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Pride is as of yet the only one of the Seven Deadly Sins to get a whole month dedicated to celebrating it, but the recent election in New York City provides a strong case for renaming June, as almost spent as it is, not Pride Month, but Envy Month. After all, Zohran Mamdani, who was just voted Most Likely to Be the Next Mayor of New York, is a member (like his friend Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) of the Democratic Socialists of America. And that is one of Mamdani’s least radical associations. It looks as if socialism, the politics of envy, is about to engulf the nation’s largest city.

Mamdani made it clear that he is way beyond Democratic Socialists territory four and a half years ago. On Dec. 25, 2020, the Communist Party of India in that country’s Puducherry territory, which adds the helping clarifying term “Marxist” to its name in parentheses, just in case there was any doubt about whether they’re for gulags and the knock on the door at four a.m., posted praise on what was then known as Twitter for the youthful Marxist mayor of the city of Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala: “Comrade Arya Rajendran, age 21 new Mayor of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. She will be the youngest mayor of a major city in the world. Here she leads a detachment of Red Volunteers in @CPIMKerala. #CPIM #LeftAlternative #Communist.”

In one of the two accompanying photos, Comrade Rajendran stares determinedly ahead while clutching a pole as if it were a rifle, looking for all the world like her Marxist comrades in Chinese Communist Party propaganda dating from the heady days of the Cultural Revolution, on her way to a struggle session to reveal the dangerous ideological deviations of the class enemy.

Mamdani presented this tweet from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Puducherry State with this comment: “them: so what kind of mayor does nyc need right now? me:” Then followed the Commies’ tweet. So Mamdani was saying that what the City That Never Sleeps really needs is a Communist mayor, and the mind reels at the fact that this was not enough of a big deal to prevent him from running for mayor as a candidate of the Democratic Party. So the Democrats evidently have no problem with open Marxists now, and the politics of envy, which not just Mamdani but Bernie and AOC and a host of others have made the centerpiece of their program, is fast becoming its guiding principle.

Socialism and Communism are, at heart, nothing but envy. Someone works harder than I do, or is more talented than I am, or knows all the right people. And so someone has more than I do, and I want to even the score. I could work harder, and labor in particular to develop the talents I need to get ahead in my chosen field, or try to make the acquaintance of the people I think I need to know. Yet the harsh facts of life will still likely confront me: someone else is always going to have more, do better, be more accomplished, be better known.

I can accept this as a fact of life: all men are created equal in dignity and worth, but not equal in abilities or anything else. I can accept this and be grateful for what I do have, or I can fall into envy, and begin to hate others for excelling where I did not.

Socialism and Communism take that envy, which used to be widely recognized as something to be shunned, as it sucks all the joy out of life, and makes it a virtue. A righteous person sees Elon Musk and admires him for his industry, his imagination, his daring, and his vision. An envious person sees him, even before he got mixed up with Orange Man Bad, and wonders why he has so much money. A socialist or a Communist will answer that it’s because of inherent and systemic inequities and injustices that have to be redressed by forced redistribution of goods, so that everyone will enjoy an equal share of the fruits of all of our labors. This is just envy dressed up in the clothes of “social justice,” which disguises the fact that it’s still just envy.

If he becomes mayor and follows through on his promises of free grocery stores and the like, Zohran Mamdani will have to find someone who will pay for all the free stuff he is handing out to the envious and lazy (as well as, conceivably, a small number of the truly needy). Wealthy New Yorkers, rather than be taxed into penury, will simply pull up stakes and leave the city. Mamdani, like the East Germans, will have to build a wall around his city to keep the producers from fleeing, so they can be duly fleeced by the envious.

A wall will most likely not be built. Instead, New York will become a crime-ridden hellhole that those who had means to do so have fled. Envy not only kills the soul; it kills societies. And now it has a chance to kill New York. Happy Envy Month!