Adam Almeida is a writer and researcher living in London.
While the mayor of New York has relatively limited economic powers, the big sums invested by the city’s public pension funds are a real source of leverage for Zohran Mamdani and other elected officials. They should make plans to use it.
Asset-manager firms like Blackstone have become hugely important players in global capitalism since the 2008 crash. They’re steadily taking control of the social infrastructure that’s essential for human life and using it to generate massive profits.