In a recent letter, Michael Rattner criticizes Vivek Chibber's keynote speech at Jacobin magazine's "Socialism In Our Time" conference. Writes Rattner: "In an incredible show of chauvinistic hubris, Chibber claimed the Mamdani primary victory had successfully returned New York City to its rightful place as the world-center of the socialist movement."

What a bizarre claim. New York City is the most global city on the planet. It is the headquarters of the United Nations. Around 800 languages are spoken in the five boroughs, making it the most linguistically diverse metro in the world. The city has the largest foreign-born population in the world, as well. It is also, of course, the cockpit of international capitalism, with trillions of dollars in global wealth managed by banks and asset managers in lower Manhattan.

The implications of a democratic socialist movement winning power in New York are vast. There is a good reason why Mamdani's primary victory in June turned heads on the other side of the world, at the Davos meeting in Tianjin. It is because the city is the "the headquarters [of] global capitalism and the capital of the dollar system," in Adam Tooze's words. It is at the center of geopolitical networks of power, too.

There is an equally good reason why the Palestine solidarity movement in New York City—a movement which powered the Mamdani campaign—generates so much fear and hatred in Tel Aviv, and so much encouragement in the West Bank and Gaza. It is because the city is a key center of political-economic support for Zionist crimes. It is a matter of obvious international importance that Mamdani has promised to arrest Netanyahu should he set foot in the city.

It is not "chauvinistic hubris" to point this out. It is a recognition of the real fact that New York City is unlike any other metropolis in the world. If there is a critique to be made of Chibber's claim, it is that the actually-existing New York City left does not yet reflect the sprawling diversity of the city. In June and in the elections last night, Mamdani showed that he and NYC-DSA have built an electoral coalition that encompasses that diversity. But NYC-DSA lacks real organization in many neighborhoods that voted for him. The task for the NYC left is to organize these areas into DSA, into labor and tenant unions, and into robust organizations that can fight to make Mamdani's platform a reality, over the fierce opposition of a "local" power structure that is in fact something like the executive committee of the world bourgeoisie—a committee that, incidentally, includes a certain real estate baron who happens to be the president of the United States.

If democratic socialists in New York can challenge these forces and prevail, then they will have genuinely earned the title of "world-center of the socialist movement."

-David P., Eugene, OR