Government Grab: “Take Their Property”

Busy city street with pedestrians, cars, and tall buildings.

A single viral video can expose how quickly “keep jobs here” turns into “take their property” when government power meets economic panic.

Story Snapshot

A New York City public-school teacher, Charles Berry, argued that the city should seize businesses that try to leave and punish owners for “abandoning” property.
The clip went viral on February 6, 2026, as anxiety over a business exodus collided with a new Democratic Socialist mayor’s early-term turmoil.
Berry’s idea sits far outside mainstream progressive policy: it’s not a tax tweak, it’s an exit ban backed by confiscation.
The deeper fight is about incentives and freedom of movement: whether cities compete for employers or attempt to coerce them.

The Viral Pitch: Stop the Exodus by Making It Illegal

Charles Berry, identified as a New York Public Schools teacher, laid out a blunt remedy for businesses looking at the exits: take their businesses, make leaving illegal, and “fine them to hell” for abandoning property. The message wasn’t wrapped in academic jargon. It was an emotional argument framed as protecting jobs and livelihoods from being moved to places like Florida. The simplicity helped it spread, and the bluntness sharpened the backlash.

Viral political clips often die as quickly as they flare up, but this one sticks because it names the thing most politicians only hint at: coercion. Most city leaders try to keep employers through incentives, branding, and selective enforcement. Berry’s approach skips persuasion and goes straight to compulsion. That leap matters because it changes the moral math from “how do we make New York attractive?” to “how do we trap people who built something here?”

Why This Landed in New York at This Moment

The video didn’t appear in a vacuum. New York has wrestled for years with a familiar cocktail—high taxes, heavy regulation, and quality-of-life concerns—that pushes companies and high earners to shop for friendlier ZIP codes. The research context ties the clip to the first month of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s term, with the city facing a string of crises: storm-related garbage backlogs, reports of homeless deaths after refused shelter mandates, blackouts, and heightened social tension.

Mamdani’s platform, as described in the research, leans into affordability promises: expanded public services, stronger rent policies, and wealth-redistribution rhetoric. Supporters see a rescue plan for working families. Critics see a warning label for capital and talent. Berry’s statement functions like an uncontrolled stress test for that environment: when you tell investors “we’re coming for your wealth,” some leave; when you tell them “we won’t let you leave,” many more start planning immediately.

The Conservative Common-Sense Problem: You Can’t Handcuff an Economy

American conservative values put property rights and freedom of movement near the foundation of a stable society. Berry’s proposal collides with both. A city that can seize a business for trying to relocate is a city announcing that ownership is conditional on political approval. That is the point where entrepreneurs stop behaving like builders and start behaving like risk managers: they minimize exposure, split operations, shrink payrolls, and keep new investment away from the jurisdiction.

Practical enforcement also collapses under scrutiny. What counts as “leaving”—moving a headquarters, relocating a warehouse, letting a lease expire, shifting remote staff, selling assets? Each definition invites lawsuits, selective punishment, and a cottage industry of loopholes. The end result rarely looks like “saved jobs.” It looks like reduced hiring, less local expansion, and more legal and compliance spending—costs that hit workers first because payroll is usually the only flexible line item.

The Teacher Angle: Why People Not Paid to Run Cities Keep Pitching Control

The most revealing detail isn’t that a politician floated this idea; it’s that a teacher did, speaking like an organizer. That matters because schools don’t just teach math and reading; they shape civic instincts. Separate research on how U.S. schools teach capitalism and socialism shows ongoing confusion among students about what systems actually do in practice, and why “fairness” slogans can mask brutal tradeoffs. Adults can fall into the same trap when politics becomes moral theater.

Berry framed coercion as compassion—stop companies from “abandoning” people. That emotional frame is powerful, especially in a city where rent and groceries bite. The hard truth is that businesses are not hostages; they are partnerships of capital and labor. When government treats them as captive resources, it teaches everyone watching that success makes you a target. That lesson spreads faster than any civics curriculum.

What Happens Next: The Real Damage Is the Signal

No evidence in the research suggests Berry’s proposal became policy. The danger doesn’t require legislation. The damage comes from the signal: influential voices feel comfortable saying quiet parts out loud—seize, ban, punish. City leaders trying to calm markets then face a credibility gap. Employers don’t need certainty that confiscation will happen; they only need a reasonable fear that it could, especially when political incentives reward “toughness” toward the wealthy.

Critics have pointed to warnings from people who lived under socialist or communist systems, describing how quickly “for the people” turns into shortages, favoritism, and exit restrictions. Supporters of Mamdani push back that affordability, not ideology, drives their agenda. Common sense says both can be true: intentions might be sincere, but policies and rhetoric still shape behavior. Capital is skittish, jobs follow capital, and coercion accelerates the stampede.

New York’s path out of decline won’t come from chaining businesses to the curb. It comes from making the city safe, functional, predictable, and competitive—so staying feels rational, not mandatory. Berry’s viral moment works as a cautionary tale: when a city starts treating exit as betrayal, it has already admitted it can’t win people over on performance.