One of the most important aspects of accurate pricing for the real costs of goods and services is conveying information about the relative value of those goods and services with respect to everything else in the economy.

The problem with Mamdani characterizing his various plans to provide goods and services at zero nominal cost to the end-users is that all of these good and services are far from "free."

Obscuring the real cost of his proposals (or any similar proposals from any other politicians) means the electorate will be less well equipped to make rational choices about the political allocation of scarce and very finite resources.

This is aside from other issues such as moral hazard, unintended consequences, and so forth.

When a politician falsely implies that a proposal has "zero cost," i.e. it's "free," among many other issues, that politician misrepresents the very real consequence that any resources expended to provide the "free" goods or services means something else is not getting paid for, that could otherwise be.

The bus fare might be "free" (i.e. zero cost to the end user). However--what is the impact if the lack of fare revenue lessens the funds available (for example) to properly maintain the "free" buses?