4 ms·

It always baffles me how The Land Of The Free (TM) has laws that are so clearly anticompetitive. Same thing with Uber and the special taxi law, or the city spo

• rayiner 14y ago
  In the U.S., except for a relatively small stretch around the turn of the 20th century, freedom has never overlapped much with libertarian economic "freedom." The whole concept largely post-dates the founding (remember, Adam Smith was a contemporary of the founding fathers, and his ideas wouldn't turn into modern free-market principles until much later). I'm sure at some point it was perceived that it was beneficial for Texas to force sales through Texas franchises rather than allow out of state car manufacturers to sell directly to Texas citizens. The state-affiliated monopolies are a different situation. They exist because state and local governments wanted something for nothing. They wanted taxi services to serve poor people and far-flung parts of cities, and they wanted telecom services to do the same. In a free market, all these service providers wouldn't do that--they'd focus their efforts only on the most profitable areas. So the governments reached a bargain: the companies agree to serve everybody, and in return they get a monopoly. That's why Uber isn't allowed to "compete" with the local taxi companies--those taxi companies get a monopoly in exchange for their willingness to venture into the Bronx. Take a look at airfare. It's dramatically more expensive to fly from Richmond, VA to Eugene, OR than from New York, NY to San Francisco, CA, even though both trips are roughly the same distance. But cab fares are uniform (per mile) throughout a government's service area, as are utility rates usually. How does this happen?