Let’s face it, Apple is cool, Starbucks is cool and Uber is cool. So is being a young hipster. When we think of conservatives, we think of old-fashioned people clinging to dated ideas. When we think of liberal progressives, we think of forward thinking idealists who embrace the future. Yet it is becoming apparent the technology revolution is exposing progressive ideology as antiquated and unfit for today’s economy.
The progressive top down economic approach might have been cool during the 1930s when our great grandparents listened to fireside chats on their Zenith Stratosphere, a “compact” radio the size of a small book shelf. Yet this sort of New Deal economic scheme is obsolete since it is unable to adjust to our flexible and dynamic economy that is now at our finger tips with our iPhones. This progressivism of impeding economic progress could not be more blatantly observed then through the attack on Uber and our generation’s “sharing economy.” The new sharing economy represents the democratizing of capitalism where we all have power to be entrepreneurs with little or no capital and without government licensing to stop our God given right of entry into the market place.
It is clear to Hillary Clinton; the frontrunner of the progressives, that Uber and the sharing economy is a real threat to their political power. In the sharing economy, the government loses control over collecting licensing fees and the power to regulate commerce in order to pick their own winners and losers. In order to mask their power grab and revenue loss, the Progressive playbook is to issue concerns over public safety. However most industries the government regulates are subject to superficial audits for filings of registrations and payment of licenses fees. Rather most safety audits are self-administered by the company itself. Only when there is gross negligence in safety does the government shutdown operators.Companies like Uber ensure safety through interaction and rating of their customers of which driver is good or not. This system self corrects itself by punishing the bad drivers and rewarding the good drivers. Government does not do this.
Clinton feels Uber is not likely to “go away” but the general public should be “worried” because our new sharing economy is polarizing and creates disruption by “displacing or downgrading blue-collar jobs.” Jobs would not disappear, but the progressive’s constituency might as these blue collar jobs would become jobs for entrepreneurs who may turn to the conservative party.
The current regulated system benefits the rich taxicab owners and workers who are mostly older male drivers. The Uber sharing system is employing over 13 times more female workers and tends to hire many unemployed people and millennials with little job experience. Uber jobs are also great for those who like the flexibility in work hours.
This summer Progressive New York Mayor, Bill DeBlasio, started a war with Uber but immediately called a temporary cease fire when Uber shot back by releasing a successful advertisement campaign. Two years ago when the mayor was running for office, the city taxicab associations poured money into his coffers for the promise to keep competition out of New York City. The city had lost millions of dollars in medallion fees as Uber gained more market share. Although Uber is cheaper, some say provides a better service, and is more efficient than the current taxi system; the progressives have fought to keep Uber out. The irony is DeBlasio ran on a platform against income inequality. Uber can help win this war of income inequality by finding good paying jobs and providing cheaper means of transportation for the city’s diminishing middle class. DeBlasio also ran a campaign against racism, yet the taxi businesses he supports has a long history of not picking up minorities in Manhattan and not servicing poor areas of the outer boroughs. Uber and sharing economy is filling these voids and picking up where many Yellow cabs will not.
The progressive’s reactionary position on Uber and the sharing economy demonstrates how out of touch they are with our generation who want independence and economic freedom. Clinton noted the “so-called ‘gig’ economy” is “raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future.” Technological advances, Clinton concluded, must not “determine our destiny.” Does our generation want to vote for a progressive that sounds more like an Amish elder? Do we want our destiny in the hands of government?
Thomas Jefferson once wrote that “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.” I challenge all millennials to determine our destiny and not concede our sharing economy to the will and power of the Progressives in Washington.