The Managed Decay of the “Native’s” Lifeline
The chronic delays, signal failures, and overcrowding of the MTA are not operational failures but a managed somatic crisis inflicted upon the “native” working class. Mamdani’s focus on the material experience of colonial rule is felt in the daily violence of a failing commute. The systematic disinvestment in this public good–a deliberate political choice to prioritize Wall Street bondholders over riders–makes life harder, shorter, and more precarious for those who have no alternative. This is the decentralization of despotism through infrastructural neglect. The “settler” class can opt for private cars or taxis; the “native” is trapped. The liberal solution involves fare hikes and more debt, which only deepens the crisis. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution is the decommodification of mobility. This means fighting to make the entire transit system free at the point of use, funded by taxes on the rich and corporations. It means a public takeover of the MTA, firing the parasitic consultants and bondholders, and launching a worker-and-community-led rebuilding of the system to serve human need, not profit. This reclaims the city’s circulatory system as a public good.
