A Marxist Feminist Islamic Analysis of Seattle’s “West Coast Mamdani” Moment
December 7, 2025
Seattle mayor-elect Katie Wilson’s planned agenda has already triggered the predictable backlash from conservative quarters. The latest example comes from National Review’s framing of her victory as the ascension of a “West Coast Mamdani,” a shorthand that attempts to cast socialist governance as inherently naïve, economically illiterate, and detached from reality. But a deeper look through Marxist, feminist, and Islamic perspectives reveals not only the weakness of these criticisms, but also the structural blind spots inherent in the narrative the right attempts to advance.
A Misdiagnosis of “Scarcity”
The National Review argument rests on a premise that is familiar in neoclassical economics: scarcity is inevitable, markets are natural, and government intervention disrupts a supposedly organic process in which individuals voluntarily cooperate for collective prosperity. But from a Marxist economic standpoint, this framing is both historically and materially inaccurate.
Scarcity in capitalist economies is not an act of nature; it is a strategic outcome. Food deserts do not arise because grocery chains are victims of over-taxation or unruly consumers. They arise because capital follows profit, not people. When low-income communities become less profitable due to systemic disinvestment, racialized policing, and wage stagnation, private capital withdraws. This is not a failure of the market. It is the market functioning exactly as designed.
Islamic economic theory—particularly concepts of maslahah (public welfare) and amanah (social responsibility)—aligns with this analysis. The Qur’anic emphasis on feeding the hungry, redistributing wealth (via zakat), and preventing hoarding stands in direct contrast to the market-only approach. Under Islamic ethics, leaving entire neighborhoods without access to food would be a moral failure and a violation of communal obligation, regardless of what private profit margins say.
Gender, Labor, and the Invisible Workforce
A feminist analysis of the situation highlights another layer of contradiction in the National Review commentary: the erasure of the gendered dimension of food access. Women, especially working-class women and women of color, disproportionately shoulder the burdens of food insecurity, childcare, elder care, and household labor. When grocery stores close, it is not abstract “consumers” who are harmed; it is women who must travel farther, spend more, and absorb the stress of feeding families under conditions created by corporate cost-cutting.
Seattle’s service labor force is overwhelmingly female in sectors such as retail, food service, and caregiving. Free-market advocates rarely address this reality. When the economy contracts and businesses flee, it is women who absorb the impact as both workers and caregivers.
Wilson’s call for publicly operated grocery stores is not simply an economic choice; it is a feminist intervention into the structure of daily life. It is a recognition that the “freedom to close stores at will,” as celebrated by market absolutists, is in fact the freedom to abandon women.
Socialism as Restored Democracy
The article critiques Wilson for misunderstanding “what creates wealth,” insisting that only markets produce prosperity. But both Marxist and Islamic frameworks reject the notion that profit equals productivity or that wealth is created by capital rather than labor.
From a labor theory of value perspective, workers create wealth. Capital extracts it.
Islamic economic historians point out that for centuries, the waqf (public endowment) system provided food, education, and social welfare through communal ownership models. These systems did not collapse because they lacked competition. They thrived because they were anchored in social accountability and moral economy rather than profit-seeking.
Under this lens, Wilson’s push for public grocery options is neither radical nor misguided. It is the restoration of an older system of democratic provisioning, one aligned with global traditions of communal welfare.
The Myth of “Hostile Business Climate”
National Review invokes the familiar conservative trope that progressive cities “scare off business” by taxing corporations or refusing to tolerate criminal predation. But every empirical study of food deserts contradicts this narrative. Research in urban sociology, including work from UCLA, CUNY, and McGill, shows that grocery chains leave neighborhoods based on profitability models that factor in predicted margins, lease terms, real estate speculation, and demographic projections—not crime or taxes.
In fact, a University of Michigan study found that most closures occur in areas where rents increase or where corporate consolidation shifts priorities toward centralized distribution. Crime, often waved about as a political red herring, is rarely cited in internal documents.
The False Analogy to Military Commissaries
The National Review argument compares public grocery stores to Defense Commissaries, implying that government-run food distribution is inherently unsustainable. This analogy is flawed for several reasons:
- Commissaries exist within a military bureaucracy, not a municipal one.
- Their pricing is artificially constrained by federal policy, unlike city-operated stores.
- They serve a population with unique mobility limits and subsidy structures.
A more appropriate comparison would be to publicly operated markets in Europe, Latin America, or North Africa, which function successfully without collapsing under the weight of their own budgets.
Seattle’s Public Option Is Not “Anti-Business”
Wilson’s plan does not seek to eliminate private grocery stores. It seeks to ensure that neighborhoods abandoned by capital are not abandoned by their government. Public options create competition, stabilize prices, and support workers by providing baseline access to goods essential to life. Social democracies worldwide use this model without descending into economic chaos.
A City Moving Toward Equity
A Marxist feminist Islamic perspective reframes the narrative:
- Food access is a right, not a commodity.
- Markets create deserts, not governments.
- Women and working-class families bear the brunt of corporate withdrawal.
- Public provisioning is not radical. It is responsible governance.
- Socialism, in this context, seeks to democratize survival.
Seattle is not facing a “Mamdani problem.” It is confronting the consequences of a half-century of market absolutism. Wilson’s election signals a shift toward models that prioritize people over profit and embrace the moral, economic, and social obligations policymakers routinely ignore.
Seattle is not in danger because it elected a socialist.
Seattle is healing because it finally did.
