Zohran Mamdani is scheduled to take office in four weeks as New York City's first socialist mayor, confronting tight fiscal and structural limits in a turbulent national economy. In a recent episode of The Nation’s Start Making Sense podcast, Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation and author of The Socialist Manifesto, discusses how the left might navigate these constraints while still pushing for ambitious democratic reforms, emphasizing worker mobilization and participatory forms of governance.
Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is poised to become New York City’s next mayor in four weeks, a transition that would make him the city’s first socialist mayor, according to The Nation’s Start Making Sense podcast and other media reports. Mamdani, a state assembly member from Queens, was elected in November and is scheduled to succeed Mayor Eric Adams on January 1, 2026.
On a recent episode of The Nation’s Start Making Sense podcast, titled “Mamdani’s Socialism—and Us,” host Jon Wiener introduces the discussion by noting that Mamdani will take office "in four weeks" as "the first socialist mayor of New York City" and asks how to understand the limits he will face without simply accepting them. Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation and founding editor of Jacobin, joins the program to analyze those constraints.
Sunkara points to the basic fiscal structure of a city government operating within a capitalist economy. He explains that a New York City administration depends on a finite tax base supported by multiple revenue streams: local property taxes, income taxes paid by higher earners, corporate tax receipts, and grants from state and federal authorities. Because the city cannot easily run large deficits and must seek approval from the governor for many revenue measures, he argues, there are hard limits on how far any mayor can go in redistributing wealth, even with a mandate for an affordability agenda.
Sunkara also situates Mamdani’s coming term within a broader national context. In the interview, he warns that the economic policies of the Trump administration — including what he describes as counterproductive tariffs, mass deportations that target “some of the most productive workers we have in the United States,” and growing federal deficits driven by tax cuts for the wealthy rather than long-term investment — are likely to produce "long-term disorder" for workers. He says "it’s safe to say that things are going to get worse," and suggests the United States may be nearing the end of a historic period of economic growth, raising the risk that a downturn will hit cities like New York just as a socialist mayor takes office.
Within that framework, Sunkara draws a distinction between taxing wealthy individuals and taxing corporations. On the podcast, he argues that modestly higher taxes on rich residents may be politically and economically viable because many are rooted in the city through their homes and children’s schools and might not move for relatively small rate increases. By contrast, he calls higher corporate tax rates "much more fraught," suggesting that a combination of shaken business confidence after the election of a socialist mayor and any significant increase in corporate taxes could spur capital flight. That risk, he says, reflects the broader reality that New York’s model of social democracy has been "growth driven" and dependent on investment and job creation by large firms, followed by redistribution.
To push beyond these limits, Sunkara emphasizes the need to mobilize social forces outside City Hall. He argues that workers, especially those already involved in the labor movement, will need to be drawn into local politics in a more active way so that municipal government becomes "a real avenue for people to express their demands on the state" and to participate in decisions rather than simply receiving programs from above. In this context, he cites C.L.R. James’s famous democratic socialist phrase that "every cook can govern," and suggests that the Mamdani administration could experiment with neighborhood assemblies and similar forums.
Sunkara outlines one possible model in the interview: citywide neighborhood assemblies where residents are invited to hear about key planks of the mayor’s affordability agenda and are then encouraged to contact their city council members or state legislators to support specific measures. He describes these assemblies as both consultative — giving residents space to talk about their own lives and priorities — and directive, by enlisting them to lobby for policies such as higher wages or rent protections. He notes that such ideas are not unprecedented, referencing mid-20th-century efforts under Mayor John Lindsay to use neighborhood assemblies to move away from machine politics, and argues that more radical versions of this approach could fill the current vacuum in working-class political representation.
Housing policy is one area where Sunkara says Mamdani is already facing criticism from parts of the left. On the podcast, he mentions that Mamdani has supported the City of Yes initiative, a package of zoning changes meant to make it easier to build housing in New York City, as well as related ballot proposals aimed at easing new construction over some local objections. Sunkara notes that this stance aligns Mamdani with many affordable housing advocates and some developers, but has put him at odds with certain tenant unions and other progressive groups that oppose elements of the plan.
In discussing New York’s dependence on the financial sector, Sunkara argues that maintaining major employers in the city is another practical constraint for any left-wing mayor. As an example, he says it "would make perfect sense" for Mamdani to have a brief standing monthly call with Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, given that the bank is a large private employer headquartered in Manhattan. While such regular contact with one of Wall Street’s most prominent figures may be uncomfortable for some on the left, Sunkara frames it as part of operating within a fixed municipal budget and a broader social-democratic compromise.
The podcast also touches on intraparty tensions and strategic choices for the left. Wiener raises recent debates over whether Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America should support a primary challenge to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, whose district includes parts of Brooklyn. Sunkara recounts a DSA meeting where, he says, Mamdani argued that the movement faces "finite" resources of money and volunteer time and therefore should prioritize building and implementing a local affordability program in New York City rather than investing heavily in a national-level fight against Jeffries at this moment. Sunkara cautions that elite Democrats will exert significant pressure on Mamdani but argues that socialists outside government must remain independent enough to criticize him if he drifts too far from his commitments.
Throughout the conversation, Sunkara stresses that successful governance is essential for the broader socialist project in the United States. He warns that if crime rises, housing becomes less affordable, or public services visibly deteriorate under a socialist mayor, it would be "the most dangerous thing" for the movement’s credibility. At the same time, he insists that socialists cannot lose sight of their long-term aims. In a contrast with early-20th-century theorist Eduard Bernstein’s line that "the goal is nothing; the movement, everything," Sunkara tells Wiener that "the goal of socialism is everything" — a society "powered from the bottom up" in which working people have greater control over their workplaces and live within a deeper, more participatory democracy. The task, he suggests, is to use Mamdani’s administration to win practical improvements while also opening pathways toward that more ambitious vision.