[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?

[toomuchtodo]

You don't have a right to someone's labor below a minimum rate set by the government. We call that slavery.

[cromwellian]

Slavery is non-consensual labor. Uber drivers aren't slaves, have you talked to any? I engage in conversation with Uber drivers almost every time, many of them are ex-Taxi drivers, and many of them like Uber far more. Here are some of the usual comments I am told:

1. Can work on my own schedule. "When I was a Taxi driver, I had to show up at the dispatcher to pick up a car on their schedule." 2. Driving someone else's car. "Sometimes I sit 2 hours waiting for a car to be returned to begin my shift, often it is dirty and I am required to clean it before taking it out." 3. Freedom to engage in a side business. "My wife makes jewelry, I display it on the back seat and sell it to tourists who are interested." 4. Higher pay. Yes, there are studies that try to debunk this by citing higher costs or higher variability, but the arguments are unpersuasive. They count the cost of a driver maintaining his Uber car, while treating the medallion company's maintenance as a benefit, but an UberX driver and a Taxi Cab driver who owns a personal vehicle both pay car maintenance costs, albeit there's more wear and tear on the UberX car. Likewise, while variability is higher in salary, so is freedom in work hours and Uber drivers consistently rate this as the most loved feature of being an Uber driver.

This isn't really about labor laws, this is about regulatory capture. The French government has created an artificial shortage of supply, assigned special rights to a Guild, which simultaneously jacks up prices and provides more inconvenience to the customer, while establishing a monopoly in which bad drivers with bad attitudes can't be contested.

It then lets this group which has performed regulatory capture, essentially engage in mass property damage, terror (smashing cars with people in them), actions which are inherently dangerous and could lead to people getting killed on the roads, all without arresting them, or making them criminally or civilly liable.

What will France do if the entire world moves to self-driving vehicles? Will they ban them to protect French Taxi cab drivers? Will you claim the Robots are Slaves? What would they do if public transport threatened Taxi Cab driver salaries if some new public transport system made cabs less needed?

The French government has allowed itself to be captured by a minority industry. This isn't about broad labor rights, it's about a small guild trying to protect its monopoly by holding the government / citizenry hostage with violent protests.