{"product_id":"no-86","title":"No. 86","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"mt-14 mb-24 relative\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"px-4 sm:px-0 body-copy-frame\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"mt-14 mb-24 relative\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"px-4 sm:px-0 body-copy-frame\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c!-- wp:paragraph --\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"first-selection\"\u003ePity the New York taxpayer,\u003c\/span\u003e cried the city’s local press. Forced to pay for an NYPD security detail on our new First Lady’s gallivants to Syria and Lebanon, hardworking New Yorkers would be taken for a ride by the silver-tongued socialist in Gracie Mansion. Mayor Zohran Mamdani soon walked back the idea that the NYPD would be bound for the Middle East to accompany his wife on her trip to visit family, but the incident prompted again the easy refrain that socialists are grifters who spend other people’s money as they dream up utopias—as if Eric Adams, Mamdani’s predecessor, hadn’t taken the boys in blue on New Yorkers’ 1040s to Colombia, Uzbekistan, and Israel, among other exotic locations.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo be sure, the animating force behind Mamdani’s administration thus far has been to work against the received wisdom that socialism is not only fraudulent as an ideology but inconvenient and inefficient as governing methodology. Much has been made of his nuts-and-bolts approach—potholes filled, bus lanes built, toilets opened, trees planted—as a revival of the sewer socialism that ruled Milwaukee for much of the first half of the twentieth century. Less heralded than those Socialist Wisconsinites’ sanitation standards has been their financial acumen. As \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/pay-as-you-go-backer\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eDavid I. Backer\u003c\/a\u003e writes in “Tight Ship,” an issue dedicated to efficiency and incompetence alike, the sewer socialists relentlessly audited municipal government as they sought savings for their constituents. They also provisioned public housing, helping Milwaukeeans avoid the predations of the market; today, tenants are treated so poorly that we have reality television shows devoted to glorifying evictions, \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/jack-squat-friedrich\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eMichael Friedrich\u003c\/a\u003e writes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGraft and the government are not uniquely American problems, of course. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/bridges-and-bullets-lopez-cordero\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eRicardo López Cordero\u003c\/a\u003e reports from Mexico, where the military has taken over state function after state function (building infrastructure, running customs, greeting arrivees at the airport), all the while profiting immensely from the largest documented corruption scheme in the nation’s history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eElsewhere in extractive regimes, \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/the-beer-wars-schouten\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ePeer Schouten\u003c\/a\u003e describes how, at the heart of Central Africa’s economy, a complex system of taxation revolves around a singular commodity: beer. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/outbursts\/rough-passage-khalili\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eLaleh Khalili\u003c\/a\u003e writes on the cost of insuring oil as the war with Iran rages on, and \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/brick-by-brick-batmanghelidj\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eEsfandyar Batmanghelidj\u003c\/a\u003e gives a history of Iranian brickwork, a humble architectural vernacular that persists in large part due to the West’s onerous sanctions regime. The built environment in a warming world requires adequate cooling, as \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/odds-and-ends\/modern-climes-wilson\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eTom Wilson\u003c\/a\u003e documents in his exhibit on the mini-splits taking over New York City—like remora on a shark, or perhaps parakeets on the branch of a poplar in London. \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/the-pollycrisis-wingrave\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eDavid Wingrave\u003c\/a\u003e asks whether the roughly fifty-thousand-strong pandemonium of parakeets taking over the United Kingdom are avian friend or foe, while \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/pork-futures-trueger\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eIan Trueger\u003c\/a\u003e tells of new British advances in swine genetics and the boom-bust “pork cycle” threatening bacon everywhere. The ham hock threatens one’s figure, as \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/sweat-gets-in-your-eyes-onstad\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eChris Onstad\u003c\/a\u003e explains in his treatise on human locomotion, but is extreme walking—nearly forty-four miles in a day at his peak—the answer? There has to be a more efficient way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e November 2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 136\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"The Baffler","offers":[{"title":"Print Issue","offer_id":45789009903639,"sku":"Baf86Print","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"eBook (E-Reader)","offer_id":45789009936407,"sku":"Baf86MOBI","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"eBook (Tablet)","offer_id":45789009969175,"sku":"Baf86EPUB","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0377\/7585\/files\/B86-Cover-Single_front_d3335043-64dc-437d-a9f9-b5061df04d9b.jpg?v=1793071809","url":"https:\/\/store.thebaffler.com\/products\/no-86","provider":"The Baffler ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}