Don’t Worry, The U.S. Is Not Going the Way of Socialism
The Washington Post didn’t report it, but Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser recently attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new restaurant (Wheelhouse) in the high-end, Chevy Chase area of DC. Except that Bowser is a Democrat, and Democrats are said to loathe business.
No doubt there’s rhetorical truth to the above, but as always with the left, watch what they do as opposed to what they say. While voters and those they vote for in cities like Los Angles, New York, Seattle and San Francisco lean left, think more about what they do.
For starters, it would be difficult to find more evidence of relentless, brilliant, living-standard uplifting capitalism than what is practiced in the cities mentioned. Considering San Francisco and San Francisco-adjacent locales alone, just about every start-up in the area fails, and fails quickly so that poorly deployed resources and financial capital can quickly be redirected to better uses.
Los Angeles is no different. While the lefty lean of the film industry is much commented on, less commented on is how ruthlessly competitive the industry is. Add in what’s discussed a lot, that “Hollywood” is a global industry in search of the best tax treatment far from Los Angeles studio lots, and you see the wide disparity between rhetoric and reality inside an industry that is said to be monolithically Democrat.
About New York we hear a lot about ESG investing, but as anyone who has ever met an investor will tell you, they’re far too competitive to sacrifice returns on the altar of left-wingery. Seattle elected a socialist mayor, but then the appeal of Seattle to pale, unhappy, wealth disdaining redistributionists is hardly new to the Emerald City as all the excitement about so-called “grunge rock” revealed over thirty years ago.
It brings up what should be obvious: the people who vote most passionately in cities don’t always represent the people in those cities. Except that politicians are seeking votes. That’s why Bowser might say one thing on the stump, while also showing up to cut ribbons at new businesses. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s attacks on Ken Griffin meant to feed his flock were followed by so-far unsuccessful efforts to make nice with the multi-billionaire.
Which is the point beyond the rhetoric. Let’s never forget that people don’t go to the cities mentioned because they seek free stuff, or to live off others. No doubt homeless people can prosper best where wealth creation is greatest, but as most conservatives would acknowledge about the previous cohort, the challenge is mental more than ideological.
For the rest who show up to allegedly socialist-leaning cities, it’s an expression of ambition more than anything. Meaning they want jobs.
Even New York City’s socialists revere the trappings of wealth (great entertainment, restaurants, museums, etc.), and want more of each. You just don’t go to any of the cities mentioned unless your desire for a better life exceeds your ideological pose.
Which is why the politicians who lead those cities are attending ribbon-cutting ceremonies for businesses when they’re not feeding a rather emotional portion of their bases about redistributing wealth from those same businesses. Ultimately they know that the biggest lure for the cities they lead is opportunity, and that they must look after those who provide it.
Politics is about votes and style more than ideology. You just can’t be a rhetorical capitalist in America’s most prosperous cities made that way by captitalism, but as evidenced by their prosperity, the wealth-creation motive is overwhelming the redistributionist one. And politicians are quietly cheering the former.
Originally published on Real Clear Markets.