The government grocery store tender is filled with exceptionally bad ideas.
When he’s a normal politician doing normal things, he seems great. When he’s sticking to his guns on naive populist things he’s part of a worrying affection for counterproductive government programs.
Why volunteer such?
Under capitalism there is no honorific obligationism. Pay me to give a shit you exist or go hungry and die
What's that? You want a social and communal society?
Sounds like naive populism.
Socialism has the same problem, except it's "go to work and give a shit for less money or all of society dies"
Name one, just for discussion's sake.
Well. The city does not actually produce food. Stores get their produce from wholesalers. This is where the "city stores" will get them as well. Only now, regular stores know the city will undercut them in price using taxpayer money. So any location next to a city store will become poison. And soon all you will have (for some people) are the city stores.
Of course, with prices much cheaper than in other parts, you will likely get crowding at these stores. Leading to the infamous bread lines of the Soviet Union or Venezuela or what have you. Basically, if something is cheaper than the market price, you get shortages.
Ironically, the city sets prices based on a relative level to "normal stores". So it's not as if this is some "good capitalist competition". It's not as if it's a "temporary measure until catastrophe A is over".
There is put simply no way this experiment ends in a way that is positive for New Yorkers. And yes, this is socialism and there are very logical, rational economic reasons for why it always fail. This will be no different.
There's a version of this, I think, that _doesn't_ fail, where they give up selling below cost and focus on setting up ABC-like grocery stores in "food deserts" that sell staple goods that bodegas don't carry.
This will indeed be far from Pareto optimal, and a slow drain on the city’s budget and local economy, but could be successful enough that the stores can remain in operation in perpetuity, which boosters will frame as a “win”
There are many ways to do redistribution for purposes of social welfare without actually competing with retailers that actually live on slim margins.
That doesn't give you as spectacular political ads or showmanship, however.
His perception when he was running was "popular, well intentioned, and naive" for the reasons you're outlining. Yet what people have been experiencing isn't a mayor trying to try a bunch of bad-sounding ideas; it's a mayor who is visibly trying to make the city more livable.
In an overpriced and dysfunctional city with a history of self-aggrandizing, useless governance; livability is appealing.
The moderate take is "I don't care if he calls himself a socialist as long as he's making the city run better."
So much, of course, depends on the execution -- a crappy city store won't be a help to anyone -- but the concept isn't inherently bad on its face.
"Of course, with prices much cheaper than in other parts, you will likely get crowding at these stores. Leading to the infamous bread lines of the Soviet Union or Venezuela or what have you."
There are over 100+ no-questions-asked community-run pantries in NYC where you can get groceries for free, not to mention others that ask for some sort of ID. You'd think that the crowding and bread lines would form here first no?
You should look into how dollar stores eviscerated rural markets. Or even what walmart did.
People absolutely go to the cheapest stores. Whole Foods selling to a wealthier minority is not a counter factual here.
> Leading to the infamous bread lines of the Soviet Union or Venezuela or what have you.
These two statements don't follow one another. If the city stores are getting their goods from the same distributor any other grocery store is, why would the availability of that food dry up leading to breadlines?
> Ironically, the city sets prices based on a relative level to "normal stores". So it's not as if this is some "good capitalist competition". It's not as if it's a "temporary measure until catastrophe A is over".
This happens in "normal" stores as well. There's a concept called a "loss leader" where a store deliberately sells some goods at lower than market rates specifically to attract shoppers.
> There is put simply no way this experiment ends in a way that is positive for New Yorkers.
My state, Idaho, has had state ran liquor stores for my entire life. Our socialist alcohol hasn't resulted in booze lines or bedlam. I see no reason why a grocery store in a very wealthy city couldn't work.
IDK why he calls that a city-owned store, he should just say that the city has started a VC program aimed to fund startups in the retail sector.