As a recent letter to the Advertiser-News North amply testifies, there is much clutching of pearls and gnashing of teeth in the land, following the recent election of a self-styled “socialist” mayor in New York City.
I might remind its writer that, historically, about 75 cities and towns all over the United States have at one time or another elected socialist mayors and local council members. Bridgeport, Conn., is just one example. New York City itself in 1934 elected a mayor – the legendary Fiorello La Guardia – who also described himself as a socialist, and who served until 1946. And yet the Republic has survived.
Rather than engage in the usual time-worn tropes, lies, and slanders about socialism, perhaps the writer might better reflect upon why it is that 62% of young American adults now prefer socialism to capitalism (Cato and YouGov survey, March 2025).
Could it be because they have seen their parents and grandparents struggle through at least 40 years of flat wages, the constant erosion of the dollar’s value, usurious levels of debt, inadequate and unaffordable health care, and the ever-present threat of impoverishment resulting simply from a job loss or a medical emergency? Could it be that these Americans and many others don’t want the status quo; that they want and deserve something better?
Let’s not forget that the most remarkable economic success story in human history was accomplished by socialism, which in a mere 50 years transformed czarist Russia from a backward agrarian feudal state populated largely by an illiterate peasantry and ruled by a clueless aristocracy into an industrial, technological, and nuclear superpower.
Despite suffering two revolutions, a civil war, and a military invasion in 1918 by sixteen hostile countries including the United States, the Soviet Union still managed to lift tens of millions of people out of extreme poverty, achieve universal literacy, electrify the countryside, provide free medical care and education, dramatically raise life expectancy, defeat European fascism in 1945, and invent space travel with the launch of Sputnik in 1957. Socialism did all that.
This astounding achievement remained unmatched until the 1949 Chinese revolution, which itself lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and has since made China the world’s largest economy as measured by purchasing power parity. Socialism did that, too.
So, let’s retire moth-eaten old slogans like “socialism has failed everywhere it’s been tried,” when history clearly demonstrates that socialism has succeeded spectacularly in vastly improving the material conditions of people’s lives. And that’s what all people, including the voters of New York City, want for themselves and their children.
Frank A. Brincka
Wantage