Mayor of New York. Mamdani’s popularity, which is based largely on unease about prices, most notably rents, augurs a possible American turn towards radical collectivism.
The current DSA [ Democratic Socialists of America ] and its supporters, as writer Pamela Paul points out, believe that “capitalism isn’t something to be regulated or balanced, but is itself the problem.”
So, how did leftist socialism become a force in the politics of the capitalist heartland? Housing is the key, which is by far the biggest contributor to inflationary concerns. Overall, young Americans rank housing as their top financial concern, and they worry that they may not attain the foundations of middle-class life, most notably, spacious and affordable housing. This concern is rooted in reality.
The problems relating to housing and the cost of living provide unique opportunities for the socialist Left. According to one poll, 62 percent of Americans under thirty have a positive view of socialism, while a full third now even back the more authoritarian communist alternative.
The socialist economist Thomas Piketty has identified property as a key factor in the widening of inequality around the world over recent decades, an assertion that is backed up by research by Matthew Rognlie at Northwestern University. For the next generation, those who are able to purchase houses will do so through what one writer calls “the funnel of privilege.” [Piketty](https://joelkotkin-my.sharepoint.com/personal/joel_joelkotkin_com/Documents/Thomas%20Piketty,%20Capital%20in%20the%20Twenty-First%20Century,%20trans.%20Arthur%20Goldhammer%20(Cambridge,%20Mass.:%20Belknap/Harvard,%202014?ref=quillette.com) suggests that inherited wealth, the key to a feudal economy, is making a comeback. Inheritance as a share of GDP in France grew from roughly four percent in 1950 to fifteen percent in 2010. The growing importance of inherited assets is even more pronounced in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. US millennials are three times as likely as boomers to count on receiving an inheritance to support their retirement. Over sixty percent of Gen Z over the age of eighteen look to inheritance to pay for their first house.
Is a single family residence now a luxury item of property?
Is the affordability issue a function of asset inequality?