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Comment by antihero | Hacker News Reader

But then, contrast this with the Uber CEO's trying to get rich by essentially destroying the livelihoods of a huge amount of people. Ethics does play a part in this, and obviously what he says is true, but it's only true because there are so many greedy people out there that put their own desires over others' needs.

Disrupting markets may be sexy, but you always have to think of the consequences.

I was discussing the idea with a friend about buying a company in order to grab their customer base, which he thought was a fantastic idea until I pointed out that it utterly fucks over the employees of that company. Sure, if his company was good enough, he'd win eventually, but you can coexist and do things in a way that aren't utterly vicious and unethical.

There's a middle way, which is allowing evolution but in an ethical, considerate manner.

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But as she mentions, just wait for driverless cars. Or should they be pre-emptively banned as they'll destroy the livelihoods of millions?

This isn't Uber's CEO being evil, it's simply that they found new efficiencies to squeeze out enabled with newer technology.

I'm not advocating banning them, please read what I'm actually saying.

I'm saying that utterly free markets mean that many people are left behind and suffer, because it takes time to adapt and re-train (and often people are too old to do this).

So, we should facilitate evolution in such a way that accommodates human beings.

Perhaps if we replaced the cars with driverless people and the farmers with automated farms, these people should not have to work, because the work is done for them?

Except in this world, even if every part of our lives was automated, we'd still have to work for pittance (or even compete with the machines), because the machines would be owned by private entities.

This is the nature of exploitation - a job is seen as a gift, and the more we automate, the less jobs there are to do, and it becomes a race to the bottom. When things get automated, we don't allow the people who previously did those jobs rest, because everything has to be "earned".

Whilst technology is amazing and has led to unparalleled productivity and efficiency, the owners are the ones who have benefited massively disproportionately to humanity as a whole - any positives to everyone else are just a side-effect.

Free markets are the only way to avoid catastrophic booms and busts. Protectionism leads to giant bubbles which fail all at once, as opposed to more manageable gradual change.

Farms are significantly automated, compared to a hundred years ago. And farmers continue to attempt to improve their own efficiency. Cabs are in a sense automated, it's just that the last big group made unemployed by a technological revolution at that point were horses. They just stopped moving forward after that.

Nothing prevented the cab drivers coming up with something like Uber themselves. If you prefer existing taxis to Uber then you're currently free to make that choice with your wallet - but that choice is exactly what protectionists want to take away from people. Ultimately protectionism becomes a giant hidden tax in society, and competing societies with less of it in the long term win.

I have some sympathy for free markets, but your post just sounds trite and somewhat tone deaf. If you want to be convincing, you should respond to the actual problem - what will happen to the taxi drivers - and not just write generic terms like "booms and busts".

what will happen to the taxi drivers

They will go the way of the buggy-whip makers[0], as once happened when cars (that these taxi drivers now drive) replaced the horse-drawn carriages.

[0]http://www.thefreedictionary.com/buggy+whip

> Free markets are the only way to avoid catastrophic booms and busts. Protectionism leads to giant bubbles which fail all at once, as opposed to more manageable gradual change.

This isn't a mainstream economic viewpoint, and needs acres of citations.

Isn't a completely free market likely to collapse onto one or two dominant suppliers who then prevent future competition by restrictive practices?

I'd imagine the use of time sensitive tariffs to bankrupt competitors. Sort of like Starbucks saturating a city centre district, bankrupting local independent cafes, then closing down the extra branches.

>"Isn't a completely free market likely to collapse onto one or two dominant suppliers who then prevent future competition by restrictive practices?"

I have never seen any evidence of this, though I would be interested in reading any material(s) you have supporting this position. The only successful long-term monopolies and oligopolies which keep prices high, or increase them, of which I can find examples are government-supported, either through regulation, subsidy, or protectionism.

Some companies manage to keep their position at the top of a market without government support, by constantly lowering their prices, or improving their product offerings (i.e. Amazon AWS, and Google search), but I would hesitate to call these monopolies, because a new entrant could disrupt them at any time, and these companies do not appear to be 'exploiting' a guaranteed market.

> Free markets are the only way to avoid catastrophic booms and busts.

This is an unsupported statement of deep faith. To my mind, it fails along two different axes: I don't think that free markets are the best or even only way to prevent major booms and busts; and more importantly, I don't think that free markets actually even do prevent a substantial boom-bust cycle. In particular, the early capitalist period was made up of nothing but major boom-bust cycles until the markets were regulated, and the deregulation fad that started in the 80s and continues today has certainly seemed to contribute to the fluctuations in the economy.

That's not to say that protectionism is the answer either. But the unfettered free market is the opposite of a solution to our problems.

> Free markets are the only way to avoid catastrophic booms and busts.

Actually, many people believe the opposite. Some even argue that high-frequency boom-bust cycles are beneficial, because the short duration of the bust makes it much easier to bear (everyone tries to get as much of the boom as they can, then suffer through the bust with minimal losses).

>"Actually, many people believe the opposite."

The previous post is not at odds with what you are saying, as one may "avoid catastrophic booms and busts" by ensuring smaller "high-frequency boom-bust cycles".

>Perhaps if we replaced the cars with driverless people and the farmers with automated farms, these people should not have to work, because the work is done for them?

Honestly, the only fair way I can see to handle this kind of automation is Universal Basic Income.

Or rather think about all of the new drivers enabled by Lyft, Uber, etc. These new drivers now have a livelihood that wasn't possible under the medallion taxi cartel.

Precisely!!! Why does no one talk about the Uber drivers who are now making money and have gainful employment?

Everyone seems to imply as if it is only Uber's CEO who is getting rich by taking away the taxi driver's livelihood, as if the CEO drives all the Uber vehicles himself!

Aren't most of these new drivers former taxi drivers?

Once you have their consumer base, you can hire their employees.

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