The United States of America was founded on the principle of Individual Rights. This is made plain in the Declaration of Independence, which states “ . . . that all men are created equal, that they are endowed . . . with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men . . . . “ To establish such a government, the Founders created a Constitutional republic that would be governed by laws, not men — laws which would protect the rights of the citizens, rather than giving license to the government to violate those rights.
Since then, however, efforts have been made for many years to muddy the meaning of those rights — and of our form of government — by those who insist on referring to our country as a democracy. But a democracy is unlimited majority rule, and that is manifestly not what the United States of America is. In this country, the majority — through its representatives in Congress — is expressly forbidden, by the Bill of Rights, from voting to enact any law that may violate individual rights. And the Constitution was intentionally set up to make it as difficult as possible to amend — precisely so those rights would remain protected by keeping them outside the bounds of what Congress could be allowed to vote on.
Unfortunately, this has not stopped those intent on using the notion of democracy to expand the power of government to violate rights. One of the ways they seek to do so is by claiming that local governments are better suited to administer certain functions of government because they are closer to those actually being governed — who, they claim, should have a say in “local decisions” because they are the ones directly affected by the actions of local government. This neatly sidesteps the fact that there are some things government should certainly not be doing, no matter how many local “stakeholders” are eagerly clamoring for it, because it would require violating the rights of the stakeholders’ neighbors. To which, promoters of “democracy” usually resort to the claim that the needs of different groups should be “balanced”. This, of course, ignores the fact that the smallest minority of all is the individual.
Jared Meyer’s latest book, "How Progressive Cities Fight Innovation", focuses with a perfectly sharp lens on one aspect of this: the efforts of “sharing economy” companies to create markets in cities throughout America — and the efforts of local governments to oppose them.
The relative freedom of the Internet has enabled innovation to flourish, giving rise to whole new ways of doing business. As the Internet is all about information, entrepreneurs have developed ways to leverage that information to facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers in ways that were not previously possible. In doing so, it has given access to information to both buyer and seller that they never had access to before. This has revolutionized the way people buy things: they can now research their purchases, making use of information which can, itself, be researched. This means that purchases are far more likely to be satisfying than ever before. This is a revolution every bit the equal of the move of retail commerce from local brick-and-mortar establishments to Internet-facilitated distribution centers.
This is where the local consumer is leaving the government behind, because individual consumers now have access to far more information than any government could, and are — along with every other individual consumer — moving the economy at a pace which outstrips any possible government effort at central planning.
Unfortunately, the response of too many local governments has been to dig in their heels and just say “no” to those they see as disruptive innovators which threaten their power base by sidestepping the established cronies which are, all too often, protected from competition by local laws which violate rights rather than protecting them — in the name of centrally-planned “economic development”, of course.
This is a situation which will not change until innovators and their customers learn to stand up for their right to choose who they will do business with and how, and start saying “NO” to over-protective and over-controlling government. The United States of America was never intended to be a place where any “stakeholder” could tell you how to live your life. In this country, the only person who has a right to tell you how to live your life is you.
This is where the idea of checks-and-balances in the American system of government applies to the different levels of government, as well as the divisions of the federal government. When local governments violate the rights of residents, the state and federal governments must be called on to rebuke and restrain such rights violations.
As Meyer explains in "How Progressive Cities Fight Innovation", a whole new world of sharing economy companies has been created, built on satisfying the convenience of the American consumer — thriving on and made possible by information voluntarily provided by both buyer and seller about each other. Companies such as Uber, Etsy, Thumbtack, Taskrabbit, RenttheRunway, Airbnb, NeighborGoods, Lyft, VRBO, EatWith and more offer those who choose to work with them opportunities they would not have otherwise — opportunities which some municipal governments have shown themselves to be hostile to. That hostility is leading some to misrepresent the sharing economy, blaming it for keeping rents high in places that struggled with high rents for decades before Airbnb ever existed — or demanding that Uber and Lyft subject their drivers to fingerprint checks when name-based background checks are far more effective — or claiming that Uber drivers are being denied the opportunity to choose to be represented by a union in a country which has rejected unions: after peaking in the 1950’s, union membership is now less than 11% of the country’s total work force, something that cannot be blamed on “right-to-work” alone.
Unfortunately, some of the locales most hostile to the sharing economy need it most desperately, as is the case in the state of New York, which has banned ride-sharing everywhere except New York City, but where up to one-third of residents in places like Buffalo and Rochester live below the poverty line.
"How Progressive Cities Fight Innovation" is a well-researched, well-reasoned book. The information contained in this short volume has implications — some of which I have attempted to suggest in this review — that far belie its brevity, giving it a scope far wider than a mere 65 pages should be able to contain. What Meyer has given us is a thumbnail sketch of a single aspect of an unprecedented moment in human history: a time when more human beings are thriving than ever before, thanks to Freedom. But is that achievement threatened by the current seeming resurgence of authoritarianism around the world?
The battle against authoritarianism is one that must be fought at every level of government: federal, state and local. The specifics may change but one thing remains the same: Freedom and the role it plays in making it possible for human beings to live. This book is an invaluable reference for anyone seeking to remedy this situation. I recommend purchasing the e-edition for that reason.
More important than any government policy is the morality of standing up for all those individuals who desire to — and freely choose to — participate in the sharing economy. What they are fighting for is the right to live their own lives as they see fit, as they desire — by their own judgement. They are right to do so, because this is how human beings survive: by using their own judgement, as individuals, to live their own lives. The sharing economy gives us more information to use in the service of that judgement than we have ever had access to before.
A little over a year ago, I reviewed Meyer’s previous book, "Uber-Positive: Why Americans Love the Sharing Economy". It is with great pleasure that I offer my review — and my recommendation — of his new book, not just because I was hoping it would live up to the promise of "Uber-Positive", but because it has lived up to that promise.
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