New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman made some interesting rhetorical choices in a New York Times op‐ed yesterday taking after share economy leaders AirBnB and Uber. The challenge they present to outdated regulation leads him to call these businesses “cyberlibertarians” and “cybercowboys.” The latter awkward metaphor inhabits the title of the piece: “Taming the Digital Wild West.”
It’s an awkward metaphor because “Wild West” was an epithet leveled at the Internet itself in its early days. Thank heavens the forces of stasis didn’t prevent us from inhabiting this place—and here’s hoping they won’t prevent us from finding new terrain. How safe and impoverished we would be, both materially and spiritually, if we didn’t have the rollicking, wide‐open Internet.
But the most interesting rhetorical choice is his effort to push community‐enhancing job‐creation into the “libertarian” corner of Times’ readers’ vistas. His hope, it appears, is that readers’ revulsion around the word “libertarian” (if not liberty itself) will overcome what they know about car‐ and room‐sharing. People all over New York and the world are operating small businesses, and these small businesses bring them in close personal contact with others. They build wealth, and they build community.
Calling that “cyberlibertarian” may just cause some reflexive progressives and conservatives to take a fresh look at liberty. While we’re working toward miracles, maybe people will drop the “cyber” prefix, too!
(Disclosure: I’ve used both AirBnB and Uber with generally wonderful results.)
