The newly elected mayor of the once-great metropolis of New York City has used his maiden speech to declare that the era of rugged individualism is over, to be replaced by the ‘warmth of collectivism’. If this isn’t the beginning of New York’s economic suicide, I don’t know what is.
New York, the beating heart of American capitalism, is now poised to embrace the very ideologies that the United States spent decades and trillions of dollars fighting to contain. In the proxy battles of the Cold War, America stood as a bulwark against the spread of communism, sacrificing lives and resources to preserve freedom and individual enterprise. Until now.
Today, the city that symbolises the American Dream has voluntarily shackled itself to the failed experiments of the past.
The United States’ economic success has been built on the bedrock of rugged individualism, best defined as the idea that personal initiative, innovation, and hard work drive prosperity. The titans who shaped New York, like the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts, the entrepreneurs who turned a swampy island into a global financial powerhouse, would be rolling in their graves.
This isn’t just nostalgia, it’s empirical fact. Free markets have lifted more people out of poverty than any government program ever could. Yet here we are, watching a mayor peddle the ‘warmth’ of collectivism as if it’s a cozy blanket rather than the smothering shroud it truly is.
Socialism and collectivism are like group assignments at university. Everyone pretends to contribute equally, but in reality, a few do all the work while the rest coast along, dragging the whole thing down to mediocrity. In a group project, the high achievers resent the freeloaders, innovation stalls, and the final product is a watered-down mess that satisfies no one. Scale that up to a city of millions, and you’ve got a recipe for stagnation, resentment, and inevitable collapse.
New York’s newly elected mayor might wax poetic about collective warmth, but history shows it’s more like a fever dream that burns everything in its path.
If Frank Sinatra were to wake up in the city that never sleeps today, it wouldn’t be because of all the partying and vibrant nightlife he crooned about. It would be because everyone is having nightmares about skyrocketing taxes, crumbling infrastructure, and a bureaucracy that stifles the very spirit that made New York iconic.
The Big Apple, once a symbol of ambition and opportunity, is rotting from the core with this idiotic pivot to collectivism.
As a result, New York is now the most idiotic city in the world.
Regrettably, there is no law against being an idiot, but there should be consequences for idiocy on this scale. As I’ve argued before about Sydney and Melbourne, the Australian metropolises that love to virtue-signal while sucking dry the resources of the rest of the nation, cities that choose collectivist folly should be forced to fund it from their own people.
No bailouts from federal coffers, no handouts from hardworking taxpayers elsewhere.
Let New York’s residents bear the full weight of their choices. Perhaps then they’ll rediscover the value of individualism.
It is a truism that voters get the governments they deserve but Woke New York does not deserve the loss of life, loss of freedom, and loss of economic success that has occurred in every instance of socialism throughout history.
From the Soviet Union to Venezuela, the pattern is clear. Good intentions pave the path to hell.
New York must wake up before it’s too late or otherwise prepare to sleepwalk into oblivion.
Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is the Spectator Australia’s Canberra Press Gallery Correspondent. If you would like to support his writing, or read more of Michael, please visit his website.
