Uber is a massive disruptor against Governments monopolistic and violent behavior. And it’s about time.

In order to drive a taxi in most cities, the Government will charge a medallion license fee which can be as high as $700,000 or more. The price is so ridiculously high because the Government is engaged in price fixing by purposely limiting the supply of licenses. Supply and demand; as supply goes down, and demand goes up, price goes up.

Licensing fees are classic examples of “rent seeking” that Governments have engaged in since feudal times. It is a way for a Government to insert itself between two individuals seeking to engage in an economic activity in order to generate revenue for itself by skimming off the top of the transaction without providing anything of value in return.

Whenever Government sees individuals engaged in the Libertarian tenet of a peaceful, voluntary and mutually beneficial act of free trade, it comes along, inserts itself in the middle like a rusty splintered crowbar, and rapes both parties for a piece of the action.

Consider Chicago. The taxi rent seeking skim went from $50,000 to $357,000 in just ten years. One might ask why so much so quickly. The answer is because Government has the universal power of legalized blunt force. When a Government needs more money, and they always need more money, it simply takes more money. And more. And more – until something breaks. In some cases the break is a change in consumer or citizen behavior, avoidance (gray markets, underground economies, non-reporting), revolutions, but in other cases it’s just technology.

Note the hypocritical irony in this one industry alone. Here, government is engaged in price fixing, gouging and monopolistic behaviors all at the same time, but because it’s the Government…it’s legal. A private company would have been eviscerated for such practices. And the general public? Too ignorant to even see it for what it is, which the Government is thankful for every single day.

So what is a Government to do when the revenue they need to pay the bills for all their social service vote-buying programs and government worker healthcare and retirement pension benefits comes due?

Why use more Government violence of course!

Here are some reasons that Government is using to attack, undermine and otherwise attempt to eradicate a competitor that threatens Governments rent seeking monopoly by providing a superior service at a lower cost to consumers:

• Uber is elitist and racist.
  • You have to be wealthy enough to have a smart phone to use it, therefore it will provide a superior service for the wealthy and powerful, leaving behind a poor, perhaps dangerous service for the underprivileged. And since most of the wealthy are white, it is also a tool for the proliferation of racism by those damn 1%.
    • Stupidly, this also admits that the Government regulated taxi service currently in place is not worthy of even the underprivileged – and somehow people think this is a “good” argument.
• Uber is discriminatory.
  • It is illegal (in most cities) for a taxi service to pass someone requesting a ride to pick up someone else who asked for a ride through the app, because that is discrimination. On the face of it, this is ridiculous, and had it not been for the recent uproar in the media about one particular non-issue of discrimination (or what a Libertarian would simply call the freedom of association), I wouldn’t think anything of it. But…since we have been made to care…what happens when a gay Uber driver discriminates against picking up a christian cake baker, or a NYC Muslim Uber driver refuses to pick up an upper east side delicatessen butcher that makes pork sandwiches all day? Since we’ve abandoned the right to freedom of association (read more here), and due to the thousands of possible discriminatory scenarios such an abandonment generates, I guess we need another few thousand anti-discriminatory laws to handle this problem. Bring on the lawyers!
• Uber violates Government monopolies.
  • The Government uses violence to force taxis to use Government approved fare payment vendors, (Uber skirts around this monopoly by allowing you to pay with your credit card on its own app, lowering prices for its customers in the process), thereby denying Government whatever revenues, kickbacks and other incentives they are getting from their corporate fascist monopolistic agreements. Government…is the #1 creator of monopolies – but then the Government “pot” uses violent force against any private company “kettles” that they consider monopolistic.
• Uber is deadly.
  • Government says that it’s not safe for people to drive in cars of other people using electronic devices while driving, because, you know, Government is your mommy.

Articles here and here.

Categories: Government Failures

Tags: cities ban uber, government hates uber, the dangers of uber, Uber, uber is discriminatory, uber is elitist, uber resists tyranny, why people like uber