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I am not sure what your experiences are with respect to taxi and hotel licenses, but my understanding is that they are generally granted in limited numbers to p

by nickff 10y ago

I am not sure what your experiences are with respect to taxi and hotel licenses, but my understanding is that they are generally granted in limited numbers to politically powerful entities in exchange for campaign contributions and a tax on the oligopoly rents. Taxi licenses would comply with the rule of law iff they were freely available to anyone who met the safety and service criteria. edit: Parent has been edited significantly since I posted my reply, but I will not change mine.

msbarnett 10y ago
> Taxi licenses would comply with the rule of law iff they were freely available to anyone who met the safety and service criteria. You seem to be mistaking "the rule of law" for what are simply your ideological preferences.
- nickff 10y ago
  No, from Wikipedia: >"The Oxford English Dictionary has defined "rule of law" this way:[2] The authority and influence of law in society, esp. when viewed as a constraint on individual and institutional behaviour; (hence) the principle whereby all members of a society (including those in government) are considered equally subject to publicly disclosed legal codes and processes."
  - pm24601 10y ago
    Key points you are missing: 1. the society in question is Norwegian 2. the social norms of what is "equally subject" to the law is also interpreted by Norwegian norms. So for example in the US. everyone pays the same fine for speeding. In Norway, the fine can be 10% of your annual income ( http://www.autoblog.com/2011/01/07/highest-speeding-fines/ http://www.autoblog.com/2011/01/07/highest-speeding-fines/ ) The Norwegians view this as a "equally subject to the law"
  - cardiffspaceman 10y ago
    Just because a law is openly discriminatory doesn't mean that enforcing it is against the rule of law principle. It could violate some other worthy principle like treating rich and poor the same.
  - simonh 10y ago
    Suppose the law said that only 1000 licenses for a particular kind of vehicle could be valid at any given time and new licenses could only be issued if old ones were surrendered, perhaps to limit congestion on the roads or pollution or whatever. As long as that law was enforced fairly, someone wanting to operate a new vehicle of that kind but unable to do so due to lack of available licenses would still be being treated fairly. If an official could arbitrarily remove licenses from one person and assign it to another, or arbitrarily assign more licenses at their discretion that would be a violation of the rule of law even if it was allowed by the law, because the official would be deciding who got licenses and not the law.
aetherson 10y ago
You probably have a very incomplete understanding of taxi licensing. It is, first of all, very different in different localities. Second, while there are often grievous inefficiencies and/or corruption in the taxi licensing process, it is rarely a straightforward case of "powerful entities give you campaign contributions, you give them licensing." Taxi companies are not, in general, large powerful sophisticated organizations (that's Uber). When they benefit from regulatory capture (which they do in a variety of places), it tends to be a result of slow decades of working extensively with regulators and benefitting from an accretion of rules. There may be local exceptions because of rule 1: taxi regulation is local. The situation may be massively different outside the US -- I don't know. Source: Worked for Flywheel, an Uber-like service that used taxis instead of individuals, for several years.
- nickff 10y ago
  There are many taxi monopolies and oligopolies in the USA; the fact that the abrogations of the rule of law are local makes them no less objectionable.[1] [1] https://www.cato.org/blog/theres-no-constitutional-right-taxi-monopoly https://www.cato.org/blog/theres-no-constitutional-right-tax...
  - aetherson 10y ago
    1. Your link does not support what you say: It points out a grand total of two lawsuits, and makes no particular argumentation that the taxi companies in those two cities are monopolies or oligopolies except in the sense that they are licensed. 2. I was not arguing about whether taxi companies could be construed as having some kind of monopoly, nor whether they are objectionable. I was correcting your broad strokes characterization of "how taxi licensing works." Here is a chance for you to learn more about the world, rather than defending your mistaken perception. I am not attempting to make you like taxi companies more or less, or to support Uber more or less (I have fairly complicated views on both, and am by no means in anyone's camp). I am attempting to get you to understand how taxi licensing works, and also how regulatory capture works. Taxi licensing is different in different cities. Substantially so! In some cases, medallions are given to individuals, in some cases they are given to corporations, in some cases they are given to both. There may be different classes of medallions that have different rights. Medallions may be traded or bought and sold. It is not the case in any major taxi market that I'm aware of that the principle way that medallions are granted is a single grant to a single company by an elected official. Which is not to say that it has never happened, since a lot of things have happened in this world. Also, corruption of the straightforward "I give you money, you give me privileges" sort is probably (obviously it's hard to gather statistics) rare compared to regulatory capture via other means. A TLC or similar agency probably has a mandate to do something like "promote the ability of residents and visitors of our city to get a safe, clean ride from point A to point B," and quite possibly other things like "provide a transportation infrastructure that disabled people can effectively use" or "be a revenue source" or whatever. Because taxi regulation is not (or was not in the pre-Uber era) a sexy exciting area of government, the chief people that a TLC bureaucrat (almost never a politician who is elected) will hear from in their attempts to satisfy the varying and sometimes conflicting natures of their mandates will be people in the local taxi industry. They'll end up doing a lot of negotiating, discussing, and horse-trading. In the course of this, it is inevitably the case that the bureaucrats regulating the taxi industry will understand and to some degree accept the worldview of the people they're regulating. There will be lobbying, but rarely of the "I'll give you $1M for your wink campaign" variety. More of the, "This rule is hurting us badly, we need you to rescind it or to give us some other concession to make it bearable" variety. There will be corruption, but it does not involve the tuxedo'd owner of a giant monopoly bringing a slimy politician on a boozy weekend on the yacht. And while taxi companies may indeed close ranks to deal with an intrusive outsider such as Uber, they're (in the cities that I've seen most closely) anything but a cozy club. None of this should be taken to mean that regulatory capture and corruption in the taxi business are unimportant. But solving the whole "regulators and regulatees work closely together" and "you have multiple mandates" problem is difficult, and trying a broad-strokes answer is unlikely to address the real local problems.
manarth 10y ago
my understanding is that they are generally granted in limited numbers to politically powerful entities Taxi licenses would comply …if they were freely available to anyone who met the safety and service criteria In the UK, that's what happens: fulfil the safety and service criteria (e.g. appropriate driving licence, language skills, knowledge of the locale, suitable vehicle, etc), and you can obtain a licence. To the best of my knowledge, the restrictions on the number of taxis (i.e. the Medallion system) appears to be a predominantly USA-centric issue. I don't know of a similar quota system outside the USA (and please do correct me if I'm ill-informed). There are cases where companies have appealed against the criteria - such as Uber fighting TFL's language requirements: "a third of the drivers would fail the English tests because it would be too difficult for them" [1] - but it's still the case that if they fulfil the criteria, they can obtain a licence. [1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/03/uber_loses_english_language_tests_drivers_court_transport_london/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/03/uber_loses_english_...
- lazyasciiart 10y ago
  They have medallions in Australia too https://thomasthethinkengine.com/2014/04/11/market-forces-should-a-taxi-ride-cost-even-more/ https://thomasthethinkengine.com/2014/04/11/market-forces-sh...
simonh 10y ago
I don't think I changed the sense of my post in any way, I just added the last two points. My apologies if I caused any confusion.

by nickff 10y ago

msbarnett 10y ago

> Taxi licenses would comply with the rule of law iff they were freely available to anyone who met the safety and service criteria. You seem to be mistaking "the rule of law" for what are simply your ideological preferences.

nickff 10y ago
No, from Wikipedia: >"The Oxford English Dictionary has defined "rule of law" this way:[2] The authority and influence of law in society, esp. when viewed as a constraint on individual and institutional behaviour; (hence) the principle whereby all members of a society (including those in government) are considered equally subject to publicly disclosed legal codes and processes."
- pm24601 10y ago
  Key points you are missing: 1. the society in question is Norwegian 2. the social norms of what is "equally subject" to the law is also interpreted by Norwegian norms. So for example in the US. everyone pays the same fine for speeding. In Norway, the fine can be 10% of your annual income ( http://www.autoblog.com/2011/01/07/highest-speeding-fines/ http://www.autoblog.com/2011/01/07/highest-speeding-fines/ ) The Norwegians view this as a "equally subject to the law"
- cardiffspaceman 10y ago
  Just because a law is openly discriminatory doesn't mean that enforcing it is against the rule of law principle. It could violate some other worthy principle like treating rich and poor the same.
- simonh 10y ago
  Suppose the law said that only 1000 licenses for a particular kind of vehicle could be valid at any given time and new licenses could only be issued if old ones were surrendered, perhaps to limit congestion on the roads or pollution or whatever. As long as that law was enforced fairly, someone wanting to operate a new vehicle of that kind but unable to do so due to lack of available licenses would still be being treated fairly. If an official could arbitrarily remove licenses from one person and assign it to another, or arbitrarily assign more licenses at their discretion that would be a violation of the rule of law even if it was allowed by the law, because the official would be deciding who got licenses and not the law.

aetherson 10y ago

You probably have a very incomplete understanding of taxi licensing. It is, first of all, very different in different localities. Second, while there are often grievous inefficiencies and/or corruption in the taxi licensing process, it is rarely a straightforward case of "powerful entities give you campaign contributions, you give them licensing." Taxi companies are not, in general, large powerful sophisticated organizations (that's Uber). When they benefit from regulatory capture (which they do in a variety of places), it tends to be a result of slow decades of working extensively with regulators and benefitting from an accretion of rules. There may be local exceptions because of rule 1: taxi regulation is local. The situation may be massively different outside the US -- I don't know. Source: Worked for Flywheel, an Uber-like service that used taxis instead of individuals, for several years.

nickff 10y ago
There are many taxi monopolies and oligopolies in the USA; the fact that the abrogations of the rule of law are local makes them no less objectionable.[1] [1] https://www.cato.org/blog/theres-no-constitutional-right-taxi-monopoly https://www.cato.org/blog/theres-no-constitutional-right-tax...
- aetherson 10y ago
  1. Your link does not support what you say: It points out a grand total of two lawsuits, and makes no particular argumentation that the taxi companies in those two cities are monopolies or oligopolies except in the sense that they are licensed. 2. I was not arguing about whether taxi companies could be construed as having some kind of monopoly, nor whether they are objectionable. I was correcting your broad strokes characterization of "how taxi licensing works." Here is a chance for you to learn more about the world, rather than defending your mistaken perception. I am not attempting to make you like taxi companies more or less, or to support Uber more or less (I have fairly complicated views on both, and am by no means in anyone's camp). I am attempting to get you to understand how taxi licensing works, and also how regulatory capture works. Taxi licensing is different in different cities. Substantially so! In some cases, medallions are given to individuals, in some cases they are given to corporations, in some cases they are given to both. There may be different classes of medallions that have different rights. Medallions may be traded or bought and sold. It is not the case in any major taxi market that I'm aware of that the principle way that medallions are granted is a single grant to a single company by an elected official. Which is not to say that it has never happened, since a lot of things have happened in this world. Also, corruption of the straightforward "I give you money, you give me privileges" sort is probably (obviously it's hard to gather statistics) rare compared to regulatory capture via other means. A TLC or similar agency probably has a mandate to do something like "promote the ability of residents and visitors of our city to get a safe, clean ride from point A to point B," and quite possibly other things like "provide a transportation infrastructure that disabled people can effectively use" or "be a revenue source" or whatever. Because taxi regulation is not (or was not in the pre-Uber era) a sexy exciting area of government, the chief people that a TLC bureaucrat (almost never a politician who is elected) will hear from in their attempts to satisfy the varying and sometimes conflicting natures of their mandates will be people in the local taxi industry. They'll end up doing a lot of negotiating, discussing, and horse-trading. In the course of this, it is inevitably the case that the bureaucrats regulating the taxi industry will understand and to some degree accept the worldview of the people they're regulating. There will be lobbying, but rarely of the "I'll give you $1M for your wink campaign" variety. More of the, "This rule is hurting us badly, we need you to rescind it or to give us some other concession to make it bearable" variety. There will be corruption, but it does not involve the tuxedo'd owner of a giant monopoly bringing a slimy politician on a boozy weekend on the yacht. And while taxi companies may indeed close ranks to deal with an intrusive outsider such as Uber, they're (in the cities that I've seen most closely) anything but a cozy club. None of this should be taken to mean that regulatory capture and corruption in the taxi business are unimportant. But solving the whole "regulators and regulatees work closely together" and "you have multiple mandates" problem is difficult, and trying a broad-strokes answer is unlikely to address the real local problems.

manarth 10y ago

my understanding is that they are generally granted in limited numbers to politically powerful entities Taxi licenses would comply …if they were freely available to anyone who met the safety and service criteria In the UK, that's what happens: fulfil the safety and service criteria (e.g. appropriate driving licence, language skills, knowledge of the locale, suitable vehicle, etc), and you can obtain a licence. To the best of my knowledge, the restrictions on the number of taxis (i.e. the Medallion system) appears to be a predominantly USA-centric issue. I don't know of a similar quota system outside the USA (and please do correct me if I'm ill-informed). There are cases where companies have appealed against the criteria - such as Uber fighting TFL's language requirements: "a third of the drivers would fail the English tests because it would be too difficult for them" [1] - but it's still the case that if they fulfil the criteria, they can obtain a licence. [1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/03/uber_loses_english_language_tests_drivers_court_transport_london/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/03/uber_loses_english_...

lazyasciiart 10y ago
They have medallions in Australia too https://thomasthethinkengine.com/2014/04/11/market-forces-should-a-taxi-ride-cost-even-more/ https://thomasthethinkengine.com/2014/04/11/market-forces-sh...

simonh 10y ago

I don't think I changed the sense of my post in any way, I just added the last two points. My apologies if I caused any confusion.