Democrats’ newest ideas have been failing for centuries

Rent freezes, wealth taxes and price controls have all been tried and tested — and none of them actually work

- JONAH GOLDBERG

LAST WEEK, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a citywide freeze on rents.

The response from economists can be summarized as “oy.”

Economists are famous for arguing “on one hand” this and “on the other hand” that. This is why President Truman famously wanted to hire a one-handed economist. Nonetheless, there are few issues that enjoy a broader consensus among economists than the conclusion that rent control is counterproductive.

Surveys of leading economists going back nearly four decades confirm this. A 1990 poll of 464 economists found that 93% of American respondents agreed that “a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available” — 95% of Canadian economists had a similar opinion. And another survey in 2012 had a similar result.

As Jason Furman, who chaired President Obama’s economic advisory council, put it, “Rent control has been about as disgraced as any economic policy in the tool kit.” The Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck — a socialist, mind you — was pithier: “In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city — except for bombing.”