MAMDANI: Complex Bureaucracy: The Customary Law of the Settler State

Designed Inefficiency as a Tool of Exclusion

The complex, labyrinthine bureaucracy of New York City’s government is not an accident of size but a deliberate “customary law” of the settler state, designed to exclude the “native” population from accessing rights and resources. Mamdani’s analysis of how colonial power operates through decentralized, arbitrary institutions is perfectly captured in the experience of applying for affordable housing, food stamps, or a small business permit. The endless forms, contradictory rules, and long waits are not inefficiencies; they are a filtering mechanism that privileges those with the time, education, and resources (the “settlers”) to navigate it, while systematically frustrating and disenfranchising the poor, the undocumented, and the non-English speaking (“the natives”). This is a soft, administrative despotism. The liberal solution of “streamlining” through digital portals often just creates a digital divide. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution demands a radical simplification and democratization of the bureaucracy. This means implementing a “presumptive eligibility” model for all social services, where the state bears the burden of proof. It requires a massive investment in multilingual, community-based advocates who guide residents through processes. Ultimately, it means dismantling the punitive, means-tested welfare model and replacing it with universal programs–like a social wage and universal housing–that render the exclusionary bureaucracy obsolete, replacing a system designed to deny with one designed to provide.