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“Today begins a new era,” declared Zohran Mamdani upon his swearing in as New York City’s 112th Mayor. “Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed. But never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try.”
Inaugural ceremonies aren’t usually a forum for deep deliberation and rational discourse. But seldom are a politician’s words disconnected from their underlying philosophy. Zohran Mamdani’s inaugural comments therefore gives us a sense of what to expect in the coming months: claiming to represent “all” New Yorkers, the new mayor will work quickly to push through decisions unpopular at best, harmful at worst.
The character of those decisions, too, is clear. In a line widely circulated on social media, Mamdani promised that “we will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” Audacious collectivism: that’s the Mamdani agenda.
This is a vicious manipulation of language and classic demagoguery. Collectivism is "warm" while individualism is "frigid".
The inauguration ceremony presages a mayor who might have good intentions [or not...]. But those intentions are not in alignment with economic realities, nor with the soundest grasp of human incentives and motivations. Just like other “collectivists” before him, Mamdani’s “audacious” vision is likely to run up against harsh economic reality.
Collectivism always sounds noble.
Shared goals. Equal outcomes. Nobody left behind.
But it fails—every time, everywhere it's tried.
Meanwhile, individualism—flawed, messy, and decentralized—just keeps delivering rising living standards, resilient systems, and moral progress.
Why?
Because collectivism fights human nature, while individualism works with it.
Here’s a breakdown:
馃敾 Why Collectivist Systems Fail
1. 馃毇 No Skin in the Game
In collectivism, effort and reward are decoupled.
Work hard or hardly work—you get the same.
That’s not equity. That’s incentive death.
Without personal gain tied to personal effort, people disengage. Productivity dies. Innovation vanishes. Scarcity takes root.
2. 馃 Central Planning Can't Handle Complexity
Prices are real-time information systems. They reflect scarcity, demand, and value in a way no human planner ever could.
Collectivist systems destroy price signals and try to replace them with guesses, models, and 5-year plans.
You get too much of what nobody wants and not enough of what everyone needs.
3. 馃攣 No Feedback = No Adaptation
Capitalism rewards success and kills failure.
Collectivism subsidizes failure and criminalizes dissent.
That means no course correction—just rigid ideology grinding the system into the ground.
4. 馃К It Misreads Human Nature
People aren’t programmable drones. They’re status-driven, competitive, and diverse in talent and values.
Collectivism assumes uniform sacrifice and equal motivation. That’s delusional.
The result? Cheating, disengagement, black markets, and decay.
5. 馃攼 Coercion Isn’t a Glitch—It’s the Operating System
To make collectivism "work," you need force.
To assign resources without markets, you need central control.
To suppress feedback, you need censorship.
That’s how you get gulags, not utopias.
馃敽 Why Individualism Works
If collectivism reliably fails, then shouldn’t we focus on its opposite—the individual? I.e. the smallest effective unit in an economy or society?
Yes. And here’s why it works.
1. 馃寪 It Scales with Complexity
You can’t central-plan a billion interactions a day.
But you don’t have to.
Markets and free individuals self-coordinate using incentives, signals, and voluntary exchange. That’s how real complexity is managed—bottom-up, not top-down. Voluntary exchange is the plus-EV seed kernel of prosperity.
2. 馃幆 It Enforces Responsibility
When people bear the cost of their choices, they make better ones.
This creates:
Feedback loops
Risk-taking
Innovation
It also filters out failure without collapsing the system.
3. 馃挕 It Rewards Value, Not Ideology
You don’t need permission to build.
You just need to solve a problem better than the next person.
Individualism rewards contribution, not conformity. That’s how civilizations grow.
4. 馃敁 It Enables Cooperation Without Coercion
Individualism isn’t isolation—it’s voluntary association.
It lets people organize in communities, companies, cultures—by choice, not by decree.
That’s freedom and structure, without tyranny.
5. 馃搱 It Evolves Peacefully
In collectivist systems, reform threatens the whole model.
In individualist systems, new ideas compete, spread, and evolve without requiring violence.
That’s why liberal democracies grow more tolerant, innovative, and wealthy over time.
馃Ж Bottom Line
Collectivism fails because it’s:
Blind (kills signals)
Deaf (ignores feedback)
Mute (silences dissent)
Inefficient (kills incentives)
Repressive (requires force)
Individualism works because it:
Aligns incentives with outcomes
Rewards merit and accountability
Lets complexity emerge from the bottom up
Channels human nature into progress—not collapse
It’s not utopia. It’s just the best game in town.
[Hard Signal Substack]
