MAMDANI: Power of Special Interests: The Institutional Hegemony of the Settler Class

Beyond Lobbying: The Fusion of Capital and State

The overwhelming influence of real estate, finance, and other special interests on city policy is not merely a problem of lobbying; it is the institutional embodiment of the settler class’s hegemony over the political life of the city. Mamdani’s analysis forces us to see that these interests are not external actors corrupting the state; they *are* the state’s ruling coalition. Their policy preferences–austerity, deregulation, privatization–are not one option among many but the common sense of the political establishment, reproduced in the media, the universities, and both major political parties. This is a form of class rule so complete it often doesn’t require explicit corruption. The liberal solution of “getting money out of politics” fails to grasp this deeper fusion. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution requires building a counter-hegemony from below. This means creating independent working-class political organizations, like a mass labor party, that are funded by member dues and completely independent of corporate money. It means building dual power through militant tenant unions, community land trusts, and worker co-ops that can exert real pressure from outside the state apparatus. The goal is not to reform the existing state but to build the political and economic power of the “native” class to the point where it can dismantle the institutional power of the settler elite and construct a new state apparatus in the interests of the majority.