New York Mayor Bill de Blasio made national headlines last week with his call to ban “traditional glass and steel skyscrapers” in the name of the environment.

Ideology aside, this proposal is bizarre given the skyscraper is New York City’s most distinctive architectural feature. One could have given the mayor the benefit of the doubt on the grounds that he was indeed concerned about efficiency until he let slip another remark that reveals the true colors of today’s greens: “They were built, as you know, [as] monuments to wealth.”

This remark from our self-described socialist reveals in plain language a sobering truth. Today’s greens are yesterday’s reds. It is well known that skyscrapers are the cathedrals of capitalism and it is, therefore, no surprise that they would be targeted by Marxists as symbols of what is wrong with our free-market system.

What should be alarming is how this new war on prosperity, or to use the mayor's disparaging spin, this attack on “monuments to wealth,” is being launched in the name of the environment. Environmentalism and, specifically, initiatives that drive up the cost of energy, affect the poor far more than they do the rich. Those that can least afford the price burdens of green initiatives are forced to bear them. To offset this, latter-day greens suggest a massive redistribution of wealth.

From the likes of Bernie Sanders to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Bill de Blasio, the connection between yesterday’s socialism and today’s environmentalism is undeniable.

We must not let socialist militants pervert our natural desire for a clean environment into an excuse to tear down the free market system that built our skyscrapers -- the very system that affords us the economic means to better or society, and ultimately, our environment.

The central tenet of the market is that it will accommodate demand. As people demand cleaner air, water, streets, and buildings -- absent any government dictates -- the market will respond and costs, while initially high, will go down. Our planet’s best future is one where the market responds to our needs, not one where the government controls our choices.

In the meantime, we must recognize and rebuke the discredited old red ideas that are being repackaged into new green ones. Today’s greens want nothing more than to rid our cities of the symbols of the ideology they abhor. Karl Marx would be proud.

Indeed, a rose by any other name. Red is red. Even if it's green.