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As you pointed out, the rapes and assaults are ongoing. By making the bottom of the market illegal (by making it uneconomical), you haven't stopped these crimes

by gw 13y ago

Nursie 13y ago
As you pointed out, the rapes and assaults are ongoing. By making the bottom of the market illegal (by making it uneconomical), you haven't stopped these crimes from happening, you've simply forced them to occur in the black market where there is even less of a chance to prevent them. Except the numbers are now smaller, less people are put at risk and less people see that risk realised. It demonstrably has made the situation better, not worse. Again, the analogy with drug prohibition is clear. There is an incredible amount of violence occurring, but that isn't a justification for continuing its illegality. To the contrary, its illegal nature is the primary reason the violence occurs Except that turns out not to be anything like what happened with cabs when the violence was worse when the illegality was not present. So no, it's not a good analogy and it doesn't work. Similarly, someone operating a black market taxi cannot call the police when someone refuses to pay. Instead, they must resort to threatening (and engaging in) violence to get payment. This is their lookout for running an illegal service. The customers may engage in violence against these underground drivers for the same reason. Making it illegal serves nobody, and only increases danger for all parties. Except it has actually reduced the danger. Look, you can argue the prohibition line all you like but it doesn't match what has actually happened out in the real world.
- gw 13y ago
  Since the article doesn't get into your purported statistics, I can only speculate as to what you are referring to. People in the U.S. often try to retroactively justify tougher drug laws by pointing to lower crime rates, when in fact often times people are simply less likely to report being victimized because they were engaging in an illegal transaction. Moreover, reality has a way of resisting controlled experiments. It is essentially impossible to control every variable that might influence reported crime rates, so the mere fact that there may be fewer reported taxi-related crimes after regulation increased than before would be an unconvincing argument. This is really an epistemological argument. Due to the inherent uncontrollability of every variable, the only way to accurately understand the effects of a government policy are to look at the economic incentives it creates. Simply asserting that economic incentives that underly the drug market don't also apply to other black markets is arbitrary.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    And you simply asserting that the economic incentives that do underly the drug market apply everywhere is every bit as arbitrary! Drugs are not like cabs. You can't get a licensed drug after five minutes wait. Nobody actually wants or needs a specifically illegal cab, they just want a cab. The analogy simply does not work. What's unconvincing is you calling my argument a fallacy and then falling back to "oh but it's hard to measure!" --edit-- also FFS you think anyone's put off reporting assault because they were in an illegal cab? What the hell are you on? It's not illegal to be a customer, it's illegal to run the service.
    - gw 13y ago
      It isn't arbitrary to assert the universality of economic laws -- no school of economics holds otherwise. In fact the entire point of this science is to discover principles that exist in all circumstances. Moreover asserting the difficulty of empirical measurement isn't a cop-out; it's one of the most fundamental debates, not just in economics, but in philosophy. This is Plato vs Aristotle, or Kant vs Hegel. It's an incredibly important issue and not one to dismiss so nonchalantly. Regarding the likelihood of reporting assault, I was specifically talking about drugs. You are probably right about the unlicensed taxi customers, but nevertheless the statistics for taxi assaults don't tell then whole story because there is no way to account for assaults that occurred elsewhere that would have occurred in taxis has they been more readily available. Even if that data were available, the uncontrollability of other factors would continue to burden your attempts at empirical proof.

by gw 13y ago

Nursie 13y ago

As you pointed out, the rapes and assaults are ongoing. By making the bottom of the market illegal (by making it uneconomical), you haven't stopped these crimes from happening, you've simply forced them to occur in the black market where there is even less of a chance to prevent them. Except the numbers are now smaller, less people are put at risk and less people see that risk realised. It demonstrably has made the situation better, not worse. Again, the analogy with drug prohibition is clear. There is an incredible amount of violence occurring, but that isn't a justification for continuing its illegality. To the contrary, its illegal nature is the primary reason the violence occurs Except that turns out not to be anything like what happened with cabs when the violence was worse when the illegality was not present. So no, it's not a good analogy and it doesn't work. Similarly, someone operating a black market taxi cannot call the police when someone refuses to pay. Instead, they must resort to threatening (and engaging in) violence to get payment. This is their lookout for running an illegal service. The customers may engage in violence against these underground drivers for the same reason. Making it illegal serves nobody, and only increases danger for all parties. Except it has actually reduced the danger. Look, you can argue the prohibition line all you like but it doesn't match what has actually happened out in the real world.

gw 13y ago
Since the article doesn't get into your purported statistics, I can only speculate as to what you are referring to. People in the U.S. often try to retroactively justify tougher drug laws by pointing to lower crime rates, when in fact often times people are simply less likely to report being victimized because they were engaging in an illegal transaction. Moreover, reality has a way of resisting controlled experiments. It is essentially impossible to control every variable that might influence reported crime rates, so the mere fact that there may be fewer reported taxi-related crimes after regulation increased than before would be an unconvincing argument. This is really an epistemological argument. Due to the inherent uncontrollability of every variable, the only way to accurately understand the effects of a government policy are to look at the economic incentives it creates. Simply asserting that economic incentives that underly the drug market don't also apply to other black markets is arbitrary.
- Nursie 13y ago
  And you simply asserting that the economic incentives that do underly the drug market apply everywhere is every bit as arbitrary! Drugs are not like cabs. You can't get a licensed drug after five minutes wait. Nobody actually wants or needs a specifically illegal cab, they just want a cab. The analogy simply does not work. What's unconvincing is you calling my argument a fallacy and then falling back to "oh but it's hard to measure!" --edit-- also FFS you think anyone's put off reporting assault because they were in an illegal cab? What the hell are you on? It's not illegal to be a customer, it's illegal to run the service.
  - gw 13y ago
    It isn't arbitrary to assert the universality of economic laws -- no school of economics holds otherwise. In fact the entire point of this science is to discover principles that exist in all circumstances. Moreover asserting the difficulty of empirical measurement isn't a cop-out; it's one of the most fundamental debates, not just in economics, but in philosophy. This is Plato vs Aristotle, or Kant vs Hegel. It's an incredibly important issue and not one to dismiss so nonchalantly. Regarding the likelihood of reporting assault, I was specifically talking about drugs. You are probably right about the unlicensed taxi customers, but nevertheless the statistics for taxi assaults don't tell then whole story because there is no way to account for assaults that occurred elsewhere that would have occurred in taxis has they been more readily available. Even if that data were available, the uncontrollability of other factors would continue to burden your attempts at empirical proof.