Groceries Illustrate That Communists Can’t Do Math...by Luis Gonzalez

[mystery-ak]

Groceries Illustrate That Communists Can’t Do Math

We have affordable bananas in America today because capitalists and free marketers can do math and have refined their grocery math for centuries.

Luis Gonzalez | August 7, 2026

The grocery store may be the least forgiving classroom in which to teach political economy. The shelves do not care about ideology. The checkout scanner does not respond to applause lines. A gallon of milk does not know whether it was purchased in a capitalist marketplace or a municipal experiment in economic justice. It only knows what it cost to produce, transport, refrigerate, stock, and sell.

That is the inconvenient thing about economics. The numbers have no political affiliation. They simply arrive at the register.

That reality is the great problem for economic promises. They sound wonderful from a podium. They become considerably more complicated somewhere between the warehouse and the shopping cart.

More than a century ago, Americans laughed at a song built around an apparently contradictory declaration: “Yes, we have no bananas.” The joke worked because the contradiction was obvious. In modern politics, the same joke has returned wearing a suit and carrying a spreadsheet.

Which brings us to one of the more fascinating promises emerging from the modern urban left: the government grocery store. The concept has obvious emotional appeal. Groceries are more expensive than they were in 2019. Families are frustrated. Everyone would like to see lower prices at the checkout counter. A politician who promises cheaper food is speaking directly to one of the most basic anxieties in American life.

But economics has a nasty habit of asking the question that politics prefers to avoid: Who pays for the discount?

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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/08/groceries-illustrate-that-communists-can-t-do-math/

[mystery-ak]

 

This is the third piece American Thinker has published Luis's work...

[Luis Gonzalez]

This is the third piece American Thinker has published Luis's work...

Thanks for allowing me to work stuff out in here. 

[andy58-in-nh]

A solid and practical explanation of why "socialist economics" is a contradiction in terms.

Prices are vital signals generated by the interplay of countless market transactions with a range of expenses that cannot be magically controlled or manipulated without consequence.

MamadaniMart may sell goods at below-market prices, but reality will eventually assert itself - usually in the form of product shortages - and of course: someone other than the customer will most assuredly pay for the difference.

Communists can count. But if the Party demands it, 2+2 will be made to equal 5.  Utterly bananas.

[Luis Gonzalez]

A solid and practical explanation of why "socialist economics" is a contradiction in terms.
Prices are vital signals generated by the interplay of countless market transactions with a range of expenses that cannot be magically controlled or manipulated without consequence.

MamadaniMart may sell goods at below-market prices, but reality will eventually assert itself - usually in the form of product shortages - and of course: someone other than the customer will most assuredly pay for the difference.

Communists can count. But if the Party demands it, 2+2 will be made to equal 5.  Utterly bananas.

hehehe... I see what you did there.

[Cyber Liberty]

hehehe... I see what you did there.

He answered my question, "Why is there money?"

[DefiantMassRINO]

Commies don't collaborate with Math because Math is racist.

[Bigun]

MamadaniMart may sell goods at below-market prices, but reality will eventually assert itself - usually in the form of product shortages - and of course: someone other than the customer will most assuredly pay for the difference.

The taxpayers being that someone.

[Luis Gonzalez]

He answered my question, "Why is there money?"

 

[Wingnut]

In other Ugandan Mayoral news, Name suggestions for the 5 Commie Mamdani stores have been rolling in.  So far the top vote getter has been, The "9-11 Grocery."

[Luis Gonzalez]

He answered my question, "Why is there money?"

Well, there must have come a point sometime, in our natural history, where carrying 16 goats with you to trade for three mules, overcomes your ability to carry all that shit on you.

[DefiantMassRINO]

The children will show us the way ...

Who Invented Money? The History of Money and Barter System of Exchange
The Dr Binocs Show


https://youtu.be/GZ7y-yFdX9M

[Cyber Liberty]

Well, there must have come a point sometime, in our natural history, where carrying 16 goats with you to trade for three mules, overcomes your ability to carry all that shit on you.

Hence, "currency" was born!

[Luis Gonzalez]

This was originally titled “Communists Suck at Math. — The Grocery Store Equation and the Politics of Magical Arithmetic.” But they changed it.

It was either going to be themed the “yes, we have no bananas” vaudeville thing or something closer to the concept of having both tea, and no tea, as in the Adams book.