Mamdani’s folly: capitalists have already solved the grocery problem

Mayor Zohran Mamdani attends a news conference where he announced the first of the city-run grocery stores: La Marqueta in East Harlem on April 14, 2026, in New York City. Getty Images

There are at least 76,000 supermarkets in the United States.

Most of us probably have a dozen within 10 miles of home.

Nevertheless, leftists are constantly trying to convince us that we need government-run grocery stores.

The latest is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has promised to open five city-run markets to combat “out-of-control” grocery prices by getting rid of the “profit motive,” passing on the savings to consumers.

The first glaring problem with Mamdani’s plan is that the “profit motive” is the best device to create savings.

Mamdani says he looks “forward to the competition” from the private sector, and “may the most affordable grocery store win.”

But it’s not really “competition” when a government official untethered from the “profit motive” can use endless taxpayer subsidies to keep his business afloat.

The Mamdani Mart in East Harlem, for instance, will be built on land already owned by the city, and it’s still going to cost $30 million, if government estimates are right — a rarity.

In the real world, these exorbitant costs would be passed on to consumers.

In the Mamdani world, the cost is tacked onto an already $5.4 billion budget deficit.

To put the cost into context, a new Aldi costs around $1.5 million to $3 million on average to construct, not including the cost of the land.

Other chains might cost around $3 million to $5 million.

Aldi keeps costs as low as possible because it’s governed by the profit motive.

An Aldi can be built in as little as seven weeks; Mamdani’s supermarket won’t be open until 2029 — maybe.

New York City could hand $30 million to any major supermarket chain, and it would get three or more self-sustaining retail stores up and running within a year.

Then again, if Democrats could just stop placating their corrupt union donors by blocking Walmart from opening stores in the city, it would cost nothing.

When the city-run KC Sun Fresh supermarket opened in Kansas City, it was supposed to help alleviate local “food deserts.”

At first, it was run by a private grocer — but soon after, a nonprofit community organization took over.

By 2024, the supermarket was losing nearly $1 million a year and averaging around 4,000 shoppers a week, down from 14,000.

Those who showed up were confronted with empty shelves, unchecked shoplifting and barely any healthy produce. It closed in 2025.

And when political considerations are your concern rather than profit motives, you end up building retail establishments that aren’t needed.

Within a mile of the site of Mamdani’s coming $30 million tax-funded supermarket in Harlem are at least a dozen grocers, everything from an Aldi’s to a Whole Foods.

It’s less than a nine-minute walk to a big supermarket from the proposed site, and a three-minute walk to a fresh produce market.

New Yorkers should demand their government work with the efficiency of a supermarket, not the other way around.

If Mamdani wants more supermarkets in Harlem, he should work to cut the bureaucratic hell that potential business owners are forced to traverse to open a store.

New York City is already home to one of the highest corporate tax rates in the country, yet Mamdani supports an effort to significantly increase them.

During the Cold War, the American supermarket was held up as the model of prosperity.

When the Soviet Union was petering out in 1989, Boris Yeltsin toured a Randalls in Houston, resulting in the famous pictures of the wide-eyed future Russian president perusing the wide variety of food available to average people living under capitalism.

Yeltsin said “there would be a revolution” in the Soviet Union if people saw the abundance.

“Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice,” he said. “Not even Mr. Gorbachev.”

Today, grocery chains are often depicted as predatory and monopolistic endeavors by Marxists like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

It’s easy to rile up consumers who are agitated by inflation.

But supermarkets have some of the lowest profit margins of any business in the country, usually around 1% to 3%.

Successful chains stay competitive by adapting quickly, leaning on high-volume, high-turnover sales, cost-cutting and intricate supply chains.

Government isn’t exactly nimble.

There’s no doubt that living in dense urban areas is expensive.

Many in the media depict Mamdani’s plan as a harmless effort to help poor people deal with the vagaries and inequities of capitalism when few affordable grocery stores are nearby.

But in the long run, the government subsidies will make groceries more expensive, crowding out value-producing “competitors.”

And American leftists will have to relearn these most basic and obvious lessons of history and economics.

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner. X: @davidharsanyi