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> it's not wealth, it's advantage. once you get the job handed down to you, you still have to do the work to get the money, unlike wealth. So like a taxi medal
by klipt 7y ago
> it's not wealth, it's advantage. once you get the job handed down to you, you still have to do the work to get the money, unlike wealth.
So like a taxi medallion. Which when sold on a free market had (before Uber, in NYC) a market value on the order of a million dollars.
That's a pretty huge advantage to pass down.
- icebraining 7y agoNo, a taxi medallion could be rented out to drivers. For example, for a period Michael Cohen owned 34 NYC medallions.
- klipt 7y agoRight, but the reason it has value is that it's tied to a high paying job where the supply of labor is limited. (Which is why, as soon as Uber flooded the labor side, the value of taxi medallions plummeted.) If longshoremen were allowed to buy and sell their union memberships (say in the form of "union member medallions") they'd probably have similar value to taxi medallions.
- erik_seaberg 7y agoYou can’t make a loyal mafia out of just anyone who shows up.