Uber-Capitalism at its worst
ricochet.mediaThe author has a very perverse mode of thinking, at least to me personally. He praises the fact that medallions and price controls cause artificial shortages and blames Uber for devaluing the medallions through their competition. That's the most bass-ackwards thing I've read in a while. Yes, taxi companies can't compete, because they're a state cartel. The author complains about Uber becoming a monopoly, but laments the poor state-protected taxicab monopolists because their artificially fixed hundred-thousand dollar medallions are depreciating!
Apparently we are at whim of a "single private company" controlling our transportation, but somehow being at the whim of state governments is not an issue at all.
Circumventing local regulations makes you a greedy monopolist, but instituting outrageous item and price controls doesn't.
And of course, the ultimate irony: complaining about monopolization and cartelization while praising unions. I'm not opposed to unions, but they are demand-side bargaining cartels and to be in denial over this makes you look disingenuous.
If this is "capitalism at its worst," I can only be horrified at imagining what the author thinks "capitalism at its best" will be. Food rationing, I presume.
Terrible article. Only gives more ammunition against left-leaning commentators and nothing else.
>He praises the fact that medallions and price controls cause artificial shortages and blames Uber for devaluing the medallions through their competition.
I didn't read the text as 'praise' for taxi companies or government regulation, just a statement of facts about them. Reread that part of the text from a neutral place.
"Next, it’s time to understand the legal difference between what Uber is doing and what taxi companies are doing. The taxi industry is highly regulated and each cab must have a medallion, which is basically a licence to operate a car as a taxi. With prices over $300,000, these medallions can be valued as highly as a home. Since Uber has shown up, those prices have plummeted.
Why go through the hassle of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to become a taxi driver when you can just download an app and become an Uber driver for free? Taxi companies, which are regulated by the government, cannot compete."
It's stating that the playing field is unfair and that becoming a taxi driver isn't a career path anymore.
>Apparently we are at whim of a "single private company" controlling our transportation, but somehow being at the whim of state governments is not an issue at all.
This article focuses around Uber's role in our lives, not the government. There's enough hatred to go around though and we're allowed to dislike two types of monopolies.
>And of course, the ultimate irony: complaining about monopolization and cartelization while praising unions. I'm not opposed to unions, but they are demand-side bargaining cartels and to be in denial over this makes you look disingenuous.
It depends on how you perceive unionization. I perceive it to be as a means for workers to make certain they have fair working conditions and fair pay for their work as a base. Everything else is all part of a layer of bureaucracy that comes later and/or is corrupted by corrupt actors.
It's stating that the playing field is unfair and that becoming a taxi driver isn't a career path anymore.
Of course it's unfair. You have an artificially constrained supply.
I perceive it to be as a means for workers to make certain they have fair working conditions and fair pay for their work as a base.
In the same way, a business cartel is a means for firms to coordinate operations in a manner to mutually benefit in terms of profitability by vertically integrating stages of production or through more brute price gouging arrangements.
Of course, they have a high incentive to break down as a result of disobeying to exploit new opportunities from the leveling that has been done.
Unions serve the same function, but on the demand side (more specifically wage laborers). You can't support one without also allowing for the other.
Given that Uber is going to replace all it's drivers I think it's important to understand that this is not just an intellectual debate where making some isolated logical arguments make you win or loose the argument. You might be logically correct but the implications goes beyond the argument.
This is something that is going to affect most people over the next 10-20 years no matter what industry they work in and so we need to discuss it in a different way.
What is it that technology and capitalism does to our society, how do we ensure that the millions of people who don't have the skills to participate in the work force are going to be able to participate in society and so on.
The authors mistake is that he introduces morals into this. But even if we take that out we are left with a real problem for society IMO.
They are both valid debates, not opposed:
- is Uber too capitalistic (not in my opinion, the only unethical thing quoted in the article are their actions against Lyft)
- are the current economic practice sustainable in a worker less society (in my opinion, no, but that doesn't mean we throw the current system away, there is still a need for workers, it is changing at an accelerating pace, we need to adapt and ease into a new system)
Thats the problem though. You seem to imply that it's just a matter of changing the skills of the workforce.
But thats not the discussion thats worth having I think, cause the real issue is whether that's even possible anymore.
I don't know if anything can be too capitalistic, but since uber is trying to get around normal legislation (taking the best from defining their drivers as freelancers and treating them as employers)
> Thats the problem though. You seem to imply that it's just a matter of changing the skills of the workforce.
Not what I meant, but it is a much bigger discussion than Uber and ethics that involves concepts of basic income, which work can and cannot be automated, rewarding work that's not interesting, rewarding innovation, etc...
The article here confuse capitalism with ethics, and tries to defend one form of capitalism vs another (debate about medaillons).
Yes it's bigger which is why I was commenting on it since parent seemed to try and dismiss the essays claim by pointing toward some rational inconsistency.
At least that's how it read to me.
Given that Uber is going to replace each and everyone of their drivers with automatic cars it's really just pure capitalism. Not good, not evil.
Calling it "capitalism at it's worst" is putting a lot of noise into the discussion as it assume that it can be solved with better morals or ethics.
But even if Uber paid it's drivers as actual employers instead of this absurd freelance status they have it wouldn't change the fact that uber is going to replace it's drivers because technology allows it.
And so the real discussion is not what do we do with bad actors in capitalism (we have rules for that), it's not even are uber bad actors.
No the real discussion is what we do with the fact that technology is slowly but surely replacing workers with machines and leaving an increasing number of people unemployable because they don't have good enough skills.
This is no ones fault, it's just what technology does and the sooner we start to accept the premise of technology the sooner we will be able to discuss the real issues without calling people names.
But this wont happen until the economic models start factoring technology in and not treat it as an externality. Cause not until then the politicians will start to be able to see the real impact of technology (both the good and the bad) in a more balanced view.
I suspect that the notorious Basic Income Guarantee may help here.
In all seriousness, a basic income would be ideal for such a situation; its low-bureaucracy implementation may even make such a system less expensive than standard welfare, while providing better benefits to the economy as a whole.
So, Uber:
>Provides the same service at lower costs
>Pays more to drivers who drive at peak hours, by charging more at those times
>Is (gasp!) not charging its drivers hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privelige of having someone barf on their seats
Okay, the accusations of driver-poaching and underhanded tactics are bad...but then again, the driver poaching could just be drivers going where the better money is.
In fact, I'd say this is capitalism at its best. It's providing a service where the service is needed at a fraction of the cost, and without having to wait for anyone else's say-so.
You are cherry picking.
Here is some other cherry picking.
Uber doesn't allow it's drivers to set their own prices even though they are freelancers and not employees.
Uber doesn't compensate for that by at least promoting tips.
Uber doesn't allow the drivers to sub-contract to other drivers.
Because there is no upper limit on how many drivers there can be, each uber driver is in effect going to fight for less and less market.
Oh yeah and Uber is working on replacing all their drivers.
These are just a few of the issues with uber and is hardly capitalism at it's best.
Fair enough. There are tradeoffs.
My comment was, honestly, more defensive than anything else. I saw that the article was making broad statements and misrepresenting the problem, and I proceeded to do the same in return. It's silly and I should've known better.
Well I too find the article misrepresenting the problem but for different reasons :) (see my other comment in this thread)
As Peter Thiel also said, Uber is an ethically challenged company. It's means are not proper, but it's super convenient for commuters, and that's what capitalism cares about.
Its means. It's reads as "it is means . . ." or "it has mean are not proper" which is gibberish.
tl;dr very Marxist piece about greedy capitalists using hi-tech to devalue taxi medallions, breaking some minor laws by the way (which isn't great, though not the pure evil at all).
Though there's an interesting link about LaZooz, a decentralized community alternative to Uber: https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/lazooz-the-decentralized-cryp...