On Monday NPR’s Marketplace shared a tale of woe that Uber has created for the hard-working blue collar men who own taxicab medallions in New York City, thereby illustrating once and for all that in today’s liberal zeitgeist, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
In a normal world, public radio’s reflexive liberalism would greatly object to the system of taxicab medallions: A few decades ago New York City set a cap for the number of cars and gave each car at that time a medallion that must be displayed on the cab itself to be legal. Because demand for cabs went up over the last four decades, the medallions became more valuable. For the cars that received one at the beginning the medallion became a wonderful gift and those that sold it did quite well. A few years ago the price of a medallion exceeded $1 million.
However, an increase in medallion value does nothing to help most drivers today, who cannot afford to buy one at any price. Instead, investment companies own most medallions, which bought them from retiring cab drivers through the years and saw them as a safe investment. And they were, at least until Uber came along. Most drivers rent a medallion from the investment company, and pay a good portion of what they earn to the company.
Normally, public radio would object to the exploitation of working class men, especially when it’s been aided and abetted by the government, but when Uber is involved all bets are off. Uber has dramatically reduced the value of these medallions, since people can drive with Uber (or its competitor, Lyft) without a medallion. The barriers to becoming a driver are now almost nonexistent–no more than the price of a car. Taxicabs have lost their effective monopoly, and consumers have gained as a result.