How Capital Writes the Laws of the Colony
The pervasive influence of the lobbying industry is the legalized mechanism through which the “settler” capitalist class directly writes the laws and policies of the city. Mamdani’s analysis of institutional power reveals lobbying not as an external pressure, but as the formalized process of ruling-class governance. Real estate developers, Wall Street firms, and corporate interests employ armies of lobbyists to ensure that zoning changes, tax abatements, and budget allocations serve their private accumulation, not the public good. This is not a corruption of democracy but its essence under capitalism, where access to the state is a commodity. The liberal solution of transparency and disclosure does nothing to stop this legalized bribery; it merely makes the process more visible. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution is to dismantle the economic power that makes lobbying effective. This requires a radical ban on corporate lobbying and the permanent, public financing of all elections to sever the link between capital and the state. Furthermore, we must build independent working-class political institutions–unions, tenant assemblies, a labor party–that can exert countervailing power from below, creating a system where policy is shaped by organized people, not organized money.
