Why Socialism Wins in New York

Sidney Hook figured it out in 1987, before Mamdani was born: The argument is stacked against capitalism

By William McGurn. Excerpts:

"Sidney Hook knew the answer.

Hook (1902-89) was a philosopher at New York University who started out as a Marxist but later became a leading critic of communism. He alluded to that past in his 1987 autobiography, “Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century,” and he noted the paradigm that today may deliver a socialist mayor for America’s richest city.

“I was guilty,” he wrote, “of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature. To this day, this error and its disastrous consequences are observable in the judgment and behavior of some impassioned individuals, mostly young.”"