6 ms·

Margaret Thatcher once said "The problem with socialism is, you eventually run out of other people's money", which makes it ironic and humorous that Uber, the p

• leereeves 10y ago
  The strategy, of course, being to make their competitors run out of other people's money first.
• Nashhhh 10y ago
  The key difference being that in the case of Uber, those VCs and investors gave their money voluntarily.
  • orblivion 10y ago
    One can still run out of voluntarily obtained money.
    • baddox 10y ago
      Obviously that's true, but it's not really relevant to the intended meaning of Thatcher's (obviously oversimplified) quote.
  • hkmurakami 10y ago
    Presumably (hopefully) the socialist government for this hypothetical nation would have been voluntarily put in place by the voting public.
    • throwaway991199 10y ago
      LOL. Go look at Europe. The answer to that is a definite hell-no.
      • huac 10y ago
        Socialists have historically been some of the biggest proponents of democracy. You're probably trolling, but it'd be amusing to know which countries you think have socialist governments in place by force.
        • the_watcher 10y ago
          Maybe democratic socialists. But the track record of explicitly socialist nations is pretty much the exact opposite of pro-democratic. There's a decent argument that those governments were coopted by corruption and never actually turned into true socialist governments, but that's also a flaw in the system, as it relies on humans to not act in their own best interest across the board.
          • randomgyatwork 10y ago
            There is also a difference between state-capitalism and socialism, many of the socialist / communist examples we have are actually state-capitalism.
        • pjlegato 10y ago
          Perhaps you have heard of the People's Democratic Republics of East Germany, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czechoslovakia, and Albania? Socialism was imposed by a foreign occupying army. Or take the Soviet Union itself. The democratically elected Provisional Government was overthrown by force. Even the socialists-only Constituent Assembly election was simply voided and ignored by the Bolsheviks when they overwhelmingly lost. Your claim is empirically false. Socialism has historically been imposed involuntarily at gunpoint in almost all cases where it has achieved any measure of real power. Moreover, once established, its show elections are a farce, with only pre-selected Party approved candidates allowed to win. You will no doubt reply that none of this was done by "real" socialists, and that <insert your favorite sub-sub-branch of socialism here> are the only "real" socialists. This is the "No True Scotsman fallacy".
          • 10y ago
    • Trundle 10y ago
      Some of the voting public.
  • tedunangst 10y ago
    Voluntarily, but not without expectation of recompense. At some point the monopoly will start focusing on another source of money...
    • argonaut 10y ago
      The entirety of capitalism is voluntary transactions with expectation of recompense. I'm not sure what your point is.
      • tedunangst 10y ago
        When you run out of other people's money, you start looking for other other people's money.
  • refurb 10y ago
    More importantly, it's not my money. I could care less if they lose it all. Now taxes, that's a different story.
  • tim333 10y ago
    You could argue the VCs in fact gave other people's money - investors money, possibly including your pension - to Uber.
• r00fus 10y ago
  Price dumping is the precursor to monopoly/cartel which then results in unassailable market barriers to entry and consequently large premiums. If you're paying too little, you've got to expect that situation is not sustainable - either that good deal withers, or the vendor's lock on their customers means they can raise prices arbitrarily.
  • maerF0x0 10y ago
    It might not be the customer they squeeze though. Could be the drivers.