Uber Can’t Be Fixed – It’s Time for Regulators to Shut It Down
hbr.org
hbr.org
And let's be real, the underlying whine of this author is Lyft and Uber broke the status quo by bypassing the traditional way corporations get laws made - lobbyists, bribes framed as campaign contributions, and favors. Instead Uber put politicians in the position of having to pay for not passing legislation Uber wanted.
The article is educational, illustrating a short-term financially successful, legally questionable approach to disruption, pitting evolving norms against regulatory laws.
"Whining" is mere rhetoric, I assume from the commenter's perspective, since I cannot find that tone present in the article.
Instead, a flaw I think the article has is overlooking pointedly justifying why regulatory laws are necessary. It describes normalizing lawbreaking, and implies Uber is establishing a cracked foundation for its new industry. But the article didn't say that's bad.
Still, the article is valid in spite of it focusing on Uber: Uber pivoted after seeing and complaining about Lyft gaining an advantage. Unfortunately, why this is bad is undercapitalized by the article.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-12241395
But he's also the same person who used his knowledge and position to bully small business owners. If he's done it once, he's probably done it more than once:
http://www.npr.org/2014/12/13/370347429/outrage-over-chinese...
Do we apply this logic of "it was rooted in illegality, it can never be legal" to undocumented immigrants?
The author is pointing out that the business culture at Uber was designed and intended to break the law, and this is evidenced by a large list of illegal actions.
To be explicit – Uber’s board, chose to pursue actions which were clearly illegal, not actions which were “morally dubious”. More over, their legal counsel worked to aid them in this endeavor.
This leaves behind a firm geared towards condoning and considering illegal activity – an issue which is not matched by Lyft.
This is the critical difference. Its also why I have long recommended that people stay away from Uber.
> Uber’s business model is predicated on lawbreaking. And having grown through intentional illegality, Uber can’t easily pivot toward following the rules.
> Uber’s most distinctive capabilities focused on defending its illegality. Uber built up staff, procedures, and software systems whose purpose was to enable and mobilize passengers and drivers to lobby regulators and legislators — creating political disaster for anyone who questioned Uber’s approach.
> Having built a corporate culture that celebrates breaking the law, it is surely no accident that Uber then faced scandal after scandal. How is an Uber manager to know which laws should be followed and which ignored?
Even this:
> If we allow an illegal business model to flourish in one sector, soon businesses in that sector and others will see that the shrewd strategy is to ignore the law, seek forgiveness rather than permission, and hope for the best.
That seems reasonable. But the author wants to draw a pretty different conclusion than I would -- his point is that it's necessary to stomp hard on this kind of behavior, because if people notice that breaking the law benefits everyone, they will lose respect for the law.
I don't see that as a "problem" we should be attempting to solve. Where breaking the law benefits everyone, we should lose respect for the law. I would say the law should stop staking out such ludicrous positions and then trying to defend them based purely on the idea that if it loses a single battle, chaos will reign everywhere.
Just yesterday I read a court judgment of a guy convicted of drug trafficking. He was caught after police pulled him over for driving 79 mph in a 75 zone. To me, that's not a victory for the cause of "respect for the law".
The silent proposition is that there is some body of law and regulation which benefits no one, or which benefits some in an unjust way (e.g. protecting markets from new entrants).
That is certainly true but it's the crux of the entire debate, and reasonable position IMO is that if there are laws and regulations overdue for overhaul or discard, that is a debate we have first using established mechanisms.
There can not realistically be any gray area here. The law and regulation cannot in a civil society be "opt in" and adherence be left in effect a matter of discretion on the part of those e.g. seeking to "disrupt" the status quo.
There are always costs and benefits and extant law and regulation represents the state of play in our society as to which arguments (rightly or wrongly) have prevailed. There are mechanisms however painfully slow (from the perspective of would-be disruptors) for moving the lines.
But maintaining collective complete commitment to consensus respect of those lines whatever they are despite personal preference or benefit is the very foundation of the rule of law.
As an aside it's worth commenting that the overwhelming evidence is that transgression is inevitably to the disproportionate benefit of a few, with the costs disproportionately "externalized" on to the commons or the powerless.
Uber's behavior has been one demonstration of that after another.
While this is all hunky-dory in the abstract, it's usually more complicated in reality.
Established mechanisms are not always equally accessible to everyone (in practice, not in theory), nor are they equally effective for everyone. There's a reason protestors take to the streets* instead of calmly writing to their Congressmen about their problems.
We can debate ad-nauseum about whether or not Uber crossed the line, but let's not pretend that changing (or even starting a discussion about changing) the status quo is straightforward.
* Yes, I know that protesting in the streets is also an established mechanism, but I hope you get my point
I hope not, or "the rule of law" has never existed and never will.
Did you miss my point about the drug trafficker driving 79 in a 75? How far do you think we've gotten towards the goal of "complete commitment to consensus respect of" the traffic laws? Traffic laws are the poster child of the concept "trying to legislate what no one believes in just makes the law lose face before the people". They've turned the police from something people view positively into something people fear. You can be pulled over for driving at the speed limit, because that behavior is unnatural enough that it's suspicious. (And that's true! It is.) You can be pulled over for driving 4 mph over the speed limit. What happened to the rule of law?
Consensus adherence to norms of conduct codified are the definition of society and civilization.
Objectivist fantasies to the contrary are only that; they invariably lose their charm the instant someone has the ground of largely unrecognized inherited protections and rights jerked out from under them.
That law is selective, imperfect, and constantly trailing the realities of the day are problems worth solving.
It is astonishing to me sometimes, listening to the cant of "disruption", how eerily similar the total dependence on parasitic herd immunity antivaxxers enjoy is, to the total dependence of the rule of law and benefits of regulation libertarians and other would-be disruptors enjoy.
As the article says: Uber is a cautionary tale in almost every domain, from their relation to their workforce, their "contractors," the cities they work in...
Everyone sure loves a subsidized ride, right up until the party's over. I enjoyed subsidized lots-of-things the last couple bubbles too. The party ended then as well.
I had forgotten that thx.
In this case, it doesn't benefit everyone, especially not everyone equally -- it benefits Uber massively, and only incidentally benefits customers, and basically rips off the driver's time and investment.
That said, you're resting on the point that this kind of thing can occasionally bring about marginally beneficial change faster than legal methods.
What you are arguing is that "startups" should be allowed to freelance the rearrangement of benefits in our society and ignore the law in doing so. You want the rule of entrepreneurial people to override the rule of law.
Yet, this is a society and country built on the rule of law. And yes, the rule of law is much more cumbersome than the rule of men/women.
What you argue for is tantamount to anarchy, or at best rule by (economic) warlord.
It may seem like a good idea at first, but it is a rapid path to a broken society.
While one does need to maintain a "rule of law" to maintain society, but I would argue that the application of that is not wholly a precise mathematical or computational execution of laws. There needs to be a human-based fuzzy medium in that rule, the binary and complete enforcement of the laws as the definition of "rule of law" is both an unattainable standard and a terrifying goal. That little human buffer isn't 'anarchy', it's a needed degree of freedom needed to prevent tyranny becoming a friction that grinds up the entire machine of our society.
That does not justify deliberately and systematically exploiting the slack in the system for your own benefit and to the detriment of others. Uber was and is not civil disobedience.
Its business model was to exploit every bit of available slack in the system to its own benefit and to the detriment of everyone else. Notice how the typical driver only lasts a few months there.
This is flatly unethical, and the broad-based unethical slime came right from the top in the form of scandal after scandal, which finally sunk the CEO (and rightfully so).
And NO, the ends do not justify the means. Especially not when the means are a massive unethical and exploitative company being built to accelerate by a few years the hidebound practices of a minor industry for a minor improvement in the occasional transportation convenience of urban hipsters.
And, while it of course had the minor benefit of accelerating improvement in the taxi industry, it also destroyed the business value of those in the industry, many of whom are aspiring small businesses whose retirement (value of medallion) is now 6-figure debt.
It has also probably torched billions of investment capital that could have gone to other more productive and ethical uses in the technology industry. (my bet is that Uber is in a death spiral.)
Moreover, it was completely unnecessary for it to have been so unethical. Merely remaining as a proper and ethical ride-sharing service as it (purportedly) started, would have created similar innovation at a more moderate pace.
Again, the ends do not justify the means. Not in this case and not as a general rule.
I recommend taking a few ethics courses or reading a few philosophers.
This is a very paternalistic attitude toward the drivers, who are choosing to drive for Uber because they perceive it as being the best option available to them.
It's also been an incredible boon to customers.
>What you argue for is tantamount to anarchy, or at best rule by (economic) warlord.
This is scaremongering. People being free to engage in voluntary economic interactions in no way resembles the violent imposition of warlordism. It's the regulatory enforcement agents running sting operations and fining people and impounding their cars that are engaging in strong-arming tactics that break the peace.
Remember what the foundation of law is:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/enforci...
It has no place restricting voluntary economic interactions.
Ah yes. They obviously think this is the best of all possible worlds. If they were given the option to do something else -- say, work as high-paid software engineers -- they'd obviously choose not to, and continue driving, because they've rationally evaluated the plethora of fulfilling career options available to them and settled on driving for Uber as the one which brings them the greatest overall happiness.
Or perhaps they live in an economic system structured to disadvantage large numbers of people and leave them without many, if any, fulfilling options so that people like you can sit back and declare that a realistic choice was available to all of them, and they chose low-paying jobs (sorry, "independent contracting arrangements") with poor work conditions, thus making it entirely their fault and no-one else's.
I didn't say they think it's the best of all possible worlds. I said they think it's the best option available to them.
Making that particular relationship they've chosen to enter illegal, because you think it is not sufficiently lucrative for them, is not going to help them. The other options on the market are not going to improve by virtue of low pay options being made illegal.
Every price level, including wages, is driven by supply and demand. Impositions like the kind you're advocating cannot possibly provide more benefit than harm, because they do not shift the demand curve to the right through an increase in the aggregate demand for labour. Only increases in productivity can do that.
>If they were given the option to do something else -- say, work as high-paid software engineers -- they'd obviously choose not to, and continue driving, because they've rationally evaluated the plethora of fulfilling career options available to them and settled on driving for Uber as the one which brings them the greatest overall happiness.
This is an extreme strawman. I never said they wouldn't exploit a better option if one were available. I said the best option available is the one they took, and making it illegal is not going make better options appear.
>Or perhaps they live in an economic system structured to disadvantage large numbers of people and leave them without many
I don't see any evidence that the economic system is designed through a conspiracy to disadvantage them. Market institutions like private property rights have facilitated a massive increase in wages for the typical person over the last 400 years. What you're advocating will slow wage growth. In fact, like the link I provided shows, the type of occupational and business licensing you advocate for is a major cause of growing income disparity. It has exactly the opposite effect of what you intend.
>and they chose low-paying jobs (sorry, "independent contracting arrangements") with poor work conditions, thus making it entirely their fault and no-one else's.
You're not helping them by making that option unavailable to them. It's a misguided paternalistic mindset to think that you are.
By all means offer them the training so they can work as a highly paid software engineer (if you can), but don't take away their existing options out of a belief that you know better than them what's in their own best interest.
In service of which, I will "paternalistically" redistribute some wealth, which fortunately is justifiable since all modern property ownership is rooted in the use of force and/or fraud, and thus is of course morally invalid.
You're engaging in mass-defamation against anyone who owns anything. You're hiding behind the political process to illegitimately seize people's wealth.
In a just society, you would be taken to court for libeling hundreds of millions of people with private wealth with your baseless demonization of them.
Find me a plot of land whose present ownership isn't based on a chain leading to the last person who took it by force or fraud without someone else doing the same to them. I'll wait.
All tangible (real or personal) property is (or rather, is relation created in law to something which is) either naturally occurring like land, or the result of action applied to such a naturally occurring item.
Intangible personal property is a pure creation of law at the expense of everyone else's freedom that doesn't apply to a tangible item.
Our own bodies are "the result of action applied to such a naturally occurring item". We have an absolute right to our bodies according to any modern conception of individual rights in existence.
This idea that any one who has wealth should be presumed guilty of possessing stolen goods based only on a sweeping assumption that all naturally occurring property was acquired through fraud or force is completely unjust, and would never be accepted by a court of law.
Nonsense; neither has any value without the other. They each provide all of the value, which isn't additive.
> We have an absolute right to our bodies according to any modern conception of individual rights in existence.
As most modern systems of values allow restrictions onnbodily autonomy, many including situations in which others have a right to take your life which is the ultimate violation of such autonomy, it's clear that most such systems do not involve absolute rights of the kind you describe.
That's incorrect. A component being necessary doesn't mean it provides all of the value, and the other components have value whether or not a finished good is produced. Labour costs money whether or not the project is completed.
>As most modern systems of values allow restrictions onnbodily autonomy, many including situations in which others have a right to take your life which is the ultimate violation of such autonomy,
You're skirting around the key basis of almost all systems of justice: you do have a right to autonomy as long as you don't violate other's equal right to the same. This is basically the Non Aggression Principle, and it has the effect of maximising personal autonomy.
Many modern legal systems thoroughly limit the autonomy of individuals with regard to suicide, either by directly criminalizing it, by criminalizing any assistance others might provide a suicidal person in achieving that aim (in some systems even criminalizing merely failing to prevent a suicidal person from succeeding), or by authorizing other people to use force to prevent an individual from achieving that aim.
Suicide is an extreme case, but it's an extreme case in which usually no one's autonomy or body except the suicidal person's is involved. If an absolute right to our own bodies where it does not interfere with the rights of others is a key principle of our legal systems, then we should expect our legal systems to place no limitations on it, beyond at most restrictions aimed at preventing others from coercing an individual to commit "suicide", but this is not what we see in almost any modern legal system (if anyone has an example of one which does fit that expectation, I'd be curious to hear it).
That's an edge case for which a stronger argument exists for lack of mental capacity to provide informed consent.
For most actions, the nature of the action does not automatically suggest mental illness or incapacity. If you move away from the edge cases that you're fixating on to bolster your contrarian position, and look at the general pattern of legal rights, you'll see a heavy bias and tendency toward personal autonomy with the exceptions of actions that violate other people's equal right to the same.
So while you're right that societies generally don't provide an absolute right to personal autonomy, if one were to find those conventions that find the most overlap between disparate cultures, you'll see a principle that suggests something inherently natural about social norms that maximize personal autonomy.
OK. I live in California. Once upon a time it was inhabited by people who probably descended from others who crossed the Bering land bridge. I can't trace a clear chain of ownership over their history, but I know that:
* The land was taken from them, forcibly, by Spanish settlers
* Then that land was taken from Spain, forcibly, by Mexico during its war of independence
* Then that land was taken from Mexico, forcibly, by the United States during the Mexican-American war.
Thus every current private deed to land in California is backed not by a chain of voluntary transactions, but by a chain of transactions dating back to an exercise of violent force by the United States, since that is how the United States gained legal authority to recognize such deeds.
If you're alleging that every square inch of land in California was claimed by someone else at the time Spain claimed it, you have to prove that, for every square inch. It is not a foregone conclusion that the presence of native bands meant every inch of land was claimed. Pre-colonization, population densities were low and many bands were mobile.
Moreover, there are numerous legal principles, like the statute of limitations, that a court would consider, that could easily result in your case being thrown out.
In short, your sweeping judgements go against every accepted principle of justice developed over the last two thousands years.
It troubles me that this doesn't cause you pause. You are also focusing on only a single category of property: land, and ignoring the categories of property which you would have even more difficulty making a case of being derived from theft, while not abandoning your original claim that all wealth is derived from force/fraud, which indicates to me that you're not making an honest argument for your position.
And who said anything about taking it to a court? We're talking about morality here -- morally wrong actions don't magically become moral just because they happened years ago, even if a court would say the statute of limitations has expired for legal action. Every inch of land in California was immorally obtained by the United States, and thus there is no moral basis for the current patterns of ownership of that land. Any system which assumes that there is a moral basis must, to be consistent, also openly permit the use of violent force to involuntarily seize property from others, and in fact must consider such use of force to be praiseworthy.
So if you really do believe what you've been advocating, that's what you're committing to.
Spain ceded the land in a treaty, as did Mexico. Sovereignty is not exactly the same thing as land ownership either. So it's highly questionable that a court would agree that a current land title is illegitimate. Your confidence in your position about such a complex topic is not justified by the scope of the research you've done or arguments you've brought forth.
Moreover, the land titles didn't all get voided in these transfers of sovereignty.
>And who said anything about taking it to a court? We're talking about morality here -- morally wrong actions don't magically become moral just because they happened years ago, even if a court would say the statute of limitations has expired for legal action.
Courts are the institution that is tailor made for establishing what is moral. A statute of limitations exists for moral/justice-related reasons. You dismiss all principles of the Western justice system, which has evolved over 2,000 years, to arrive at your reckless condemnation of millions of people.
>Every inch of land in California was immorally obtained by the United States, and thus there is no moral basis for the current patterns of ownership of that land.
You make bold sweeping statements like this that no court would accept for numerous good reasons. But you know better than a jury of your peers and hundreds of years of legal tradition that have carefully weighed the numerous moral repercussions of each detail, right?
>Any system which assumes that there is a moral basis must, to be consistent, also openly permit the use of violent force to involuntarily seize property from others, and in fact must consider such use of force to be praiseworthy.
Another sweeping generalisation based on numerous shaky assumptions. A court can find current land titles legitimate for multiple factors unrelated to and despite of the fact that hundreds of years ago, the sovereignty changed as a result of a war.
The fact that you don't consider the possibility of other factors existing that would be relevant to morality of current land titles, or the possibility that some maintained their land titles during the change of power from Spain to Mexico to the United States, just to insist on a premature sweeping generalization that condemns millions of people, is troubling to me. It seems to be very reckless to those you're condemning, in being unwilling to exhaust all possibilities that you're wrong before condemning them.
Another thing that troubles me is you not abandoning your original position that all property is illegitimate, while making arguments about the legitimacy of only one category of property. This again suggests that you're not making an honest case for your initial position, and are instead trying to find the easiest argument you can make, and hope that I don't challenge you on other types of property. In other words, it indicates you're trying to win the debate rather than than come to a consensus on the truth.
What you are saying is (or requires) that all people and companies are completely free agents with perfect knowledge. The fact is that there is an information asymmetry between Uber and the drivers, which Uber not only exploits but systematically lies into -- they make false representations about the economics of driving, convincing drivers to make investments in what looks like a good business opportunity.
So yes, the hopeful drivers "perceive it as being the best option available to them". Some figure it out and never sign up, others do not and get screwed.
It is apparently irrelevant to you that this perception is not based in reality but is due to Uber's deliberate and systematic dishonesty.
------- No, it is not scaremongering. Uber is not a form of Civil disobedience. And, if you are arguing that any law should be breakable at any time by anyone, then the only consequence of that is that laws become meaningless.
People being able to engage in voluntary economic interactions outside of the context of a lawful societal structure leads EXACTLY to economic warlordism. Power will rapidly become concentrated in the small group of most unethical players, and they will rule the economy.
See Russia, which is basically ruled by 22 Oligarchs. and this started where every single Russian citizen was given stock certificates for ownership in state enterprises. Yet in only a few short years, only 22 had the power. Moreover, the apparent rule of law is a farce. Read Red Notice by Bill Browder to get an insight into how it worked.
And yes, the proper place of the law IS to restrain voluntary economic interactions so as to maintain a balanced marketplace, avoid the Tragedy Of The Commons, and other benefits to the broader society in which the economic transactions occur and which enables them in the first place.
Get your head our of the simplistic Libertarian ideals which you spout (I start with Libertarianism too, but it isn't the end...), and read some history and Systems Dynamics.
Of course it's paternalistic. You're saying they'll have a bad time if they CHOOSE to work for Uber, so to save them from their mistake, you want to deny them the option to make that decision in the first place. It's absolutely paternalistic.
>What you are saying is (or requires) that all people and companies are completely free agents with perfect knowledge.
No I'm not. I'm saying people have a right to make their own decisions, perfect or not. And don't presume you have more perfect knowledge of a potential Uber driver's best interests than they do. You and your judgements are just as imperfect as theirs, and more so on the matter of their own best interest, as you don't have the benefit of knowing their personal circumstances and options like they do.
>People being able to engage in voluntary economic interactions outside of the context of a lawful societal structure leads EXACTLY to economic warlordism.
Warlordism is the antithesis of voluntary interaction. 'Warlordism' in this case is just a buzzword to scaremonger people into consenting to giving up their rights to make decisions for their own lives.
> Power will rapidly become concentrated in the small group of most unethical players, and they will rule the economy.
More baseless appeals to fear to try to close the rational part of people's minds. Like the link I provided above shows, regulatory prohibitions on voluntary economic interaction is very likely the primary cause of growing income disparity. Removing such prohibitions would reduce the artificial and unearned economic rent accruing the higher income subset of the population for whom the fixed costs of regulatory compliance are easier to bear.
>See Russia, which is basically ruled by 22 Oligarchs. and this started where every single Russian citizen was given stock certificates for ownership in state enterprises. Yet in only a few short years, only 22 had the power.
No one said a market economy is perfect. The transition from a bankrupt and utterly corrupt nation under total control of the state to a marginally market based and slightly less corrupt state was bound to not happen without inequities and friction. Many of the oligarchs had ties to powerful groups under the authoritarian anti-market Soviet system, and were thus well positioned to take advantage of the changes that took place. You can't look at the stock ownership purchases in isolation if you want an accurate picture of what caused the inequality.
>And yes, the proper place of the law IS to restrain voluntary economic interactions so as to maintain a balanced marketplace, avoid the Tragedy Of The Commons
Voluntary economic interactions don't create a Tragedy of the Commons. There are market failures in externalities, but negative externalities are by definition created by nonvoluntary interactions. Under-production of positive externalities meanwhile is best solved by government provision of public goods. In other words, neither positive nor negative externalities justifies violating people's right to engage in voluntary interactions.
>Get your head our of the simplistic Libertarian ideals which you spout (I start with Libertarianism too, but it isn't the end...), and read some history and Systems Dynamics.
There is nothing simplistic about the Pareto Efficiency of a free market, and the evolutionary processes that lead to it evolving to configurations that better serve society over time. To bring this down to more concrete terms: you are not smarter or more knowledgeable than would-be Uber drivers. Most knowledge in the economy is diffused across the population as a whole, in the form of knowledge possessed by individuals of local conditions. Macroeconomic knowledge is efficiently transmitted through emergent processes like price signalling. Emergent systems, produced by asynchronous processes, are far more capable of organising an economy than top-down control produced by a serialised and highly simplistic 'public debate'. In your simplistic conceit, you don't understand that.
We're both free to do this because safety regulations and laws are an impingement on our "right" to engage in any voluntary economic interactions, right?
Of course, the first time you hit anything at more than 5mph, you'll wind up with a steering column through your chest because I just used a straight tube instead of a collapsible column to make it cheaper for you, among a hundred other shortcuts.
So, you're ok with this?
On what basis? That after a number of sales, perhaps the public will catch on and stop buying my cars? What if I've already got billions in profits and investors, and can out-market that knowledge, and buy off the regulators, congress, news organizations, and police?
Defraudment is not a voluntary interaction. By definition, it's involuntary, and thus a criminal action that would face punishment under the criminal justice system. The corporation employing anyone who commits such fraud would also be liable in civil court, and could be forced to pay for the damages suffered by the victim of the fraud/criminal-negligence.
A criminal and civil justice system is the bedrock of a free market. I am in no way implying getting rid of them. If Uber's employees are found to have committed fraud, I would in no way object to the company being forced to compensate those who suffered from the fraud.
Try to understand what the person you have a disagreement with actually believes. I recommend you start by learning what a free market is, as you seem to see it as some caricature, resembling a lawless anarchy.
Yet this entire discussion is based on your initial assertion that Uber should be free to break the law in order to create 'great consumer benefits'.
You cannot have it both ways. Either we have a system of laws and expect people to follow them, or at least not deliberately and systematically (e.g., write software specifically to ...) break them, -OR- we have a system whereby anyone can break the laws, -OR- authorianism/crony capitalism, where the selected can break the laws.
I'm saying we should get rid of those laws that infringe upon the right to engage in voluntary interactions, and stop enforcing those laws until they are officially repealed.
We should absolutely maintain the core of the legal system, which prohibits involuntary interactions.
But they do limit it past the point where it starts to infringe on regulated conduct.
For example, employment is regulated such that employers are required to buy and pay for Workers' Compensation and Unemployment insurance, so that workers injured on the job or laid off have some safety net. It is illegal to misclassify (W-2) workers as independent contractors (1099s) largely to ensure that these programs are in place and solvent.
As an employer, this is an inconvenient and somewhat costly PITA. As a worker and someone looking at the overall effect on society, it looks like a real necessity. These laws, along with minimum wage laws, etc, also reduce (a little bit) the leverage that an employer has over workers, and improve a bit the inequality. A secondary effect of unemployment insurance, COBRA laws, etc, is that they reduce the burden on other parts of society and govt, such as the health care system, welfare, crime reduction, etc.
So, are these core laws that should be maintained or spurious impositions on voluntary interactions that should be ignored and repealed (which would have the quick effect of further increasing inequality)?
I look at the situation and see them as core laws that need to be increased. For example WalMart pays just over minimum wage, but does not pay a living wage, so you can work there full time and still be below the poverty level. They actually provide seminars to their workers on how to obtain and maximize govt benefits.
That looks to me like WalMart exploiting their available voluntary interactions to make you and me subsidize their workforce (without govt assistance, their workers would get sicker and less healthy and they'd have higher turnover and training costs).
I think it argues for a minimum wage set so that 45 hour work weeks is above the poverty line and ineligible for benefits.
Sounds like you think it's all voluntary, so nevermind the knock-on costs to society or the fact that WalMart's owners continue to get richer, and the workers, poorer.
Because the courts are subservient to statute. What I'm saying is that those statutes that violate the right to engage in voluntary interactions should be repealed.
Every statute impinges on conduct that could be voluntary agreed among some set of parties. You might actually knowingly want my cheap deathtrap car, or want me to pay you 50c/hour without workman's comp and unemployment insurance. You might even voluntarily want me to murder you (easier than suicide or some ritualistic purpose).
There are lawless societies that exist, and they do not work well. They are usually called "Failed States" for a reason. If you really want that, it is relatively cheap to go there. But, do not expect much of a future for yourself or your family. Yes, you are nominally more free in the sense that you can do anything you want. But you are actually substantially less free because there is little or nothing in the way of resources, infrastructure, societal conventions, laws, etc.
To build and maintain a complex society, there must exist some significant regulation of markets, including some voluntary activities (start with managing the Commons Problem). To say otherwise is merely spouting a useless ideology that will actually harm growth and the availability of freedom.
Warlordism is the antithesis of voluntary interaction. 'Warlordism' in this case is just a buzzword to scaremonger people into consenting to giving up their rights to make decisions for their own lives.
Exactly, Warlordism is the antithesis of voluntary interaction. It is not a buzzword, but a shorthand used since I'm not writing a dissertation but a (supposedly) brief comment.
Warlordism, or the domination of an economy or power system by a very few who manage to seize the top of the power structure, is exactly the result of unregulated "free" interactions.
Just observe any unregulated society or economy. How long does the equality and freedom of interactions last? How long before someone or group of someones accumulate a critical mass of power, economic and/or violent? A surprisingly short time. And it happens every time.
And you're claiming voluntary interactions create a situation of warlordism, which is inconsistent with your admission that "warlordism is the antithesis of voluntary interaction". Your use of the word 'warlordism' is inflammatory/scaremongering.
>How long before someone or group of someones accumulate a critical mass of power, economic and/or violent? A surprisingly short time. And it happens every time.
There is no fixed 'critical level of wealth'. It depends on various factors, like what kind of system of government is in place.
In any case, you can't maintain a free society by violating people's right to engage in voluntary interactions, as part of your attempt to prevent income inequality.
It's a self-defeating proposition, as the very prohibition against voluntary interaction makes people unfree, and creates a master:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/enforci...
Moreover, these prohibitions greatly exacerbate income inequality, as the Brookings link I provided earlier explains.
Finally, trying to prevent the takeover of the political system by the rich by preventing parties from accumulating large amounts of private wealth is like trying to stop your boat from sinking by boiling away the ocean. There will always be huge pools of private wealth, and many that are outside the jurisdiction of your government. The solution is to plug the holes in the boat's hull, to prevent money from affecting electoral results. You should think outside the box, like considering the Athenian democracy model, which employed assemblies specifically to protect against corruption by wealthy interests.
It is not instant, but it is the nearly inevitable consequence of a situation where laws do not govern/ regulate violent or economic interactions.
> Critical mass of power -- of course the amount is variable, depending on a variety of factors.
It is the result that counts -- some critical mass will be reached, and the concentration of wealth/power becomes self-reinforcing, and grows.
> The only way I've seen in history that works is to mitigate this by creating a system of laws that force the distribution of power/wealth, and avoid excess concentrations of power/wealth.
Yes, these legal systems do make us less free. If you really want complete freedom, you can go today to Somalia, South Sudan, remote Afghanistan, or a number of other places. Effectively no laws and complete freedom. Also an almost complete lack of hope of advancement for each individual and the society.
----- I agree that trying to prevent takeover of the political system by the rich/powerful is very difficult, nearly impossible.
I also agree that we need to keep money out of elections as much as possible. The Citizens United decision was one of the worst in modern history.
I also like the Athenian model, especially the part where the leaders were picked from a pool at random. I actually think that we could be doing better by that sort of method. Once you've achieved a certain level of skills/credentials (academic degree, military rank, corporate experience, you should become eligipble, like jury duty. You might simpy be randomly called to the House, Senate. Maybe a vote of confidence for a 2nd term, and pick the POTUS randomly from those who win that.
But yes, while my political philosophy starts with the basis that Freedom is the first good unto itself, it is also not absolute, as having complete freedom results in extreme concentrations of power, reducing the total freedom -- the wealthy/powerful become very free, and the vast majority become dramatically less free. So, to maximize freedom, we need to limit concentrations of wealth/power. Yes that makes some less free, but it makes the greatest freedom for all.
Like I said, it's like trying to boil away the ocean. It's futile, given the scale and complexity of the economy, and given that you can't touch foreign sources of capital. In the attempt to control the entirety of the economy, you're giving governing authorities enormous powers of surveillance and interjection, which I strongly suggest will end up exacerbating income inequality even if that is the opposite of the original intent.
I oppose campaign finance laws, because I believe it's another case of trying to boil away the ocean: in this case, control how much people spend on political advertisements. And once again you're giving enormous powers to governing authorities to dictate private actions, and this power can and will easily be exploited by special interests to further entrench the power.
I'm glad you agree on the Athenian democracy model or something like it. Something like jury duty is exactly what I advocate.
One partial solution that has been shown to be somewhat durable is the divided government, multiple co-equal branches with different duties and capabilities. I think the American experiment has shown that we could probably do better with 4 or 5 branches, but three is a decent start.
But it seems like we agree on the overall problem, which is how to prevent excessive concentrations of wealth/power, and do so in a society that has not grown the cultural wisdom and strength to do it intrinsically (Norway/Sweden being partial examples, where excessive wealth is shunned and prevented at many levels).
I used to think that few/no laws/govt was the way to go, but every example I've seen, small differences simply accelerate into incredible concentrations of wealth/power at surprising speed.
You keep arguing against my solution (limited/divided govt, with each component structurally defined to minimize concentrations of power and/or balance the concentrated power). What's yours?
Moreover by repealing regulations on voluntary interactions, one of the primary sources of income inequality will be eliminated. Regulations currently almost solely increase income inequality.
My rent was expensive for years before AirBnB came on the scene. AirBnB might put some slight upward pressure on rents in markets with a lot of tourism, but it pales in comparison to the simple fact that supply does not meet demand. Thank the zoning regs and lack of transit investment in less-urban parts of your metro area.
It's shortsighted to point to one item as being "the reason", but it's equally shortsighted to ignore major American cities (Let's be real - This is HN, we're talking about SF) shortsighted development policies as major contributing factors.
Moreover, restricting voluntary economic interactions behind a wall of regulatory licensing schemes, like hotel licenses and taxi licenses, exacerbates income inequality:
https://www.brookings.edu/research/make-elites-compete-why-t...
In short, there's no commonly advocated policy more harmful to society than what you're advocating.
When the choices you make with respect to the use of your property cause harm to other people or their property, they have the right to stop you and to recover damages for harm you've caused. When your voluntary transaction has involuntary (for other people) effects on others' property, they have the right to stop your transaction.
Offering something on the market, that other consenting adults voluntarily choose to buy, does not violate anyone's rights. Competitors do not have a right to dictate how consumers spend their money, so being out competed is not a violation of their rights.
What you're advocating is a blatant violation of their rights based on a belief that people are entitled to other people's private property.
At least learn the basis of free market ideology before criticizing it.
There can be certification.. A certifying body certifies that a taxi driver meets all of the conditions you mentioned and issues certificates to those drivers who do. There can be more than one certification standard, and consumers would be free to choose which certifying standard they trust, or even choose to use a driver with no certifications.
I'm not sure why such a world is so scary for you.
>But you're also the same kind of free market numbskull who supports unfettered capitalism and campaign donations, which is how a special interest strangles a government body like a taxi cab commission.
That's not a very nice or constructive comment. Where I live, Uber is banned, and taxi service is heavily regulated. The taxi drivers are the most dangerous drivers on the roads. Please give me free market competition that results in the high quality service you see from Uber.
You're calling my ideas "corrosive and dangerous" and claiming I have a "false ideology" and yet you don't understand the essence of my point or the arguments I'm raising (e.g. you fail to grasp the distinction between a voluntary certification and a mandate license, which is at the heart of my argument).
Let's get rid of doctor licensing then? The free market will separate the good ones from the ones who will kill you! Pyramid schemes? You have the right to invest in one, so why outlaw it? Toxic waste dump? Go for it! Don't let the evil law stop you! Seriously, you're incredibly dull if you cannot grasp the consequences of your words. Each and every one of these hated laws came about as a result of something bad happening, and people were like "yeah, let's prevent that from happening again." Then everything is good, and idiots like you come by and scream about the big gubmint keepin you down! The horrors! Well go back in time then you moron, to the time when slavery existed (there's a law against that) or kids worked in coal mines (there's a law against that) without safety equipment (nor laws) or taxi drivers didn't carry insurance (dreaded regulations that Uner flaunted).
Unlicensed doctors should be legal. As should pyramid schemes. Dumping toxic waste on other people's private property or on commonly held public property is not a "voluntary interaction", and thus should be illegal. A free society is one where people are free to engage in voluntary interactions, and are safe from others violating their right to their person and property.
You tell me to "grow up" and lecture about how "your rights end where others begin". I recommend you take your own advice and learn what it is that I'm actually advocating (hint: a free market doesn't mean no laws/government, and people being allowed to dump toxic waste), and stop advocating for laws that restrict my rights to spend my money how I want.
Airbnb was valued at $31bn after its last round. As of market close today, that's about more than the market caps of Hilton & Intercontinental combined.
Despite what the astroturfing campaigns of Airbnb et al would have you believe, regulations are meant to, in part, protect competition. If we're unsatisfied with them, we ought to use elections to change them. But allowing private firms to engage in Uber's brand of regulatory arbitrage severely undermines gov't institutions.
The Airbnb industry stands to replace a large chunk of the entire hospitality industry, which is worth substantially more than $31 billion.
The astroturfing is by the powerful hotel lobby, as is almost always the case when you see a push to restrict voluntary economic interactions with licensing requirements that ordinary people can't afford (e.g. hotel licenses which almost all the Airbnb hosts would be unable to afford):
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/technology/inside-the-hot...
"Get a TLC license New York City With more riders than any other app, Uber is a great way to make money driving in NYC. You'll need a TLC license to pick up riders, but we've made the signup process quicker and easier than ever."
https://www.uber.com/drive/new-york/get-a-license/
and this: http://driveubernyc.com/tlc-overview/
Uber most certainly does follow the law. He should write a retraction. NYC is by far the largest market for Uber. It took me 10 seconds to google this information.
If this professor can't take the less than one minute to do research, how can you trust absolutely anything else this man writes?
</sarcasm>
Sorry, somewhat serious though. I was going to say something about this recent "bro-culture" having cast a pall over the software engineering profession but realized I was going to sound like an old man.