Often the secret vice that concerns you most is of no interest whatsoever to anyone whose opinion you dread.

He had stopped working, and nothing is more dangerous than to stop working. It is a habit you lose. A habit easy to give up and difficult to resume.

[Il avait discontinué son travail, et rien n’est plus dangereux que le travail discontinué ; c’est une habitude qui s’en va. Habitude facile à quitter, difficile à reprendre.]

No matter how brilliantly an idea is stated, we will not really be moved unless we have half-thought of it ourselves.

Persons in great stations have seldom their true characters drawn till several years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done to them.

I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose. I know there are professors in this country who ‘ligate’ arteries. Other surgeons only tie them, and it stops the bleeding just as well.

If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.

What we have come to, through a combination of popular psychology and expanding technology, is a presumption that all our thoughts and feelings are worth uttering.

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In 1936, the economist William H. Hutt (1899-1988) coined the term “consumers’ sovereignty” as a label for the driving force of a market economy in which producers succeed or fail depending on how well or poorly they attract the patronage of consumers spending their own (and only their own) money. Just as an all-powerful monarch dictates what his subjects may and may not do — and just as no subject has any power to direct or constrain the monarch’s actions — consumers in a competitive market economy ‘command’ producers to do this and that, as well as to avoid doing countless other things. The producers are obliged to obey, and they have no power to command consumers.

As summarized by Hutt, “as a ‘consumer,’ each directs. As a ‘producer,’ each obeys.”

The comparison of consumers to a flesh-and-blood sovereign ruler isn’t perfect. An actual monarch is a singular person who has a will and acts purposefully in accordance with the preferences embodied in that will. Consumers, in contrast, are a group of people, and a group of people has no will of the sort possessed by an individual. Strictly speaking, therefore, a group of people, as such, has no preferences. It follows that consumers, unlike an actual king or queen, do not issue actual commands aimed at achieving consciously chosen and rationally ranked ends for the economy as a whole. There is no singular set of preferences that the outcomes of market processes can legitimately be said to satisfy; there is no purpose to market outcomes that is analogous to the purpose that motivates a monarch to order his subjects about.

Also, unlike life in an actual authoritarian polity, no one in the market is ever compelled by another human being to act or to refrain from acting. A subject of Louis XIV had little choice but to obey the Sun King’s commands. In contrast, a producer in a market economy is free to choose to ignore the consumers’ ‘commands’; if a producer does so, he or she won’t be jailed, executed, or even fined in the conventional sense of having to pay money to an authority. Yet a producer who ignores consumers’ ‘commands’ is punished or fined in a different, still very real, manner: That producer suffers monetary losses. He or she is legally and ethically free to incur and absorb these losses. But what that producer is not allowed to do is coerce consumers into relieving him or her of the losses.

Consumers’ ‘Commands’ Are Announced in Prices, Profits, and Losses

What is meant by “consumers’ commands” is straightforward: Producers are free to make whatever peaceful offers they wish to potential buyers, and buyers are free to accept or reject these offers. And producers and buyers are both free to bargain with each other to search for mutually agreeable terms of exchange. Importantly, every adult is free to peacefully enter the market as a buyer and as a producer. The state excludes no adult from participating on either side of the market on the basis of that adult’s religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family lineage, place of residence, eye color, shoe size, or any other economically irrelevant fact.

This freedom of buyers and producers naturally combines with secure property and contract rights, and a reasonably stable currency, to give rise to terms of exchange expressed in money — that is, prices.

Suppose consumers, for whatever reason, come to have a stronger desire for apples. Consumers will then buy more apples, thus causing the price of apples to rise relative both to the prices of other outputs, such as pears, and to the prices of the inputs, including labor, that can be used to produce apples. Thus is conveyed to all interested parties objective information about the relative profitability of producing apples — that information, here specifically, being that consumers demand more apples. Producers will notice this rising price and be incited by it to shift more resources into apple production, heeding this particular ‘demand’ of consumers.

In this way, an economy’s pattern of production is determined by the “commands” — or demands — of consumers. Consumers are the rulers; producers are the servants. Put less dramatically and more accurately, consumption is the end, and production is the means. To Adam Smith, this ends-means relationship of consumption to production was so obvious that it barely warranted mention:

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it.

But of course Smith did mention it. He did so because this maxim is in fact not so perfectly self-evident to everyone. Indeed, it is commonly denied, not least by opponents of free trade. Such was the case in Smith’s day, and such remains the case in our day.

Attitudes Toward Consumption and Production

Among those today to whom Smith’s maxim about consumption isn’t at all evident is the trade skeptic Oren Cass. He wants to “redefine the economic orthodoxy that guides the nation’s politics and public policy” because he’s convinced that economists wrongly discount the importance of work while naively giving pride of place to consumption. Another is former International Trade Representative (during President Trump’s first term) Robert Lighthizer, who opined to the New York Times that “there’s a group of people who think that consumption is the end. And my view is production is the end.”

On my reading of Cass, he doesn’t go as far as Lighthizer. Cass doesn’t deny that consumption is a legitimate end; consumption is just not the only legitimate end. For Cass, there are two legitimate ends: consumption and production, with each to be traded off against the other. Lighthizer, in contrast, says that there is only one end, which is production. Because consumption necessarily consumes resources, if we take Lighthizer literally, he must believe that any consumption beyond that which is minimally necessary to maintain humans in peak working condition is illegitimate, for it reduces the supply of resources available for production.

It’s doubtful that Lighthizer has seriously thought through the implications of his assertion that “production is the end.” If he were correct, humanity would enslave itself to the chore of perpetually toiling to ‘produce’ things that — beyond the food, clothing, shelter, and health care necessary to keep humans in peak condition to continue to produce things — are utterly random and useless. It wouldn’t matter if the vast majority of human effort were devoted to churning out truckloads of Italian sausage and loaves of bread, or mountains of caramel-covered anchovies and sawdust-and-maggot pies. Indeed, we all could do nothing but repeatedly dig holes and refill them. If consumption isn’t an end — if, as Lighthizer says, the exclusive end is production — then that which is ‘produced’ doesn’t matter. All that matters is that humans exert maximum effort and use all available inputs to transform physical matter from one form into other forms.

To assume that Lighthizer’s ideal really is the impoverished, dystopian society implied by his literal words would be unfair. So I’ll instead assume that he, and any other individual who rejects Adam Smith’s statement about consumption being the sole end of production, really holds a view about consumption closer to that of Oren Cass.

Discounting consumption and elevating production is superficially appealing. Cass, Lighthizer, and others who do such discounting achieve, in many eyes, an aura of mature sophistication and gravitas that seems unavailable to people who insist that, ultimately, economic activity’s only goal is consumption. Consumption is enjoyable and easy, and we willingly pay to do it. Working, in contrast, is often hard and is never so enjoyable that we willingly do it without being paid. Consumption is an activity that we naturally want to engage in. Unlike laboring, consumption is its own reward and, hence, its own motivation. Because consumption is naturally attractive to humans, we’ll do too much of it if we’re not properly incited to control our urge to consume. In contrast, working — the exertion of time and effort to produce — is not its own reward; we’ll do too little of it unless we’re properly incited to put forth productive effort.

Furthermore, consumption requires neither skill nor self-control. We consume from the moment we’re conceived and continue to be only consumers throughout childhood. But to produce, we must have at least minimal skill and self-control. While even the most aimless and immature individuals can and do consume, production requires maturity and competence. Not everyone does it. Unsurprisingly, prosperous societies develop norms and attitudes that laud and encourage dispositions toward productive activity as they also temper our natural eagerness to consume.

Protesting against Adam Smith’s insistence on the primacy of consumption thus seems to be merited, and perhaps even praiseworthy. Consumption, it appears, is valued above all and exclusively only by the frivolous, myopic, and childish. People who are serious, prudent, and mature understand that production is no less important — and perhaps even more important — than consumption.

A Category Error

Protestors against Adam Smith’s insistence on the primacy of consumption are mistaken. They commit a category error. They presume that production is in the same category of activities as consumption. Specifically, these anti-Smithians presume that production and consumption are alternative, competing human ends. It follows from this presumption that prudent societies aim to achieve an optimal mix of production and consumption, while imprudent ones aim for excessive consumption and too little production. But, as noted, this presumption is mistaken. As economic activities, production and consumption differ from each other categorically. Production is a means toward the fulfillment of human ends (whatever these might be); consumption is the satisfaction of these ends. Production (the means) and consumption (the ends) are not traded off against each other as a consumer trades off one good against another good.

Consider a simple economics-textbook example of routine consumer choice — say, a consumer choosing how many apples and apricots to purchase. While she enjoys eating both apples and apricots and would like to have more of each, the consumer’s limited income requires that if she chooses to buy more of one fruit, she must settle for fewer units of the other. When a consumer trades off apples against apricots, she trades off one end (the satisfaction she expects to get from eating more apples) in order to obtain another end (the satisfaction she expects to get from eating more apricots). The consumer makes this trade-off in a way that she anticipates will give her the most possible consumption satisfaction — what economists call “maximum utility” — from her purchase of these two goods.

Importantly in this useful textbook example, neither apples nor apricots are a means of obtaining the other. The proximate means consumers use in modern society to obtain both apples and apricots is money. If protestors against Adam Smith’s statement about the primacy of consumption were correct, the relevant trade-off would be not apples-for-apricots but money-for-fruit. Because the textbook author understandably takes for granted that some particular combination of apples and apricots exists that will be chosen by the consumer in search of maximum consumption satisfaction and without any regard for the pleasure to be had by the continued possession of money, the anti-Smithian — were he or she consistent — would ridicule this familiar textbook example as naively elevating consumption over money. This anti-Smithian would suggest that a wiser person understands that, while consumption is worthwhile, it is not the be-all and end-all of human desire. Money is also desirable. The wiser person, the anti-Smithian would conclude, rejects the extreme solution of all consumption and no money in favor of some consumption and some money.

But the anti-Smithian’s conclusion is wrong. Unlike apples and apricots, money has utility to those who hold it only because and insofar as it is ultimately exchangeable for real goods or services — that is, for things that will satisfy consumption desires. It is a means. If we observe a consumer reducing her purchases of both apples and apricots to hold more money, what we observe is not someone who has come to attach a lower value to consumption as an end and a higher value to money as an end. What we observe is someone who has come to believe that holding more money today will enable her tomorrow to acquire more or better consumption goods — a greater amount of consumption satisfaction over time. The trade-off that we observe here is every bit as much a trade-off of some kinds of consumption satisfactions against other kinds of consumption satisfactions as is the simple trade-off of apples for apricots.

Money is a means, and means are valuable. So people acquire means and hold on to these until using them to achieve ends yields to their holders the greatest expected utility. Observed acquisition, investment in, and retention of means should not, however, be interpreted as means being ends.

What is true for money is equally true for human labor and other production activities. All are means to the end of achieving maximum-possible consumption satisfaction. This is Adam Smith’s point. Production effort — work — is not an end to be traded off against other ends in order to obtain an optimal mix of ends. Production effort is, like money, a means of achieving an end, namely, acquiring goods and services for consumption. Like the person who chooses to spend less money today in order to have more money to spend tomorrow on consumption goods, the person who chooses to work longer or harder does not do so as an end itself but, rather, in order to increase his or her overall access to real goods and services for consumption.

The above line of reasoning is valid. But much more straightforward evidence exists to prove that production, unlike consumption, is not an end in itself: As noted above, people are paid to produce; people pay to consume.

Any activity that will be performed only if the persons performing it are paid to do so is obviously not an end in itself; that activity is not its own reward or its own motivation. That activity is obviously a means. Activities that people pay to engage in are ends. These activities are what Adam Smith meant, and what all sensible economists today mean, by “consumption.” If work in a particular job were an end in itself, the individuals performing that job would not only not have to be paid to do it, they would pay to do it. The need to pay people to work — the need to pay even those persons who enjoy their jobs to work — proves that work is not an end in itself. Likewise, the need to pay firm owners to produce the outputs they produce and make available for sale proves that those production activities are not ends in themselves. As indispensable and praiseworthy as they unquestionably are, work and production are not ends. Work and production are means. Consumption is the end.

To Be Productive, Workers and Other Input Suppliers Must Heed the Demands of Consumers

The end is consumption: “To produce” is necessarily “to increase individuals’ ability to satisfy their consumption desires.” Those activities, and only those activities, that further people’s ability to consume are productive. To spend time, effort, and resources baking sawdust-and-maggot pies would be wasteful, not productive. To be productive, therefore, workers and resource owners must have some way to determine which of the gazillion possible different ways these inputs can be put to use has the greatest likelihood of satisfying as many actual consumption desires as possible. Without this knowledge, work effort and resource use will almost certainly be wasteful rather than productive.

Free to spend their own (and only their own) money expressing their demands for different goods and services, “sovereign” consumers interact with suppliers who are equally free to use their own (and only their own) resources to produce and offer outputs for sale. The resulting exchanges result in market prices that simultaneously inform and incite resource owners to use their resources in ways that generate outputs of the greatest value to consumers. F.A. Hayek’s 1945 paper “The Use of Knowledge In Society” is justly credited as showing that prices — including wages and interest rates — allow enormous amounts of knowledge, dispersed today across billions of minds and millions of square miles, to be used in ways that generate modern prosperity. The knowledge put to daily, productive use in markets could not possibly be gathered, sent to a central location, and processed usefully by government officials. Therefore, to override markets in an attempt to allocate resources by conscious design in units larger than small bands is little better than an attempt to usefully allocate resources by throwing dice or by using some other method of random chance.

One consequence of this reality is that if genuine production is to occur in a group of people larger than a few dozen, the only reliable means of getting sufficient information about which uses of resources are productive and which aren’t is the market price system. By responding to market prices, individuals in their capacity as producers combine different resources into outputs for sale to consumers. Outputs bought by consumers in sufficient quantities and at prices sufficiently high to keep the production operations going are more valuable than the outputs that would have been produced had inputs been used differently. Using inputs to produce outputs sold at prices that cover their costs of production is productive; using inputs to produce outputs sold at prices that do not cover their costs of production is wasteful. Although in both of these cases workers exert effort to transform physical matter from some forms into other forms, production occurs only when outputs exceed costs.

Oren Cass, Robert Lighthizer, and others who attempt to justify protective tariffs on the grounds that production be given its appropriate weight (relative to consumption) are thus mistaken. Protective tariffs do, of course, protect particular producers from competition and, therefore, enable these producers to continue to be paid to perform their long-standing jobs. These work activities appear to the uncritical eye to be productive. Also, the individuals who perform these protected activities no doubt feel as though they are being productive. But here, appearances and feelings deceive.

Were it not for tariffs, many workers in protected industries would discover that the prices — that is, the market values — of what they produce are not high enough to cover the costs of the protected activities. Scarce resources valued (say) at $1,000,000 are consumed each day by these activities that produce each day only (say) $800,000 worth of value. In this example, activities that appear to be productive actually destroy $200,000 worth of value each and every day. The only reason these wasteful activities continue is that tariffs, by forcibly restricting consumers’ freedom to spend their incomes as they choose, drive consumers to spend more than they otherwise would on the outputs of protected industries. Put differently, the government uses tariffs to forcibly transfer income from consumers to the particular producers who are protected. Tariffs give to people acting in their capacity as producers the power to commandeer some amount of resources from their fellow citizens acting in their capacity as consumers.

Economic activity under protectionism creates the false impression that production is taking place when, in fact, what’s happening isn’t production at all but, rather, waste. Because of tariffs, firms and perhaps even whole industries are prevented from coming into existence. And the tariff-driven loss of these firms and industries also means the loss of jobs in which workers could have produced more valuable outputs than they do in the protected occupations in which  tariffs keep them stuck. This reality — tariffs reduce economy-wide production — is sufficient to discredit the argument that tariffs are a means of giving production its appropriate weight relative to consumption. Shrinking the magnitude of some phenomenon (here, production) cannot possibly increase that phenomenon’s weight relative to some other phenomenon.

In short, even if (contrary to fact) production were an end along with consumption, by reducing production, protectionism cannot be justified as a policy tool that results in production being increased relative to consumption: protectionism decreases both consumption and production. More fundamentally, given that production in reality is only a means of enabling consumption, because protectionism forces consumers to do the bidding of ‘producers,’ protectionism treats a means as an end. The outcome makes no more sense for society as a whole than it would make for you to treat money as an end and, in consequence, hoard Federal Reserve Notes as you and your family live in dire poverty.

Consumer Sovereignty Requires Market Pricing

Activities are productive only when they satisfy human desires — that is, only when and insofar as they satisfy consumption ends. The greater the amount of satisfaction, the greater the amount of production. In a group of people numbering more than a few dozen, the only reliable source of information about how much satisfaction is generated by different production activities is market prices. And market prices convey as much accurate information as possible when consumers are as free as possible to spend their incomes as they choose, and producers are as free as possible to compete for consumer expenditures. Only insofar as consumers are sovereign — that is, only insofar as individuals as consumers are free to spend their incomes as they choose and businesses are free to compete as they choose for these expenditures — is there a flow of reliable information to guide businesses, entrepreneurs, investors, and workers to ‘produce’ in ways that are truly productive.

Tariffs and other protective measures that relieve producers from having to compete for consumers’ patronage cause producers to be not producers, but wasters. Protected ‘producers’ exert effort and use resources in ways that fail to effectively satisfy humans’ wants and needs. With the possible exception of a few protected ‘producers,’ everyone in a ‘protected’ economy is made poorer.

Critics often scoff at the market economists’ claim that competition fosters relentless innovation.

A recent meme points to the ubiquity of chicken sandwiches across major fast food chains as supposed evidence of stagnation in capitalism. If twelve top firms offer a similar product, the argument goes, how innovative can an economic system truly be? 

But that line of reasoning badly misrepresents both the nature of competition and the role of iterative improvement in markets. The explosion of chicken sandwich options is not a sign of creative bankruptcy — it’s a case study in product refinement, branding evolution, and consumer-focused differentiation. Far from signaling sameness, the chicken sandwich wars reveal how even within a narrow category, firms continuously jockey to win customer loyalty, and with it, market share.

Chicken dishes — especially fried chicken and chicken sandwiches — have become a cornerstone of American food culture, driven by its broad appeal, versatility, and relative affordability. In recent years, chicken sandwiches have surged in popularity, with the 2019 “chicken sandwich wars” showcasing consumer demand and brand competition. Today, nearly every major fast food chain (in industry parlance, a quick-service restaurant or QSR) offers at least one signature chicken sandwich, alongside consumer favorites like traditional beef burgers. Every firm named in this meme has innovated in some way or another — more frequently, in several. 

1. McDonald’s

McDonald’s transformed fast food by introducing the “Speedee Service System,” the first assembly-line kitchen that enabled the rapid, consistent, low-cost meals foundational to modern quick-service restaurants. Its tightly controlled franchise model and child-focused marketing (e.g., Ronald McDonald, Happy Meals, PlayPlaces) fueled global growth, while its real estate strategy — owning and leasing store locations — created a uniquely powerful dual-revenue model.

2. Burger King

Burger King distinguished itself from McDonald’s with flame-broiled burgers and the 1974 “Have It Your Way” campaign, emphasizing customization over uniformity. It targeted teens and young men with bold and occasionally irreverent advertising, expanded aggressively overseas in the 1980s, and built its brand around the Whopper — an oversized, grill-flavored alternative to standard fast food fare.

3. Wendy’s

Wendy’s pioneered the drive-thru window in 1970, reshaping fast-food convenience, and differentiated itself with “fresh, never frozen” beef and distinctive square patties for visual branding. Wendy’s was an early adopter of value menus in the 1980s, enticing customers with low-cost options before competitors followed suit. The iconic “Where’s the beef?” campaign cemented its image as a bold, quality-focused challenger to McDonald’s and Burger King.

4. Jack in the Box (which began as Topsy’s)

Jack in the Box pioneered intercom-based drive-thrus in the 1950s and offered an unusually eclectic menu — including tacos, egg rolls, and breakfast items — well ahead of its competitors. Its irreverent “Jack” mascot and its focus on younger, late-night customers set it apart from family-centric chains. By blending multiple cuisines under one fast food brand, it anticipated the rise of fusion-style QSRs.

5. Popeyes

Popeyes brought spicy, Louisiana-style fried chicken to the national stage, using New Orleans flavors and regional identity as a core marketing strategy. Its 2019 chicken sandwich launch sparked a viral fast food battle, redefining competition in the poultry segment. By offering Creole sides like red beans and rice alongside buttermilk biscuits, Popeyes broadened the flavor profile of mainstream fast food chicken.

6. Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)

KFC pioneered international fast food franchising, bringing its bone-in fried chicken model to Asia, the UK, and other global markets. Its branding around Colonel Sanders and the “11 herbs and spices” secret recipe emphasized quality and nostalgia, using Southern charm to build emotional appeal. By focusing on family-sized buckets rather than individual meals, KFC carved out a distinct category within fast food and set the standard for mass-market fried chicken.

7. Church’s Chicken

Church’s, founded in 1952 in San Antonio, built its brand around low-cost, high-volume fried chicken with crunchier breading and spicier seasoning than early competitors. It strategically targeted urban and working-class neighborhoods, often overlooked by larger chains, and became a fixture in minority communities through intentional franchise placement. Church’s also embraced co-location with other QSR brands, reinforcing its presence while maintaining a value-driven, community-focused model.

8. Arby’s

Arby’s carved out a niche in fast food by introducing roast beef sandwiches and positioning itself as a more adult, deli-style alternative to burger chains. Its “We Have the Meats” campaign highlighted an unusually broad protein lineup — including brisket, turkey, and corned beef — well before variety became industry standard. Arby’s also pioneered new products like curly fries, horseradish sauces, and the first full “lite” menu in 1991, reinforcing its image as a more sophisticated, protein-forward option in a burger-and-fried-chicken landscape.

9. Carl’s Jr.

Carl’s Jr. (and Hardee’s) evolved from a hot dog cart into a pioneer of “sit-down quality at drive-thru speed,” pushing premium burgers like the Six Dollar Burger to compete with casual dining. It leaned into charbroiled, made-to-order messaging and used edgy, often controversial ads targeting young men to stand out in a crowded market. The firm was also among the earliest to experiment with co-branded locations and helped pave the way for the premium fast food burger trend before it became mainstream.

10. Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-A pioneered the chicken sandwich–centric fast food model, decades before the 2010s chicken wars, and built its brand around hospitality, consistency, and values-based operations — most notably by closing on Sundays. It was an early leader in mall food courts and suburban expansion, especially in the Southeast, helping shape geographic expansion strategies. With a focus on high-quality ingredients and service, Chick-fil-A distinguished itself from traditional fried chicken chains like KFC and Popeyes.

11. Sonic

Sonic Drive-In modernized the carhop model with a drive-in format where customers order from parked stalls and have food delivered to their cars, blending nostalgia with convenience. It stood out by offering breakfasts, an exceptionally customizable drink and slushie menu, encouraging upsells and building customer loyalty. By focusing on suburban and rural markets and offering regional items like chili dogs and tater tots, Sonic created a scalable model distinct from traditional drive-thrus.

12. Zaxby’s

Zaxby’s positioned itself as a fast-casual hybrid focused on chicken fingers, wings, and signature sauces, carving out a niche distinct from sandwich-centric rivals like Chick-fil-A. Its sauce-driven menu, upscale interior decor, and dominance in Southern college towns — bolstered by sports sponsorships and student word-of-mouth — reinforced its identity as a flavorful, indulgent alternative. By blending fast food speed with a casual dining atmosphere and targeting regional markets, Zaxby’s built a distinctive foothold in the competitive chicken QSR space.

In-N-Out Burger’s refusal to offer chicken sandwiches is strategy ingenuity underscoring its disciplined focus on menu simplicity and quality control. By avoiding the diversification embraced by most competitors, the brand reinforces its identity around fresh, made-to-order burgers — creating scarcity, enhancing brand clarity, and standing out in a landscape often cluttered by overextension. Meanwhile, the failures of ventures like Sticky’s Chicken, Flav’s Fried Chicken, and Starbucks’ Chicken Maple Butter and Egg Sandwich highlight that even in a seemingly boundless category like chicken sandwiches, success is far from guaranteed. Together, these examples reveal that strategic restraint can be as powerful as product expansion, contrary to the meme’s suggestion.

The widespread adoption of chicken sandwiches across fast food chains, regardless of their original specialization, reflects strategic creativity in both product diversification and consumer targeting. Burger-focused brands like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Jack in the Box, beef-centric Arby’s, and bone-in chicken giants like KFC and Popeyes all integrated chicken sandwiches to meet rising demand for leaner, more portable options. These additions catered to health-conscious consumers, non-beef-eaters, and operational efficiencies alike, allowing chains to leverage existing supply chains and kitchen setups with minimal disruption. Far from mere trend-chasing or lazy duplication, the ubiquity of chicken sandwiches demonstrates how responsiveness can broaden market appeal and competitive position. For some chains, the chicken sandwich became a central identity marker; for others, as a modular, upsell-friendly component within a larger meal ecosystem. 

What began as a niche offering has evolved into a fast food essential—blurring category boundaries and reshaping how chains define themselves. Chicken sandwiches proliferate because we enjoy them. That’s not creative stagnation; it exemplifies one of the market economy’s greatest strengths. Brands continue to distinguish themselves by responding to consumer preferences: how chicken is prepared, how fast it’s served, even toppings and sauces and sides help make up our minds. They experiment, iterate, and compete for our chicken-buying dollar.

Capitalism can be criticized for satisfying even the most basic consumer needs, and our pickle-vs-mayo preferences. But responding to those desires, serving individuals, is something collectivist economies cannot do and never have.

“Socialism,” said the British free speech campaigner Lord Young, “Always begins with a universal vision for the brotherhood of man and ends with people having to eat their own pets.” While exaggerated, the point stands — socialism never delivers what it promises. Yet now, the world capital of capitalism is flirting with that catastrophe. The Democratic nomination for Mayor of New York has been won by an avowed socialist: Zohran Mamdani. 

Mamdani doesn’t hide his socialism. It’s all over his campaign website, the socialist magazine Jacobin hails him as one of their own, and he is comfortable with socialist shibboleths like “seize the means of production.” Despite espousing a political philosophy that has seen little electoral success outside of Vermont in recent years, the Democratic voters of the New York City primary swung to him in large numbers as the campaign closed, and he won with a plurality of the vote (though the final ranked choice tally saw him him win a majority). 

Among Mamdani’s policies are a rent freeze, shifting the burden of taxation to “richer and whiter neighborhoods,” and city-run grocery stores, one per borough. These are not, shall we say, policies with a stunning track record of success. Countless cities have tried rent control, all with the same inevitable results — supply dries up, properties fall into disrepair, and families are unable to find homes. As the Swedish socialist economist Assar Lindbeck summarized, perhaps understating the problem, “In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city — except for bombing.” 

Leaving aside the question of whether taxing “whiter” neighborhoods more can possibly be constitutional, soaking the rich doesn’t work either, as richer people can simply relocate to less punitive jurisdictions. It’s already happening, and Mamdani’s policies will simply exacerbate the “brain drain.” Of course, with fewer entrepreneurs and high-earning professionals, New York will cease to be the crossroads of the world and may well turn into Detroit-on-the-Hudson. 

As for city-run stores, municipalities like Erie, Kansas, have been unable to keep the lights on, with customers preferring other ways to get their groceries. Yet New York City owning grocery stores may be more like a nation owning them than a rural township. There the prospects are even worse. Venezuela may be an extreme example, with shortages and bureaucracy making grocery shopping a nightmare, but you don’t even have to imagine Latin American levels of corruption to realize the problems involved. While the stores may be rent- and tax-free, they will still have to compete against the economies of scale, efficient supply lines, and simple know-how of the established grocery chains. 

All this is predictable and indeed is a major reason why mainstream economics exists. Yet people still fall for the promises. Why? 

In 2020, when it seemed plausible that Bernie Sanders might win the Democratic nomination for President on a socialist platform, I wrote a book called The Socialist Temptation that attempted to answer this question. 

My answer was that political communication is at heart about values, not about policy analysis. If the politician can connect with a voter at the level of their motivating values, then they have won the battle, and the most vigorous political debates are between competing values. 

One of the reasons why socialism never seems to die is that it plays a very good game at connecting with people at the values level. In America, research suggests that there are three main values groups active in politics. While political scientists have fancier names for these groups, I summarize those groups as egalitarians, whose motivating value is fairness, libertarians, whose motivating value is freedom, and traditionalists, whose motivating value is community, stability, and order. (There is a fourth value group, fatalists, whose value is essentially survival, but they tend not to vote.) 

Socialism has a story to tell all these groups. It obviously speaks to egalitarians, proposing a more equal society where no one can exploit anyone. Yet it also speaks to libertarians, as it says that to be truly free you must have certain basic needs met, and the state can do this (any so-called freedom that doesn’t do so is illusory). Moreover, it speaks to traditionalists, conjuring up an image of a society where everyone is pulling for everyone else, with good jobs that pay the working man and woman a living wage.  

Of course, these promises don’t stand up when tested. Socialism relies on bureaucracy, and the bureaucrats quickly become a new ruling class. Those bureaucrats also restrict freedom with rules, in ways ranging from those of Harrison Bergeron all the way to 1984. Communities, meanwhile, are set against each other as favored identity groups are privileged, while others pay for the supposed sins of their ancestors. Socialism betrays American values every chance it gets. 

Yet the socialists have developed a get-out-of-jail card for this objection. As Kristian Niemietz of London’s Institute of Economic Affairs puts it, all attempts at socialism follow the same three-part pattern of failure and excuse. 

First, there is the honeymoon, where the glorious ascent of workers’ or popular control is hailed; at last, we have real socialism! It works for a while. Then reality starts to bite, and the wheels start to come off as socialism’s inherent contradictions work against each other. Socialists blame this on “wreckers,” saboteurs, the CIA, or any convenient boogeyman, foreign or domestic. If in doubt, ask “what about?” and suggest that the failing state is still better than capitalism or any other alternative system. 

Finally, when all comes to ruin and people are indeed reduced to eating their own pets, we hear the refrain, “That wasn’t real socialism!” The failure is blamed on a formerly beloved leader straying from the true path, or the regime’s murderous tendencies are taken as evidence that it could never have been socialism, because socialism is all about that universal vision for the brotherhood of man. 

And so, from the ashes of “not real socialism,” a new generation rises again, promising the same thing and expecting different results. 

There are other explanations posited for socialism’s Dracula-like tendency to rise from the grave. A common one is that young people were hit hard by the financial crisis and so unable to get on the property ladder, meaning they have no capital to attract them to capitalism, and turn instead to the most obvious alternative. 

Yet this isn’t quite the case. Research shows that Millennials, the ones so badly affected by the crisis, are richer in real terms than baby boomers were at the same age, and only slightly behind Gen X. Even if it were true, the message that socialism would be a better system in these circumstances is still one that speaks at the values level, primarily to the egalitarian value. 

Then there is the argument that young people are more susceptible to socialism. The idea, often misattributed to Winston Churchill, is “If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.” This rings true as young people are even more motivated by values than older people. As I examined in the book, however, the American education system has been manipulated to valorize socialism, making it even more likely that young people with a long education will be sympathetic to socialism. And so it proved in New York. 

This is personal to me. I grew up in a Britain that had suffered several decades of democratic socialism. Socialist labor unions forced me to do my homework by candlelight. Nationalized stores (thankfully not grocery stores) lacked choice and imposed a dreariness on Britain that was only amplified by the weather. High taxes led even the Beatles to complain about the Taxman taking 19 parts of their wealth to every one he left them. Council estates where my friends lived may have provided low-rent housing, but they were little better than slums. 

Gotham is not Caracas. But if New Yorkers keep choosing the path of dreams over freedom, they may learn the same hard lessons. For the sake of the city — and its cats — I hope they wake up in time.

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