this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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City owned grocery shops? I...wut. This breaks my mind. Not in WTF is this way, just how would this work. Curious how it will come out and hoping for the best.
There are already gov. owned stores in some states (liquor stores, but that's close enough).
It's a pilot program for a few stores.
The city currently has a program where they're paying private grocery stores to try and mitigate food deserts, but there's so few strings attached it's just free money to the shops.
He's proposing ending that, and using the money to directly open grocery stores in food deserts run as city owned coops.
It's not infringing on private business because they're not operating in these areas anyway.
The city owns and runs the grocery stores. They're not required to make huge profits and can therefore offer reasonable prices. They can buy directly from local suppliers, thus creating or securing local jobs. Basically, if you cut out all the bloodsuckers, things become much better.
Public grocery stores are a useful solution to food deserts without forcing high wages or ideologically preferred suppliers. It is a zero cost option in that the stores can sustain themselves. It is a big benefit to neighbourhoods and property owners in those neighbourhoods.
The thing is, actual capitalist theory suggests it wouldn't "cut out" bloodsuckers at all. It would force them to compete but they would survive, presumably just fine.
A public option is definitely a socialist platform, but unless the government stores are allowed to operate at a loss indefinitely, supplemented by tax dollars, they pose NO real threat to those businesses, only to greedy gouging.
I don't think the idea is to eliminate 'regular' corporate owned grocery stores. I think it's meant to be an alternative that offers cheaper food for people who need that. NYC has a pretty high standard of living, I am sure there will be plenty of people who can still afford to shop at the corporate grocery stores because they are more conveniently located or maybe the selection if better, and I'm sure some will shop there just so they don't have to interact with poor people.
If there was a functioning market economy, none of this shit would be necessary in the first place.