has been a winning formula for many progressive candidates for more than a century.

But history also reveals a more sobering lesson: you can’t finance progressive policies with a regressive economy. Social democracy in New York City and elsewhere has repeatedly learned this lesson the hard way. To be fiscally dependent upon the same wealthy individuals and firms who displace working-class residents, contest our policies, and

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