This op-ed by Dr. Anne Bradley, TFAS vice president of academic affairs, originally appeared in the online and print editions of The Washington Post. You can find the original article here.

In September 1989, two years before he would be elected president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin visited a Randalls grocery store outside Houston during a speaking tour of the United States. The visit was life-changing for Yeltsin; he was stunned by the quality and quantity of goods available to ordinary Americans, compared with what was then obtainable in the Soviet Union. In his words, the average American had access to a greater abundance of food options than even Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader at the time.

Thirty years prior, another Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, had visited a Quality Foods supermarket in San Franciscoduring a diplomatic tour. Khrushchev, too, appeared amazed by the available products, well aware that the Soviet Union struggled to provide even basic sustenance for its citizens. Both Soviet leaders were confronted with the fruits, or lack thereof, of competing economic systems — one that promoted freedom in production, exchange and innovation, while the other operated through bureaucratic control.

It should come as no surprise that U.S. grocery stores far outperformed those in the Soviet Union. After all, the U.S.S.R., thanks in part to the increasing stagnation within its Communist command economy, collapsed in 1991, while America’s market economy continues to lead the world today. However, it appears some of these lessons have been lost to the sands of time.

Americans today rightly note rising prices at their grocery stores, but many of those on the left incorrectly blame corporate greed and so-called dynamic pricing rather than general inflation, while promoting socialist solutions they claim would lower costs. Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, is at the forefront of this movement, proposing to launch a network of government-run grocery stores in the city once he’s elected.

Mamdani’s pilot program aims to open five groceries, one in each borough, funded and operated by the city. The stores would be exempt from rent and property taxes, and they would offer wholesale products to consumers at lower prices because there would be no markup for turning a profit — or “price-gouging,” as the Mamdani campaign calls it. The campaign also said the program rules would keep the stores from competing with mom-and-pop stores or those operated by union grocers. We’ve heard this before, and not just from the Soviet Union; cities in Missouri and Florida have tried similar approaches without success. Economic realities aside, the plan is popular among New Yorkers — a recent poll found that 66 percent of likely New York City voters supported it.

The proposal is another in Mamdani’s campaign catering to voters’ economic anxieties, particularly the rising cost of living among younger New Yorkers. And Gen Z voters are most likely to be receptive to Mamdani’s populist, hard-left message — a recent poll found that 62 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 hold favorable views toward socialism.

However, pocketbook anxieties (which are real and should be taken seriously) and trendy socialist vibes don’t change economic reality, which remains as true today as it did during the times of Yeltsin and Khrushchev. Soviet grocery stores failed because they sought to replace fundamental economic principles with bureaucrats, and government-run stores in New York City will face the same challenges.

When you distort prices, eliminate the profit motive and minimize incentives, you undermine the foundation of how a complex economy, composed of millions of individuals making choices, directs scarce goods and services to their best uses and simultaneously generates abundance. Asking a group of unqualified government bureaucrats to determine prices, quantities and demand is wildly unrealistic, even for Kansas City’s Sun Fresh government-backed grocery store in Missouri — which recently closed due to high crime and low profitability, despite receiving significant public funding. The cruel joke of socialism is that it always starts with “free stuff” and ends with no stuff. Not only is there no free lunch, there is no lunch.

U.S. grocery stores aren’t perfect, but they generally offer a reliable and diverse assortment of high-quality items at prices most Americans are willing to pay. Gen Z voters, who want high-quality and healthy food and beverages, and are accustomed to the convenience of shopping with a single tap or click, would be sorely disappointed by Mamdani’s government-run grocery stores. Take it from the experiences of two Soviet leaders who saw clear evidence of what many New Yorkers seem to be missing: The only realistic way to keep shelves full and prices low is through open and competitive markets, not government bureaucrats.