[UK-AL]

But you have to remember. This is one group of people(taxi drivers), not allowing another group of people(Uber drivers) not to earn a living driving cars.

There is no free lunch. If you introduce regulation to protect a group of people, another group of people loses out.

[claudius]

> There is no free lunch. If you introduce regulation to protect a group of people, another group of people loses out.

And the correct way to change that in a modern democracy is to lobby for better laws in parliament and/or found your own party and then win the population’s votes to fix your issue.

Wilfully ignoring existing laws implies a fundamental lack of respect for society and democracy.

[wskinner]

Why shouldn't people willfully ignore unfair laws? Isn't there quite a bit of that sort of behavior in the history people fighting for civil and economic rights?

[toomuchtodo]

Immoral? Yes. Unfair? Laws will sometimes be unfair. Citizen's rights trump consumer demands.

[wskinner]

Who gets to decide what's immoral and what is only unfair? And just because a French person puts on his consumer hat, does he suddenly cease being a citizen? By granting monopoly rights to one group (the taxi industry) you limit the rights of another group (everyone who wants to get from point A to point B). If the war on drugs, gay marriage, and free love teach us anything, it's that violence can't stop consenting adults from transacting with each other.

[toomuchtodo]

> Who gets to decide what's immoral and what is only unfair?

A government, as governed by its citizens. That's what laws are for.

[asift]

Why should people respect a system that doesn't respect them? Disrespect for immoral laws is valuable for the continued evolution of liberal societies.

[claudius]

> Why should people respect a system that doesn't respect them?

The people are the system, it is impossible for the system “democratic society” to disrespect “the people”. I also did not say that one must respect immoral laws, I said that breaking laws implies disrespect for the way by which these laws were put into place – namely the free democratic society.

You can disrespect immoral laws all day long and I encourage you to do so, just don’t break them unless absolutely necessary (because the alternative would be much worse). Taxi transportation is such a triviality that it certainly doesn’t qualify for that.

[toomuchtodo]

Labor laws aren't (EDIT: intended to be) immoral.

[asift]

A sweeping statement such as this is almost certainly false. Of course, some labor laws are perfectly moral, but some are immoral as well.

In general terms, labor laws such as wage prohibitions and occupational licensing tend to give relatively economically advantaged workers artificial advantages over lower skilled workers. In this respect, they serve as upwards redistribution of wealth and opportunity. At the same time, they restrict consumer sovereignty and the ability for people to freely engage in commerce. Of course, there are counter arguments to these as well. My intent here is not to make any overly simplistic sweeping claims, but to point out that there are some thoughtful and powerful lines of reasoning that call into question the morality of many existing labor regulations.

[toomuchtodo]

> My intent here is not to make any overly simplistic sweeping claims, but to point out that there are some thoughtful and powerful lines of reasoning that call into question the morality of many existing labor regulations.

I don't believe we disagree on this. Labor laws are a balance between the right of a citizen to earn a living wage and the right of a consumer to engage in commerce permitted by the State.

With that said, I believe that consumer sovereignty should never take precedence over labor rights.

[asift]

>With that said, I believe that consumer sovereignty should never take precedence over labor rights.

Because the buggymaker's job is more important than the consumer's right to buy an automobile?

[UK-AL]

Huge chunk of them have unintended bad effects.

French labour laws in general overwhelmingly advantage the older(as in already employed), and established workers and disadvantage younger workers and new entrants.

[toomuchtodo]

Unintended bad effects != immoral.

[asift]

It does when those unintended consequences are immoral.

[igrekel]

Uber and Über drivers were already illegal, even before the protests.

In part because they not pay social security like everyone else and that is part of how they drive the prices down.

[toomuchtodo]

So the solution is to allow everyone to compete until wages are driven down to 0?

[UK-AL]

By the time wages are driven down to that level, people would have left the profession for better jobs paying more.

Software developers have deal with unregulated competition and do quite well.

[toomuchtodo]

We'll agree to disagree.

EDIT (to respond to your EDIT):

> Software developers have deal with unregulated competition and do quite well.

The level of knowledge and critical thinking required to develop (quality) software is a bit greater than that required to drive a vehicle. I'd argue that as additional resources are developed/released to aid people learning to code, along with resources that make writing code remotely with a team more painless, the value of software developers as a whole will drop.

[UK-AL]

Yes.

Why should someone be paid quite a high salary, for job that in your words requires a lower education? Shall we mandate all jobs should be paid well? If low skill jobs pay almost as well as high skill/high paying jobs, where's the economic incentive in increasing your skills? In many ways its a trap, because you won't go out of your way to increase your skills.

And when people say Taxi driving is actually quite a high skill job. I say you should have no problem fighting off the competition then.

"software developers as a whole will drop." And on that day, I'll get an MBA instead proving that the incentives work.

[toomuchtodo]

I didn't say they should be paid quite a high salary. They should be paid at least minimum wage.

Regarding your MBA:

“A degree has value only if the degree is scarce, and the MBA is completely unscarce,” says Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organisational behaviour at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/2313a2f8-7c81-11e3-b514-00144feabd...

[UK-AL]

Taxi drivers earn a lot more than minimum wage, if your competent.

"Regarding your MBA:" Or whatever degree pays.