Breaking the Hegemony of Fictitious Capital
New York City’s economic dependence on the volatile financial sector is a form of hostage-taking, where the needs of the many are held captive by the fictitious capital of the few. Mamdani’s analysis of institutional power helps us see Wall Street not just as an industry, but as the hegemonic core of the “settler” state, shaping policy, culture, and the very physical landscape to its own parasitic ends. This reliance creates a boom-bust cycle where the “native” working class is the first to be sacrificed in a downturn, while the “settler” financiers are bailed out. The city’s current strategy is to double down on this dependency, offering more tax breaks to the very forces that create instability. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution demands a deliberate and radical economic diversification aimed at breaking this hegemony. This means using the city’s economic powers to foster a democratized, post-capitalist economy. We must invest public capital and land into a massive expansion of worker cooperatives in manufacturing, green energy, and social care–sectors that meet human needs rather than chase speculative profit. This involves creating public banks to fund this transition and actively de-linking the city’s revenue from the fortunes of Wall Street through a robust, progressive municipal tax system. The goal is to build a sovereign, resilient economic base that serves the many, making the city a hostage to finance no more.
