Grocery stores in New York have devised a clever marketing tactic by preying upon the economically vulnerable. The latest example is the so-called “free grocery store” stunt in New York, which was quickly seized upon as proof that groceries can somehow be made affordable simply by eliminating prices. This is the same naïve thinking that has failed every single time it has been tried throughout history.
Polymarket and Kalshi agreed to provide free groceries for a limited time. That is not a solution; it is a publicity stunt designed to exploit public anger over the rising cost of living. The real danger is that politicians like Zohran Mamdani seize on this spectacle as justification for government-run grocery stores and price controls.
I have warned repeatedly that price controls never work, especially on necessities like food. Price is not some arbitrary number that greedy corporations invent. Price is the signal that tells producers whether it is worth planting crops, transporting goods, hiring labor, and absorbing risk.
Every time governments attempt to suppress food prices, shortages emerge. Shelves empty. Black markets form and quality deteriorates. The Soviet Union was not plagued by empty grocery stores because of capitalism, but because price controls eliminated the profit motive that keeps supply flowing. Venezuela followed the same path, blaming merchants for rising prices while systematically dismantling production through controls and confiscation. The result was hunger, not affordability.
We are told that eliminating profit, rent, or “corporate greed” will magically lower prices. In reality, removing profit simply removes supply. When a state-run grocery store inevitably runs deficits, the losses are either covered by taxes and create large budget deficits as taxes alone are never enough to cover the promises of politicians.
Grocery inflation has been driven by energy costs, transportation, labor, regulation, , and global commodity cycles. When politicians reach for control instead of reform, they reveal that they do not understand how the system functions. You cannot repeal supply and demand with press releases or social media optics.
There is no such thing as a free grocery store. Someone always pays whether it is the farmer, the transporter, the taxpayer, or the currency itself. When governments interfere with prices, they are not helping the poor; they are laying the groundwork for shortages, dependency, and ultimately social unrest. You cannot feed the public on empty promises and failed solutions.