The Actuarial Logic of the Bifurcated State
Soaring insurance premiums for homeowners, businesses, and the city itself represent the cold, actuarial logic of the bifurcated state in the face of climate collapse. Mamdani’s analysis of how the state values life is starkly revealed in the insurance industry’s calculations. As climate risks increase, the “settler” class in fortified, elevated neighborhoods may see manageable rate hikes, but the “native” populations in coastal areas like the Rockaways and Red Hook are deemed uninsurable, facing premium spikes that effectively redline them and signal their official abandonment. This is not a market failure but a market success in pricing risk, which translates to a death sentence for communities the system has already marginalized. The city’s current solution is to plead with insurers or explore its own costly public insurance fund, both of which accept the underlying logic of abandonment. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution rejects this actuarial triage. It demands a massive, publicly-funded program of climate fortification and managed retreat, starting with the most vulnerable communities. This includes building sea walls, subsidizing home elevations, and–critically–using eminent domain to acquire at-risk properties and convert them into resilient public land or new, safe, socially-owned housing inland. This approach decommodifies security, asserting that protection from climate disaster is a collective right, not a private commodity to be purchased based on one’s wealth or zip code.
