For decades, the supporters of the New York City taxicab monopoly system of charging (at times) more than $1 million for a license (a.k.a. “medallion”) to drive a taxicab have said: “Waddya mean it restricts competition? — there are yellow cabs everywhere in NYC.”
The final nail has been pounded into this coffin of lies by a recent report by the NYC taxicab licensing commission showing that there are now more Uber vehicles on the streets of New York than there are yellow cabs. There’s plenty of room for even more competition.
This all reminds me of the old early twentieth-century corporate welfarist propaganda about the existence of say, three automobile manufactures in the U.S. being “excessive duplication.” This argument was used successfully to create government franchise monopolies in the “public utilities” industries for many decades. (See my article, “The Myth of Natural Monopoly”). Hat tip to Travis Holte.
10:26 am on March 18, 2015
