Welcome to the Farm: All Equal, All Betrayed

BY CLAIRE AMBINDER KANNER

“Socialism only works in two places: Heaven, where they don’t need it, and Hell, where they already have it.” That was Ronald Reagan at his finest, using humor not as a rhetorical flourish, but as a warning about human nature, reminding us that systems built on utopian intentions fail when applied to imperfect human beings. That warning feels newly relevant in New York City. When Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks about the “frigidity of rugged individualism” and the “warmth of collectivism,” he is not merely being poetic. He is making a moral judgment, one that reveals a dangerous misunderstanding, not only of economics, but of human nature and of history.

Calling individualism “frigid” suggests that personal responsibility is cruel, while calling collectivism “warm” suggests that moral worth comes from belonging rather than action. This framing is appealing, but backwards. Individualism is not frigid; it is demanding. It assumes that we can make choices and live with the results. Individualism does not promise comfort or equality of outcome, but it does promise something more valuable: accountability. What Mamdani describes as “frigidity” is simply exposure to reality, to the fact that despite our efforts we don’t always succeed and that intentions do not erase consequences.

In contrast, collectivist dogma is comforting because it tells people that failure is systemic rather than personal. Your disappointment is injustice; your resentment is insight. The warmth is real, but it comes from being told that nothing meaningful will be asked of you in this life. Those who choose collectivism are not confused; they are consciously rejecting accountability. When judgment is treated as oppression, standards cannot survive. Achievement becomes embarrassing because it implies merit. Expertise becomes suspect because it reveals that its holder has made tradeoffs. Failure becomes virtuous, because it serves as evidence that one has not benefited from a “rigged system.” In this environment, moral certainty replaces competence, and conviction replaces capability.

Mamdani appears to fully embrace this worldview. His praise of collectivist “warmth” does not ask whether collectivism works, it asks whether it feels humane. The economist Friedrich von Hayek explained why this approach always ends badly: “Through the inevitable mismanagement of resources and goods at the disposal of the state, all forms of collectivism lead eventually to tyranny.” Not all collectivist leaders start as tyrants, but central control suppresses feedback. Force replaces adjustment when mistakes cannot be discussed or corrected. Ludwig von Mises, another free-market economist, was even more blunt: “Socialism is an alternative to capitalism as potassium cyanide is an alternative to water.” Capitalism transmits information through prices, failure and success. Collectivism cuts those signals. The result is breakdown in the name of good feelings.

America’s founding principles oppose this collectivist ideology. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” does not mean comfort, assurances or protection from failure. Happiness is the freedom to use one’s time, talent, and resources to build a meaningful life—one that benefits family, supports community and ensures the prosperity of future generations. But this vision requires discipline and effort, the hallmarks of adulthood. Calling this moral framework “frigid” is not compassionate, rather, it demonstrates resentment toward responsibility.

Supporters of Mamdani insist that his vision is driven by empathy, not communist ideology. But the results of these policies are always the same. As Argentinian President Javier Milei has explained, “The impoverishment produced by collectivism is not a fantasy, nor is it an escapable fate.” Argentina is proof of this: decades of collectivist policy produced runaway inflation, stagnation, and decline. Venezuela tells a similar story, as did the Soviet Union, and countless other smaller experiments. The pattern never changes; in collectivist systems, reality always pushes back, and blame, rather than self-correction, ensues.

Unfortunately, there are still many people who believe that America will somehow avoid this clear historical pattern. This attitude has particular consequences for Jewish people whose life is built around law, obligation, learning and continuity, not around state power or ideological conformity. Jewish survival has always relied on a profound sense of personal responsibility focused on formal education, family structure, community discipline and moral agency, even in the face of injustice. This makes Jewish existence inconvenient for collectivist thinking. Collectivism insists that systems determine outcome. Jewish history contradicts that claim. It shows that agency matters even when the system is hostile.

This is why collectivist movements so often drift into antisemitism. Jews, they say, are privileged and insufficiently aligned with the collectivist cause, and they are portrayed as standing in the way of moral progress with their insistence on law, boundaries, and particularity. Mamdani’s political rhetoric feeds this logic when he claims that individuality, a core Jewish value, is something that must be overridden. When “warmth” is the highest virtue, law, obligation, and particularity become tools of cruelty. History has taught Jews to recognize this pattern early, because they have paid the price for it repeatedly.

The real choice facing America is not between cold individualism and warm collectivism. It is between responsibility and excuses, between standards and sentiment, between adulthood and dependence. Mamdani chooses slogans of warmth over harder truths. Americans should understand the cost of that choice. Warmth cannot run a country. Accountability can. When nations abandon accountability, history is very clear about who suffers first: everyone except those who control the levers of power.