Democratic Socialists Attack Intellectual and Private Property

With elections just days away, part of the enthusiasm for so-called ‘democratic socialists’ is their claim that people deserve lower rents. Unfortunately, many don’t seem to realize that the Democratic Socialists of America’s agenda is destructive to private property, whether real estate or intellectual property.  Their agenda will kill the American dream.

People like Zoran Mamdani and Seattle’s Katie Wilson have been elected by promising to lower rents in highly desirable urban areas.  Democratic socialists attack the principle of private property and call landlords “parasites.”  In New York, Mamdani has instituted show trials, pitting “good” tenants against “bad” landlords.  The message here is that the state should control markets, whether it’s the housing market, or grocery stores, transportation, healthcare, or telecommunications. 

In other words, use the power of government to choose winners and losers.   Build a constituency out of dependency.

This is not just an attack on a small group of alleged fat cats, but a larger attack on the principle of private property and our constitutional republic. Their platform calls for overturning the Constitution and directly quotes the Communist Manifesto’s false claim that they seek to “win the battle for democracy:”

The political and economic system under which we live is built on private ownership and profit at all costs … We are workers fighting to transform society: to win the battle for democracy, draft a new constitution, and create a democratic socialist republic (DSA 2026).

How does this translate into policy?  New York State Bill S9912 would establish a tax-funded pool of $50 million to underwrite striking “tenant associations.”  In other words, taxpayers would foot the bill for an activist organization of tenants.  In New York City, Mayor Mamdani’s “Block by Block” plan seeks to use over $2 billion in taxpayer funds to “transfer ownership” to “community land trusts, nonprofits, or even tenants themselves.”  In Seattle and Tacoma, there are seasons when it is illegal to evict non-paying tenants and rules for landlords financing the relocation costs of tenants.

At the heart of all of this is an assault on all private business and private property, not just real estate in major cities. Indeed what is often missed is the attack on intellectual property.

So much of the wealth that has been created in the past half century has happened because America is the land of opportunity and innovation, resulting in new industries. A generation ago there was no Apple, Tesla, or Microsoft, nor thousands of other companies that make up the digital economy. We have seen massive advances in medicine and other fields that have made life better.  We have seen the democratization and monetization of new forms of the written word and video ‘content,’ as people make their livings through Substack, YouTube, and other media.

Although the DSA has smoothed the confiscatory language in its latest platform, we can see its anti-IP position in its official 2021 agenda.

-Nationalize and socialize … institutions of monetary policy, insurance, real estate, and finance

-End or limit patent/copyright protections in the U.S.

-End private monopolies/oligopolies and implement public WiFi, internet management, technology services, and data storage…

-Public ownership and control of social media platforms…

Think about all of the young professionals, artists, and entrepreneurs who would be harmed if government stole their intellectual property!

Why are democratic socialists so hostile to private property? It is because they are Marxists who promote a politics of envy, claiming that all forms of private property are just systems of exploitation.

The not-so-hidden agenda is the same old Marxist playbook: seize power and then control political and social life.  Create cycles of dependency where citizens become subjects of the state, beholden to state-run grocery stores, housing, transportation, and education.

There is another name for this.  Communism.

Voters ought to look beyond the slick TikTok videos and evaluate the presuppositions and pledges of every candidate and every party in this election cycle. It is in the interest of every American, particularly younger Americans, to defend our free market system of innovation, value creation, economic opportunity, and constitutional democracy.

Photo by Pax Ahimsa Gethen via Wikimedia under CC BY-SA 4.0.