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The optimism moved out. I spent the first 23 years of my life in Paris, before happily moving to NY about 10 years ago. My parents both vote for the Socialist p

The optimism moved out. I spent the first 23 years of my life in Paris, before happily moving to NY about 10 years ago. My parents both vote for the Socialist party and pretty much everyone I interacted with growing up was heavily left wing. It's not just cab licensing, that happens everywhere. What's different about France is that a few years ago the government tried to increase the cap, and cabs started grid locking Paris in protest. What did the government do? They caved. That type of thing would not happen in a place like NYC. Why did they cave? Public opinion was after all against taxi cabs which are fairly unpopular in Paris. However, handling the issue with force would have turned public opinion against the government, and would have triggered the other syndicalist organisation to join in protest. We're back at the root of the problem. Public opinion in France is strongly anchored to the left, and yes, it has to do with the far left's influence on the Education Nationale. Open a French high-school textbook in economics and you will see large sections devoted to Marxism, an economic theory that pretty much no modern economist support.

zo1 12y ago
>"What's different about France is that a few years ago the government tried to increase the cap, and cabs started grid locking Paris in protest. What did the government do? They caved. That type of thing would not happen in a place like NYC. Why did they cave?" NYC with its taxi medallions is a really well known example of a taxi monopoly. So I'm not sure why you'd think that it's somehow better than in France and that they wouldn't "cave" to a cab strike. In NYC, the taxi medallions have reduced in number since the start of the monopoly in 1937, and by 1996 (60 years later) it dwindled from an initial 16000 to a mere 11500. And since then they've added a paltry 2000 extra ones to bring the number somewhere above 13000.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
Left and right politics both have trade offs. I wouldn't give up my free health care or education for anything. But we get stuck with stupid regulations in certain areas which hurts job growth. On the other hand look at the USA. Compared to many European countries it's on the far right - however their taxi industry is still heavily regulated in most major cities. I've come to the conclusion recently that governments in general will always suck. Despite my high opinion of free health care the recent revelations on government spying have had to make me think whether I can tolerate big/left government.

zo1 12y ago

>"What's different about France is that a few years ago the government tried to increase the cap, and cabs started grid locking Paris in protest. What did the government do? They caved. That type of thing would not happen in a place like NYC. Why did they cave?" NYC with its taxi medallions is a really well known example of a taxi monopoly. So I'm not sure why you'd think that it's somehow better than in France and that they wouldn't "cave" to a cab strike. In NYC, the taxi medallions have reduced in number since the start of the monopoly in 1937, and by 1996 (60 years later) it dwindled from an initial 16000 to a mere 11500. And since then they've added a paltry 2000 extra ones to bring the number somewhere above 13000.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

Left and right politics both have trade offs. I wouldn't give up my free health care or education for anything. But we get stuck with stupid regulations in certain areas which hurts job growth. On the other hand look at the USA. Compared to many European countries it's on the far right - however their taxi industry is still heavily regulated in most major cities. I've come to the conclusion recently that governments in general will always suck. Despite my high opinion of free health care the recent revelations on government spying have had to make me think whether I can tolerate big/left government.