Daniel Wortel-London for Jacobin: “Zohran Mamdani Can Reduce New York’s Dependence on the Rich”
Daniel Wortel-London, visiting assistant professor of history at Bard College.
Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City on a progressive platform promising affordability to its working class residents. This message has historically been a winning one, writes Visiting Assistant Professor of History Daniel Wortel-London for Jacobin: “But history also reveals a more sobering lesson: you can’t finance progressive policies with a regressive economy.”
Drawing lessons from New York’s past, Wortel-London makes the historical case that mayor-elect Mamdani will need to reduce the City’s reliance on tax income from its wealthiest residents. “According to the city’s Independent Budget Office, the top 1 percent of earners now contribute about 45 percent of all local personal income tax revenues, up from roughly 30 percent in the 1980s,” he writes. In order to achieve the policies laid out during his campaign, Mamdani will need to diversify the City’s tax base. So far, “there are good signs that the incoming mayor is ready to do this,” Wortel-London writes. “Mamdani is poised to help New York City shift its economic foundations while continuing to tax the wealthy as much as necessary—moving toward an economy that is healthier, more balanced, and better aligned with the needs of the public and the public sector.”
The Historical Studies Program at Bard College encourages students to examine history through the prism of other relevant disciplines such as anthropology, economics, and philosophy and different forms of expression. The program also introduces students to a variety of methodological perspectives used in historical research and to philosophical assumptions about men, women, and society that underlie these perspectives.
Post Date: 12-09-2025
Drawing lessons from New York’s past, Wortel-London makes the historical case that mayor-elect Mamdani will need to reduce the City’s reliance on tax income from its wealthiest residents. “According to the city’s Independent Budget Office, the top 1 percent of earners now contribute about 45 percent of all local personal income tax revenues, up from roughly 30 percent in the 1980s,” he writes. In order to achieve the policies laid out during his campaign, Mamdani will need to diversify the City’s tax base. So far, “there are good signs that the incoming mayor is ready to do this,” Wortel-London writes. “Mamdani is poised to help New York City shift its economic foundations while continuing to tax the wealthy as much as necessary—moving toward an economy that is healthier, more balanced, and better aligned with the needs of the public and the public sector.”
The Historical Studies Program at Bard College encourages students to examine history through the prism of other relevant disciplines such as anthropology, economics, and philosophy and different forms of expression. The program also introduces students to a variety of methodological perspectives used in historical research and to philosophical assumptions about men, women, and society that underlie these perspectives.
Post Date: 12-09-2025