TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsCan progressives deliver economic growth?
At a time of historic inequality and inadequate public investment, the kind of redistributive policies promoted by politicians on the left are badly needed.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Set as preferred source
People celebrate during New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's inauguration ceremony in New York City, the United States, on Jan. 1, 2026. (Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
W
hen New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani named Anthony Shorris and Lina Khan to lead the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), as president and board chair, respectively, he did more than fill two important vacancies in his administration. He also underscored his recognition of a key challenge with which the left has long grappled: how to deliver not only economic redistribution but also economic growth.
As is customary for the left, Mamdani’s winning electoral message focused on the redistribution side of the equation: improving affordability, advocating a rent freeze, providing free use of public buses, establishing municipal grocery stores, pursuing racial equity, delivering universal childcare and taxing the wealthiest households. Since assuming office at the beginning of this year, he has made notable progress on many of these promises, while strengthening daily governance and the delivery of basic services, reducing bureaucracy and promoting housing construction.
Mamdani’s initial successes are all the more striking because, like other United States mayors, he faces structural limits on his policies, including a state government that circumscribes the city’s scope of action on taxes and regulation, and a bond market skeptical of redistribution. Moreover, New York City is the center of a fractured metropolitan economic region in which the city drives growth, and covers the costs and problems this process creates, while politically independent suburbs capture much of the wealth.
Compounding the challenge, US President Donald Trump’s administration is particularly hostile toward Mamdani, who has become a test case for the kind of people-oriented progressive agenda that Republicans (and many Democrats) decry as incompatible with growth and innovation. But Mamdani is not alone in facing such criticism, nor is this exclusively an American issue. Across Europe, leaders promising economic justice have often struggled to convince the public that they can deliver dynamism.
This has been the case for Germany’s Social Democrats, whose redistribution-oriented proposals have been inadequate to prevent their polling numbers from sinking into the single digits in some states. It has also been true for France’s left-wing alliance, which largely touts a redistribution-focused program, including a higher minimum wage, price controls and a wealth tax. In 2024, more voters reported trusting Marine Le Pen’s far-right party on the economy than the left-wing alliance or President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance.
Spain’s leftist governing alliance has seemingly flipped the script, delivering some economic growth. But its approval ratings are falling, partly because of the lack of progress on another key element of the economic-justice agenda: housing affordability.
These political difficulties point to a fundamental challenge. At a time of historic inequality and inadequate public investment, redistribution is essential; but no jurisdiction can tax and regulate its way to affordability. A growth-enhancing agenda that generates good jobs and productive capacity is also crucial.
