The Rise of the Working Class: How a Socialist America Could Transform Global Culture

After a long, brutal, and exceptionally worldwide anticipated and spectated New York mayoral race, this week marked a historic shift: Zohran Mamdani (aka Mr. Cardamom), the first social democrat, first Muslim, first South Asian, first immigrant, and one of the youngest candidates New York has ever known, won the election.

It is now official: New York, the beating heart of global capitalism, has elected a socialist. The working class did not just vote; it took power. And while Mamdani is not a Marxist in the classical sense, his victory represents something far more disruptive: the first openly left-wing, redistribution-driven administration in the country’s most capitalist city.

Mamdani wasn’t merely running against rival candidates; he was battling the combined institutions of Republicans and Democrats, and even the President of the United States, who made it clear he would not allow Mamdani’s win to happen, at least not without resistance.

Why is this important?

Because this might mark the political turning point of the decade, a shift in the U.S. power landscape, and a redefinition of American values not seen since the mid-20th century.

During the mid-20th century (roughly the 1940s through the 1960s), the U.S. entered what many economists describe as its most broadly shared period of prosperity. America emerged from World War II with unmatched industrial capacity, a strong labor movement, and a bipartisan commitment to the Keynesian social contract: high wages, high employment, and high public investment.

It was far from a perfect era; racial segregation, gender inequality, and political repression coexisted with economic expansion, but it produced the largest and most stable middle class the U.S. has ever known. And it was this balance between capitalism and social protection, rather than capitalism alone, that gave the American model global legitimacy during the Cold War.

If I were to simplify world history, I would put it this way: capitalism, as practiced by the United States and its allies, prevailed in the Cold War not because it was flawless, but because it was flexible. It moderated itself through social programs, rising wages, public investment, and a political consensus that allowed capitalism to absorb pressures that the Soviet model could not.

The U.S. faced an adversary defined by a rigid, centralized, and ultimately brittle version of Marxism-Leninism. And if history has taught us anything, it is that systems that cannot bend eventually break. The world rarely responds well to ideological extremism, whether on the right or the left.

Zohran Mamdani is not an anomaly. He is part of a long-brewing movement, one that began with Bernie Sanders’s challenge to Hillary Clinton, gained traction through the Green Acts, and evolved into the rise of inclusion-driven movements powered by America’s tech-literate, politically aware youth.

His victory speech was a masterpiece, beautifully written, emotionally charged, and resonant beyond New York’s borders. Yet it lacked action-based credibility. It was inspiring but unthreatening to those who understand the art and law of governance. Most of his promises are not feasible, not today. Perhaps not even soon. But the fact of his victory, even before the content of his speeches or his TikTok ads, is a direct challenge to the current establishment. It signals that the American working class is ready for real change.

A New Political Spectrum

The future may not unfold exactly along today’s party lines. Still, we may be witnessing the early contours of a new ideological map: one where Republicans and Democrats increasingly function as a single broad center-right, and where social democrats, or simply socialists, define the emerging American left.

A socialist president may not be imminent, but the conditions for one are beginning to take shape. The question is no longer if the political spectrum will realign, but how far the shift will go, and how long it will take.

And by the time that day arrives, American values will already have shifted, long before the first socialist president takes office in the Oval Office.

What does this mean for a world shaped by American soft power?

For over a century, American soft power has exported dreams of freedom, ambition, and consumerism. But the next chapter of that influence may look different. Rather than exporting desire, the U.S. may begin exporting a more socially conscious model of citizenship, one that recenters the worker, the tenant, the immigrant, and the ordinary American.

If capitalism built the American Dream, it may take a dose of democratic socialism to make it livable again. And should that shift take hold, it will inevitably reshape America’s cultural projection, influencing every society that once borrowed the American story as a blueprint for its own.

History moves in pendulums, not lines. The same nation that once birthed Wall Street might one day lead a movement for fair wages, universal housing, and re-democratized wealth. When that day comes, it won’t mark the death of capitalism, but its long-overdue evolution, from profit to purpose, from consumption to contribution.

That evolution will redefine what it means to be powerful in the twenty-first century.

The Culture Balance Scenario

While much of this remains speculative, it leads to the real purpose of this piece. Suppose the United States were to evolve into a leading social democratic or soft-socialist nation, rather than the world’s emblem of extreme capitalism. How would its culture exports and imports change? And in that scenario, would American soft power weaken, strengthen, or transform?

To explore this, we can apply the Culture Balance formula:

Culture Balance = Culture Exports - Culture Imports

Where a positive balance indicates culture surplus, the ability to shape global taste, aspiration, and imagination, thereby strengthening a nation’s soft power, and a negative balance signals culture deficit and cultural dependency, which in turn weakens a nation’s soft power.

Let’s sketch two contrasting futures…

Extreme Capitalist United States (Status Quo Model)

Domestic Cultural Consumption: A consumption-driven culture prioritizing entertainment, individualism, lifestyle aspiration, and mass-market narratives. High private-sector influence, high commercial velocity, and lower public cultural funding.

Cultural Exports: Hollywood films, streaming platforms, fast fashion, social media trends, global branding, tech culture, celebrity culture, lifestyle aesthetics, political narratives of individualism and entrepreneurship.

Top Importers of U.S. Cultural Exports: Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, East Asia, and Anglophone Africa. Essentially, all markets with high digital penetration and middle-class growth.

Cultural Imports: K-pop and Korean media; Japanese anime/manga; British media; Latin music; global sports culture; global cuisine trends (Korean, Japanese, Latin, Mediterranean); high-fashion European brands; emerging African and Southeast Asian cultural products.

Top Sources of Cultural Imports to the U.S.: South Korea, Japan, the UK, Mexico/Latin America, France/Italy, China, India.

Culture Balance: Strong positive cultural surplus driven by media, tech, and consumer culture, but increasingly challenged by multipolar cultural producers (Korea, Japan, India, Nigeria).

Socialist United States (Hypothetical Future Model)

Domestic Cultural Consumption: Greater emphasis on equity, community identity, worker narratives, public arts funding, inclusive storytelling, anti-monopoly cultural production, and local/regional expression. Culture becomes less about aspiration and more about representation and social consciousness.

Cultural Exports: Social-democratic narratives; documentaries; public-service media; community-driven cinema; ethical fashion; public-funded festivals; worker-centered storytelling; education-based content; grassroots creators; “fair economy” cultural aesthetics (similar to Scandinavian or New Zealand cultural exports).

Top Importers of U.S. Cultural Exports: Northern Europe, Canada, New Zealand, progressive Latin American and Asian markets, and global youth movements seeking post-capitalist narratives.

Cultural Imports: Greater openness to foreign cultural content due to ideological alignment; increased consumption of global social-democratic media (Nordic noir, European arthouse cinema, Latin American political narratives, African social-drama films); more international labor, climate, and justice-themed content.

Top Sources of Cultural Imports to the U.S.: Nordic countries, Western Europe, Latin America, Japan/Korea (still strong), and emerging post-capitalist cultural scenes (e.g., Chilean cinema, Ghanaian political art, Scandinavian design).

Culture Balance: Potentially lower commercial culture surplus but higher ideological culture surplus.

U.S. soft power becomes less about entertainment dominance and more about moral authority, governance narratives, social-model inspiration, and equity branding.

Conclusion

What this exercise reveals is that America’s influence has never rested solely on the products it exports, but on the principles those products embody. A capitalist America exported aspiration. A socialist-leaning America would export accountability. One dazzles; the other persuades. One sells the dream; the other questions who gets to dream at all.

Neither model guarantees greater soft power. But each produces a different kind of legitimacy.

In a world where cultural influence is increasingly contested, from Seoul to Mumbai to Lagos, the United States may find that its next competitive advantage is not cultural dominance, but cultural sincerity: a willingness to rebuild its social contract and project a story grounded in fairness rather than exceptionalism.

If this shift occurs, America’s culture surplus will not disappear; it will simply change its hue. It will move from the bright neon of consumer capitalism to the softer, steadier light of a society balancing prosperity with justice.

And if history is any guide, the world always watches when the U.S. redefines what the ‘good life’ means. Not because America always gets it right, but because it remains a global reference point, even as it changes course.

The rise of a socialist America would not mark the end of its soft power.

It would mark the start of a new one.

These reflections build on the ideas explored in my book, Let Me Explain California Rolls (And Why Culture Surplus is the Future of Soft Power), where culture, not policy, becomes the accurate measure of power.