What Would Socialism Look Like in New York City?

Why does socialism remain popular despite its historic failures? Because “People like free stuff,” says economist Tyler Cowen.

But suppose that socialism came to New York City completely unrestricted, with free food, child care, gender transitions, transit. Where does the money come from to pay for everything? The city’s bus system alone costs more than $800 million a year to maintain.

And what happens to productivity? Once salaries are equalized, productivity will plummet, of course. “Socialists exhibit a remarkable indifference to the supply side of the economy,” Martin Gurri writes. “They seem to assume that production will continue as before, only better.”

Just as it has everywhere else, socialism would fail in New York City, Gurri observes, because “the pursuit of equality exacts a price.” Read his take in our Autumn issue.

When Charlie Kirk was killed last month, just 17 out of 100 university leaders issued public statements. In 2020, 94 of those same universities issued statements about George Floyd. Why?

“They discovered that it was easy to release a statement that jibes with the majority view but harder to say the right thing—even if it’s as straightforward as denouncing murder—when the message is likely to enrage a large portion of faculty, staff, and students,” Steven McGuire and Justin Garrison write.

Young adults need guidance—more than a third of college students aren’t willing to rule out violence as a way to prevent someone from speaking their mind.

“Can there be any doubt that Kirk’s assassination threatens the mission and values of every American university?” McGuire and Garrison ask. “The free exchange of ideas is impossible when some fear violence or death simply for expressing controversial views.”

Read their take.

North America has embraced two disastrous public health movements over the past ten years, Adam Zivo writes: “harm reduction” for drug use and pediatric gender medicine. “Both were profoundly shaped by extremist LGBTQ activism,” he points out, “and both have produced grievous harms by prioritizing ideology over high-quality scientific evidence.”

Read more about the movements, the backlash, and Zivo’s take on how critics should respond.

As anti-Jewish hate has surged since October 7, 2023, the Anti-Defamation League—which long stood as the leading defender of Jewish Americans—has adopted a feckless approach to responding to anti-Semitism. As Jesse Arm writes, the ADL “has become a prestige ‘anti-hate’ consultancy, focused on developing lesson plans around microaggressions, selectively handing down virtue-signaling edicts, and regularly congratulating itself for being on the right (i.e., left) side of history.”

Can it—and should it—be saved? Read his take.

Sergio Trujillo’s revival of Damn Yankees, which opened at Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage last month, is a superb performance, Paul du Quenoy writes, but the political overtones are unfortunate. There’s a “stark contrast between the quality of Damn Yankees’ production and the clumsiness of its message,” he observes, showing that it’s “time for the theater to get back to being theater.”

Read his review.

“I’m not sure I would spend much time analyzing the cultural factors that may have caused a sizable portion of the left to ghoulishly revel in Charlie Kirk’s death. There’s really only one source: Charlie was a big supporter of Trump’s reelection and his organization played a pivotal role in bringing the youth vote to Trump. That’s the cardinal sin for which he is being condemned.

Ninety-nine percent of the people who repeated horrendous lies and smears about him know absolutely nothing about his beliefs and never actually listened to any of his recorded appearances on campuses.”

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