In the first part of this series, I discussed in theoretical terms how an elected socialist can use the capitalist state to advance socialism. In this second part, I’ll begin offering a series of concrete proposals, using New York City as an example.

Let’s review the criteria for assessing whether a left government is advancing socialism according to Erik Olin Wright in his conclusion to “Class, Crisis, & The State”:

1. Have welfare and social benefits expanded or contracted?
2. Have capitalism’s fundamental interests been prioritized in policy making?
3. Has the state’s direct role in the economy increased or decreased?
4. Has the bureaucracy been remade in the service of the working class and brought into the Left political coalition?
5. Has left political organizing been repressed or granted greater space to operate?
6. Has grassroots democracy and working class mobilization expanded or contracted?
7. Have reactionary elements within the military/police been weakened and socialist forces empowered?

Policy proposals

So, what could the mayor of a big city–someone like Zohran Mamdani–realistically do that would satisfy Wright’s criteria? Which reforms can he make that are non-reformist in nature? What can he accomplish with the power he has and the political obstacles he faces?

Here are my proposals:

1. Build the worker co-op sector
2. Decommodify the food shed
3. Create participatory assemblies
4. Advance library socialism
5. Wage war on cars
6. Leverage emergency powers
7. Start a repair network
8. Establish City Corps
9. Mandate public logistics

In this post, I’ll run through the first three of these, with the rest to come in later installments in this series.

Build the worker cooperative sector

Worker-owned cooperatives are businesses owned and democratically governed by their worker members. NYC has provided a small amount of funding to the Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative since 2014, which provides technical support to co-ops (around 80 each year). It’s a fine initiative, but how could a socialist mayor push it further, much further?

First, by ramping up funding for the initiative so that there’s sufficient technical expertise to support growth in the sector. Then, by juicing that growth with a city procurement directive that gives preference for municipal contracts to be awarded to worker co-ops (in NYC, this could be done entirely at the mayor’s discretion.) The city could also create a revolving loan fund to facilitate worker co-op start-ups and conversions, ensuring access to capital. It could add co-op training to existing workforce development programs and K-12 education. It could add a lease preference for worker co-ops at city-owned properties and redevelopment sites (also entirely at the mayor’s discretion.) And in the private sector, it could require that workers have the right of first refusal to convert failing or relocating businesses to worker co-ops. Additionally, the city could target specific sectors for worker co-op start-ups, such as platform co-ops in the exploitative gig economy, later using its lawmaking power to grant them a competitive advantage or even a monopoly on things like ride-sharing and food delivery.

These measures could create guaranteed demand for worker co-ops while easing the hurdles to their development. Any expansion of worker co-ops means shifting some control of capital to the working class, thus advancing democratic socialism in the economy.

Decommodify the food shed

Mamdani ran on a promise to open one city-owned grocery store in each borough, a good idea that he sadly gutted in office (he is now proposing publicly-subsidized, privately-owned and operated grocery stores with the city acting as landlord and developer.) But even if he had stuck to his original plan, the mayor could deliver far more bang for his buck by creating a municipal buyer cooperative instead, beginning with the city’s public housing residents.

A food buyer cooperative is a group that pools their purchasing power to regularly order wholesale food for delivery. In a city like New York, such groups could be organized by the municipal government in NYCHA buildings or blocs, with members opting-in to select what foods to order and how much. Such cooperatives provide much steeper discounts than brick-and-mortar grocery stores due to low overhead and a simplified distribution chain.

The city could maximize these benefits by leveraging existing city-owned infrastructure–like warehouse space and trucking–combined with its massive purchasing power. The buyer’s club model avoids the very high capital costs of developing grocery stores (currently estimated at $70 million in NYC), plus the enormous on-going expenses of staffing and running large retail businesses. All of those savings are then passed on to members, turning the 5-15% discount offered by a city-owned grocery store into a 35-40% discount for buyer co-op members.

The democratic governance of a buyers club has the dual benefit of reducing food waste (nothing expires on the shelf), while shifting control over food to the working class, training its members to become protagonists in their own subsistence, rather than passive consumers. And such a program could get off the ground with only the mayor’s directive, no city council or state legislature needed.

If successful, the mayor could expand the cooperative beyond the confines of NYCHA and begin the process of vertical integration. The next logical step would be to create a city-owned food wholesaler, which would not only serve the buyers’ cooperative but food buyers throughout the city, both public and private. This could have the effect of reducing the cost of staple goods citywide, while offering 50-60% discounts to cooperative members.

Combine that with seeding worker co-ops in the food processing industry–again, utilizing existing city infrastructure, like public school kitchens after hours–and a direct farm procurement program, and you start to see the transformative potential here, in addition to the cost savings.

Create participatory assemblies

Remaking state bureaucracy in the service of the working class goes beyond appointing socialist functionaries. It requires entrenching the working class in the very structure of government so it can continually advocate for its own interests. This requires democratizing the decision-making of municipal departments.

A logical place to start would be social services client assemblies. Since the welfare state serves the working class, the working class should have decision-making power over how it operates. People who use public social services, like housing assistance, childcare, disability services, and workforce training programs would form democratic bodies–elected or chosen through a lottery–to shape how services are delivered.

The assemblies would have a say in how public agencies interact with and deliver benefits to their clients, not just via tedious surveys, but by directly voting on budget priorities, evaluating agency performance, and participating in hiring senior leadership. The application process for services would be shaped by clients, as would the on-going features of service.

This would have dual the benefit of improving agency performance while empowering the working class to assert authority over a critical state function. When state agencies are required to not just consult their constituents but to gain their vote, the balance of power shifts from the bourgeois state to the working class. Such a shift is necessary to win socialism, and it can begin right away.

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