One fiscal cliché is guaranteed to survive 2026: that governments, especially the US government, are willing to mobilize resources for the destruction of human lives that they would never even consider using to improve them. Donald Trump recently made this clear: "We fight wars. We can't afford childcare." In the first weeks of the Iran-Iraq War, the US spent an average of $2.1 billion a day on its military operations; now Trump wants to increase the military budget to $1.5 trillion for 2027. Imagine how generously such sums could be used for childcare.
But another, similarly firmly established prejudice is beginning to wobble – almost imperceptibly, but certainly: the cliché that socialists can't handle money, but conservatives can.
Recently, German Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche of the CDU caused outrage when it became known that she intends to outsource core tasks of her ministry to a private consulting firm, a move that could cost more than 2 million euros. Just a week earlier, New York's socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, declared that he had saved the city, among other things, 9 million dollars by terminating an unnecessary contract with the consulting giant McKinsey. While neoliberals understand responsible fiscal management to mean being stingy with those in need but generous with the elite, Mamdani reverses this logic, halting uncontrolled flows of money into the coffers of private contractors while simultaneously expanding childcare services .
In the video message, he emphasized: "As someone who deeply believes in the government's responsibility to deliver for working-class people, I also believe it is our responsibility to deliver an efficient government where every single dollar is used in the best possible way." During his campaign, Mamdani had already demanded that the city break free from its "addiction to consultants and contractors." For example, the previous mayor had hired McKinsey to find a solution to the city's garbage problem—the result was a trash can that looks and functions like a normal trash can, but whose design cost $1.6 million.
The "top management consultancy" that Reiche now wants to purchase for her ministry is, according to the tender , supposed to generate a great deal of text in addition to ad-hoc telephone consultations and workshops, ranging from "short written reports, in particular the creation of brief analyses, fact sheets, recommendations for action, and presentation materials" to "more comprehensive written reports, in particular strategic foundations, guidelines, and documentation." In our glorious AI age, one must unfortunately assume that a considerable amount of consulting slop will be involved. Recall a case from Australia last year in which it emerged that the consulting firm Deloitte had produced a $440,000 report for the government using AI, including hallucinated sources . This must be the fabled cost efficiency in the private sector.
Contrary to neoliberal propaganda, the privatization of public services is generally not cheaper, but more expensive. The fact that sovereignty can be regained and money saved simultaneously by bringing competencies back into the state is not something Mamdani was the first to discover. Most recently, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum, the previous and current presidents of Mexico, both of whom had previously served as mayors of Mexico City, demonstrated this approach . However, while on this side of the Atlantic, even among some on the left, the politically significant developments in Mexico have yet to register, Mamdani, as mayor of New York, has become an international sensation and offers another opportunity to turn the tables on the neoliberals regarding efficiency.
In Berlin, the Left Party is optimistic about its chances of winning the mayoral election in September with Elif Eralp as their candidate. Internal party voices, who are skeptical of the party taking over the government, cite , among other things, the poor state of Berlin's finances. If the Left Party is serious about following Mamdani's example, it should now investigate where the Berlin Senate is spending too much money on things and services that don't benefit the population – and campaign against it. Ensuring that public funds don't enrich contractors or disappear into bureaucracy, but instead reach the people in the form of useful services, is a worthy ambition for a 21st-century Left Party.
