You have a say in government - that is its stated goal and purpose. Of the people for the people.
The fact that you don't have a say in Uber's corporate decisions is irrelevant, because you can simply stop using it. You don't need a say. The fact that you can't opt out of government is why you're given a say, and what makes it infinitely more dangerous.
It is true that being part of a government system is not a choice but without that community you would be dead or at least not an educated human with internet access.
You cannot reap the rewards of government, community, and progress and then turn around and want to abolish the systems that made those things possible just because you cannot speed and murder people.
What systems are those, exactly? Protectionist laws for taxi drivers?
When a organization ignores those laws then they are going against the will of the people.
The 'will of the people' on the issue of Uber is abundantly clear. Everyone wants it, except taxi drivers and the companies and structures that benefit from them. This gets blocked sometimes due to the fact that taxi drivers represent a concentrated interest against a diffuse benefit. We all benefit a little from Uber, but taxi drivers benefit a lot from killing Uber. So they raise their voices against it, and nobody speaks up for the rest of us. It is the classic problem of representative democracy. The representatives are beholden to the concentrated interests of the few against the collective interests of the many.
Where is the pro Uber Lobby? Don't have one? Start one! You are clearly in favor of this type of program. If you truly believe that it is the right thing then be part of the solution that makes it happen.
They raised their voices against it.. You have to speak up for "the rest of us". Be the change that we need in the world.
I believe in you.
If you're arguing that all those things are good and consistent with the will of the people, then sure. I suppose that's a consistent position, even if absurd in its consequences. But I don't think for a second that you believe all three of those things are good simultaneously.
I cannot speak to the motivation of those that chose Uber as a customer or employer. Perhaps customers chose them because of the cost and convenient app. Perhaps employees chose them because of the low barrier to entry and flexible hours.
Just because something different came along and grabbed everyone's attention does not mean that the gov services are valued at zero. There was a time when those yellow cabs had little to no rules or oversight. And that changed for a good reason - or at least a reason that people thought were good at a time.
The rules for Uber are going to change too - there will be laws and rules designed to correct wrongs (either real or perceived).
If the rules need to be different then people need to stand up and try to make the rules what they think they should be. My argument is that Uber should not decide on its own not to respect the will of the people.
Sure you can. Just leave their jurisdiction. I've heard Somalia is nice.
Their "jurisdiction" is invalid, so why should we leave?
I look forward to being amazed by the breadth of your knowledge about the history and conditions of Somalia and how it pertains to libertarianism.
True.
I have effectively no choice in ISP, and no choice in power company. At what point do I get to vote on seats on my ISP's board, or my power company's?
This is the root cause of many problems in other markets too. High pharmaceutical prices? The government granted monopolies (patents) to those companies. Forced to use Windows? Microsoft has a government-granted monopoly (copyright) on Windows. Strange that limiting or revoking these state-granted monopoly rights is never considered as an option for remedying these problems.
More relevant to this article, the government has historically put drastic limits on the number of taxis that can operate in a city, to the point where the permits required to operate one were once worth over a million dollars apiece. The need to disrupt that system is why Uber developed a culture of law-breaking to begin with.
On paper. In practice... well, that's a whole different story. See: gerrymandering, voter fraud, ballot access restrictions, voter id laws, etc.
Of the people for the people
Even if that were ever actually the case, I think those days are long gone.
The reason gerrymandering, (I will not include voter fraud), access restrictions, etc etc is still a problem inspite of being identified as a problem is the collective will of the people to demand that these wrongs be correct.
Imagine what the 2016 campaign and election would look like if everyone cared enough to learn and vote. Imagine what your town or state would look like if we could get 80% voting rates... [eyes twinkle as I stare off into the distance thinking of what could be]
The system is not only not designed to allow change easily, it is explicitly designed to make it as difficult as possible. The idea is that change shouldn't happen just because someone somewhere said they wanted something, and not enough people disagreed to stop it. Change should only happen when the vast majority of people have thought about it and agreed with it. This system is designed to prevent genocide or other forms of purposeful mass inequality. It is, however, extremely poor at giving an individual rights and freedoms. The assumption is that the individual should already have rights and freedoms, and all the government need do is not remove them. Barring some injunction with the state, an individual can then do whatever they choose.
Capitalism can, when implemented properly (inb4 no true scotsman), act as a true democracy. It can allow each individual person the choice to do what that person chooses, independent of other peoples disagreement - even if the vast majority thinks the decision idiotic. Under our governments form of "democracy", what should an individual do if the majority of people don't want privacy, if those people are against privacy? There is nothing they can do! Whereas, even if everyone else in the world was a hardline supporter of a company like Uber, any individual could make the choice not to use them.
"In order to form a more perfect union" VS "the pursuit of shareholder wealth."
Even if the system is not working exactly the way we want - it never will - we are still endowed with the rights to participate. The same cannot be said for corporations.
You can do ALL of those things with uber. You can vote as a shareholder, apply for a job, petition, volunteer, protest, etc...
I find it really unsettling how many people on HN seem to need this distinction explained.
Similarly you give something up (social contract) to have a say in government
You clearly come from a difference place on this issue so I don't expect you to understand what I'm saying but I'd be pleased if you did.
Additionally, the problems like gerrymandering still appear in different forms in corporate structures. Often times founders have majority control of the company in the form of different shares. While this is good for the founders, this is bad for anyone else who doesn't like the direction of the company.
You don't have a say in government like you do with a private company. If I don't like the government, I have to hope that millions of other people agree with me. If I don't like a company, I alone can choose not to associate with it. My relationship with or without Uber is entirely up to me. I'm forced to endure the government whether I like it or not -- I could petition and protest until I'm blue and it won't make a difference to my life unless millions agree. With Uber, etc. I can simply stop buying their product and poof! They're out of my life.
It's a lot easier to divest yourself of a bad relationship with a company, than a nation-state.
(And no, "move" isn't a reasonable response to this, so don't waste your digital breath with any Somalia references).
http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/30739/is-there-a-... is a good starting point
Your only option to avoid this involuntary charge s to flee
Bollocks. People organize for and achieve their political goals by modifying government on a regular basis. Governmental institutions suffer from numerous flaws, but your argument is that government is fundamentally totalitarian which is nonsense.
Consider that the entire marketing industry is literally about taking away agency from one side of the business relationship.
Yes both are problems but libertarianism claims to solve only one of those. For the other one, if you are unable, follow/place-your-trust-on someone else. There is no need to solve one problem by creating bigger problem.
Consider what would happen in, say, medicine without the informed part.
And saying you can switch... Typically not due to availability, lack of information and monopolies.
The other question is who enforces these contracts and who prevents these people from abusing their means.
Keep in mind, this is only possible as long as there's an actual alternative to Uber. Once they, or any other multinational for that matter, manage to establish a monopoly you will be flat out of other options. Even worse: Once they are well aware of their monopoly they will abuse it in every imaginable way. Don't be evil.. at least until you are big enough.
>It seems pretty clear to me which is more immoral.
No, it's not. If you dislike "government" so much you are always free to move to a place where there's less or even none of it. Case in point: Somalia has barely any government to speak of, pretty much no regulations and very high rates of firearms ownership, it's basically "libertarian utopia". Strangely enough, barely any libertarians would want to live there?
Oh, a Somalia expert. I was wondering when one of these people would pop up in this discussion. I'm sure I can learn a lot from you actually - I don't know much about the place at all.
Can I ask you why you think Somalia doesn't have any government to speak of? Somalia has had a central government since 2007 - but I'm sure you already knew that.
I'm also curious about your opinion of the Barre Administration and the (presumably) high standard of living the government provided during that time.
>Somalia has had a central government since 2007 - but I'm sure you already knew that.
They have some government going that is barely able to project itself across the country.
>I'm also curious about your opinion of the Barre Administration and the (presumably) high standard of living the government provided during that time.
That's a non-sequitur, just because some governments failed/had been ineffective at what they're supposed to do, does not mean that all of them are failing/are ineffective at what they are trying to do.
I might as well ask someone advocating for social democracy to move to North Korea, because "it's among those countries that have what supposedly makes a good 'socialist utopia'". I would rightly be panned for this. Doubly so if I had not the faintest idea of North Koreas history or situation.
Oh, you mean like the taxi companies? Regulated to the point of no competition?
Even ignoring the fact that Uber might become a monopoly, this ignores extrenalities caused by corporations.
You don't have to purchase chemicals from a chemical factory to be impacted by them dumping toxic chemicals into the water supply because it is cheaper.
Uber only becomes a monopoly if they can keep all competition out, not just taxi companies. Taxi companies succeeded in doing that for decades by colluding with politicians to limit competition. Uber would have to adopt a similar strategy to get anything close to a monopoly.
Driving as a service always operates on public infrastructure and medallion systems are there to protect those commons from excessive use. If uber does not like the rules of road use, they are free to purchase their own right of ways. It's America, nobody will stop them if they show up with enough cash. Also, no more speeding tickets for uber drivers!
But who holds the State accountable when they do the same thing?
When most of the laws are immoral, then I would say that it is. And an immoral law is - IMO - any time the State is doing anything other than acting, as Bastiat[1] put it, "as the collective extension to our individual right to self defense".
Enforcing those "laws" was totally immoral.
But on Ayn Rand, it is.
Gave up half way through Atlas shrugged I'm afraid. I did enjoy how accurately it depicted socialists and social democrats though - as I was reading it I could help but laugh as I've come across people talking like that so often.
In other words, it's tolerated rather than accepted.
Roman poets would call this "bread and circuses".
I'd wager (but don't have the chops to prove) that if you could plot displeasure with government on a graph, and and draw a line where overthrow historically results, the height of that line would roughly correlate with the increase in leisure time, access to entertainment, and decrease in GDP per worker.
I'm not going to change your mind on statism, and don't really want to, but a key component of statism is the massive power advantage they have over you. A multinational does not have a state level power advantage, but they're still much more powerful than you. If they choose to act in an immoral way, there's not much you can do about it.
You can, but if that decision is not sufficiently common in your area, and you don't have sufficient resources to relocate before the problem becomes acute, you may find your practical choices constrained in such a way that you are left with no realistic choice for necessary functions but to use Uber.
> What can I do if I don't like the service a state provides - can I opt out and stop paying?
You can (and history has lots of examples of people doing just that), but if that decision is not sufficiently popular in your area... well, the same as for Uber, above. The particular manner in which the lack of options, may, depending on the particular state and the particular service involved, be more dramatic than the case with most corporate goods or services. OTOH, depending on the particular state and service, you may have a lot more direct input into the decision making behind providing the service and how the state reacts to opting out, in the first place.
Susan Fowler's post has me pretty fed up with Uber, but for some reason greyballing doesn't bother me at all.
Arguably the only reason why is because it would mean they'd have to classify the drivers as employees rather than contractors.
Like every startup (and most companies), it aims to be; a moat is pricing power is an absence of substitute is monopoly.
Seriously, how do they get lock-in of riders or drivers? Installing a second app is a really really low bar. You can't do predatory pricing forever.
This is a super naive view of how markets work (and I'm very surprised to see this out of someone who calls the state a "corporation").
I don't really mind Uber as a service; they get me where I need to go. I hate Uber as a market participant. They change the economics of taxis, of existing black car services, of public transit, etc., i.e., of every single thing I'm using because I'm not using Uber.
I haven't used Uber in years, but I want it out of the markets that I try to buy transit service in, because it affects those markets.
You are free to choose not to use Uber, others are free to choose for themselves.
This has historically worked pretty well for human society; for instance, if someone gets the clever idea to participate in a market by impersonating an existing, trusted market participant, or offering counterfeit goods, or using slave labor to plant cotton, or whatever other bad idea that is short-term profitable, the government can step in and say that this isn't long-term good for society.
Whether Portland is correct to stop Uber is a legitimate matter of debate, but that Portland legitimately has the ability to choose to stop Uber is, I'd hope, uncontroversial.
If you don't think this is legitimate, two questions:
1. Is it legitimate for the government to restrict foreign participation in markets, or to place rules like tariffs on their participation?
2. Was it inappropriate for the greater military force in the US in the 1860s to decide that Southern plantation owners could not participate in the cotton market if they continued to use slave labor?
The US is really awful about this. Americans are not allowed to opt out of their citizenship without extreme measures.
Maybe that wall isn't for keeping Mexicans out?
False. If you renounce it it's expensive and difficult to get it back, and but renouncing itself is free and unilateral.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal-considerati...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/10/23/u-s-has-w...
To sum up, there was a $450 renunciation fee as well as a $450 fee for relinquishment, but both were jacked up from $450 to $2,350. This does not include exit taxes and the like, but while $4700 might seem trivial to the well-heeled, it's a far cry from free (and unilateral).
Thanks for catching my error.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2014/08/28/2014-20...
Which is a common reason to wish to renounce US citizenship. But there is a trap which prevents renunciation because you don't like to be unfairly taxed:
"If the Department of Homeland Security determines that the renunciation is motivated by tax avoidance purposes, the individual will be found inadmissible to the United States under Section 212(a)(10)(E) of the Immigration and Nationality Act"
Which seems perfectly fair to me.
Or to the aging of the infrastructure?
When I go on holiday, am I obligated to leave my water turned on? My power? My cable service? Or can I turn it off, and come back?
Fun fact, for many immigration classes, a US citizen is required to sign a security document saying that even though you are paying SS and other taxes, that the government, for ten years, may come after them for every dollar of benefits you may claim.
So an eighteen year old who has yet to pay taxes can claim these benefits, but a thirty year old immigrant has to pay taxes without access to services for ten years (well, with access but with the government reserving a right of recovery for any use).
Flee? So states are a prison? Last time I checked it was pretty easy to leave a state which equals 'stop using Uber'. Fleeing implies you aren't allowed to go, that's wrong. The only problem is no other state (or country or whatever) is forced to accept you as a new customer.
And who would want a customer that doesn't want to pay for the products ..
You can't evade a service like Uber either which does have an impact on the commons just like a Government does. You can avoid giving Uber your money but that isn't quite the same thing.
You can vote.
>The state is a huge corporation
No.
For example, I can choose to buy steak or ham. But voting on whether the government store provides steak or ham, that isn't the same thing at all.
How is state not a huge corporation?
The state is an entity designed to mitigate risk for the benefit of all, which ends up benefiting the few due to implementation problems
Why?
Um. A state is a place that happens to constitute the jurisdiction of its government. A corporation, huge or not, is a legal entity chartered (in the U.S.) by the government of a state (q.v. supra).
If I don't like Uber, I can... stop using Uber. What can I do if I don't like the service a state provides - can I opt out and stop paying? No, my only option is to flee - which the state will often try and prevent you doing anyway.
The state is a huge corporation, that will use force to change you for its services, whether they are good or not, or whether you use them or not. Your only option to avoid this involuntary charge s to flee - and the state reserves the right to employ violence to stop you doing even that.
It seems pretty clear to me which is more immoral.