Free market advocates like to say that the market provides, and for good reason. After all, it is the market that develops the products and services based on the needs of consumers. Unfortunately, many of us have a hard time understanding this concept, either because of a lack of economic understanding or simply because we do not have the time to get better acquainted with the subject. Thankfully, there’s always a fresh new example of this idea popping up in the news.
Take Uber, everybody’s favorite ride-sharing app, for instance.
The firm has been in the business long enough to notice that certain users just don’t like to chat with their drivers. In order to keep these users happy (and prevent them from using another service in the future), Uber is rolling out a new “Quiet Mode” feature that gives the passenger the ability to pay more for a peaceful and undisturbed ride.
For users interested in the new feature, they will have to take Uber Black or Uber Black SUV premium rides and choose between “quiet preferred,” “happy to chat,” and “no preference.” This means Uber is letting those of us who suffer from acute social anxiety, or just aren’t up to talk at a given moment, know they accommodate everybody — for an extra fee, of course.
Overall, fares for the premium rides are 100 percent more expensive than UberX, and almost 200 percent more expensive than Uber Pool. But considering that a relatively small number of users would prefer to ride silently, it makes sense for Uber to tie the service to a premium ride. To those whose priority is to remain silent during the drive, paying extra for the privilege will come in handy. This is especially true if you’re working while trying to get somewhere and can’t afford to chat while answering important business emails.
After the announcement of this new feature, users on Twitter couldn’t contain their joy, with some even suggesting that other businesses should follow suit. If their enthusiasm can be taken seriously, then it is clear Uber did the right thing.
The Freedom to Provide
Entrepreneurs and business owners are only able to provide their customers with the products and services they need if they are free to do so.
In an environment stifled by government regulation, it becomes harder for entrepreneurs to offer services customers actually need, making life difficult, or at least less enjoyable, for all.
As economist Ludwig von Mises once explained, the market is the fairest of democracies, as “every penny gives a right to vote.”
And the “only means to acquire wealth and to preserve it, in a market economy not adulterated by government-made privileges and restrictions, is to serve the consumers in the best and cheapest way. Capitalists and landowners who fail in this regard suffer losses. If they do not change their procedure, they lose their wealth and become poor. It is the consumers who make poor people rich and rich people poor.”
While Uber does struggle with the regulatory burden imposed by governments, both federal and local, it remains relatively free to innovate within its realm. The very fact the company continues to listen to its customers, trying to give them what they want and need, shows just how important it is for markets to become freer on a larger scale. After all, Uber does have competitors such as Lyft, but if entrepreneurs had fewer barriers to entry, there would be a greater number of competing services out there, providing different features such as “Quiet Mode” and playing to a larger audience, even including those with lesser means.
Chloe Anagnos
Chloe Anagnos is AIER’s Publications Manager. She is a writer and digital marketer and has been an AIER contributor since 2017. Her work has been the subject of articles in FOX News, USA Today, CNN Money, and WIRED. She has been a writer, commentator, and panelist for media outlets around the country on subjects like political marketing, campaigning, and social media. Follow @ChloeAnagnos.
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In Defense of Lebron James
“I refuse to go to movies anymore. I don’t want to support Hollywood’s politics.”
How many readers have heard or uttered a variation of the previous sentence over the years?
Oh well, annoying and uninformed as the politics of Hollywood’s leading lights may be, they’re great at their chosen profession. Too bad they don’t keep their politics to themselves, they all-too-often know not of what they speak, but it says here that the movies and television shows produced by the left-leaning entertainment industry are way too good to miss all because of policy and/or political disagreements. It seems many share this view.
Indeed, as evidenced by the market capitalization of Netflix alone, Americans in big numbers want what the U.S. entertainment industry produces. And while it’s probably true that some on the right refuse to watch what Hollywood produces out of principle, it’s apparent that all too many forget the politics in order to be entertained. It’s high quality stuff. If only they’d keep their politics to themselves Netflix might be even more popular, and movie theaters more crowded…
Which brings us to LeBron James, and his short-arming of the situation in China. Ever since James’s somewhat incoherent response to what’s happening on the other side of the world, he’s been under attack. What a hypocrite, what a coward, all he cares about is selling shoes. Shame on James for kowtowing to the “communist” regime? Not so fast.
While criticism of James has been bipartisan, the endless outpouring of outrage from the right has been more than a bit puzzling. Conservatives and libertarians rightly can’t stand when celebrities presume to talk U.S. politics, but somehow want them on the frontlines of the freedom fight in China? Something is wrong with this picture. Actually, a lot is wrong.
For one, for members of the right to browbeat James is for them to insult individual genius that they’ve historically cheered. Why do they want James to be politically active? This was a similarly reasonable question to ask when the politically focused left essentially demanded that Taylor Swift pick political sides. Why? Can’t the critics stop and think for a moment just how much blood, sweat, tears and thought James and Swift put into being respectively the best basketball player in the world, and one of the most popular singer/songwriter/entertainers in the world?
Implicit in the outrage expressed at James is that having worked tirelessly to become the best in the world at one of the world’s most popular pastimes, and a billion-dollar pitch man for one of the world’s most important brands, he should also be well schooled on what’s happening in China; so much so that he can comment articulately on it. Such a view insults what it took for LeBron James to become LeBron James.
The perpetually outraged would be wise to wake up to the basic truth that success is exceedingly difficult. Looked at in terms of what James has accomplished as a player and pitchman, it’s a miracle. And it’s once again a consequence of enormous amounts of hard work. For critics to then pretend that there’s time to understand Chinese politics and policy is for them to be more than unreasonable. It’s also for them to miss the point of being in business.
Stating what should be obvious, it’s not the job of businesses and businessmen to help achieve political or policy aims. Instead, it’s the job of businesses and businessmen and women to make profits. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. Business exist to make money, not to influence political outcomes.
No doubt such a blunt statement (one that’s only blunt insofar as some people are so sensitive about everything at the moment) offends the sensibilities of those prone to triggeration, but it’s true. This should particularly ring true to conservatives and libertarians who’ve at least rhetorically always sided with the more commercially minded, and the investors who make their commercial ideas a possibility. Crucial here is that once businesses and/or businesspeople wade into politics, they potentially imperil their profitable purpose. Think about it. Box office receipts would likely be higher and Netflix even more valuable absent all the preaching from the celebrity set.
It’s no reach to suggest there’s a bit of a political divide at the moment, and because there is, a poorly timed political statement could possibly offend customers. Along these lines, one guesses that agents and managers in Hollywood and in the entertainment world more broadly frequently tell their clients to lay low on the politics. “Republicans buy shoes too,” and all that.
Ok, so is China any different in this regard? Are we supposed to believe that the Chinese people are all up in arms in the way that that privileged Americans are about what’s happening in Hong Kong such that they would cheer any criticism of China’s regime by James? Stop and think about that for a moment. And in thinking about that, please remember that just forty years ago Chinese per capita income was $175 dollars; the latter lower than what the intensely impoverished people of sub-Saharan Africa were earning.
Since then, and thanks to growing amounts of economic freedom, the Chinese people have more and more erased their poverty. And as a consequence of the erasure born of immense production, they’ve become voracious consumers of all things American. This being true, is it any wonder that the individuals and businesses benefiting from rising economic freedom in China would perhaps like to avoid the political commentary that so often turns off American consumers?
Hard as it may be to imagine for those who are only happy when they’re mad at something or someone else, it’s very possible that the Chinese people are very happy with their lot. No doubt they’re not as free as we are here, but few are. The main thing is that compared to before, they’re prospering. The “Communist Party” that has so many on the right on so up in arms can count all manner of capitalists in China as members simply because per author Evan Osnos in his spectacular book, The Age of Ambition, the Party is increasingly a “professional network” as opposed to being a promoter of a murderous ideology.
Is “it’s the economy stupid!” only operative inside the U.S.? Are the Chinese people too primitive to want what we want? Not very likely. Though the Chinese political class surely has warts, as does the U.S. political class, the people in China are increasingly free to create immense wealth. Because they can, one guesses they’re not as up in arms as the scholar class is stateside. They’re proud people who probably would prefer to not have U.S. celebrities minister to them about how to do things. Maybe LeBron James understands this. He didn’t become a billion-dollar pitch man because he doesn’t understand markets, rather he became that way because he does. And he’s doing his job, or at least trying to, while leaving politics in China to those who do politics in China. He’s right. His critics are wrong.
This piece originally ran on RealClearMarkets
John Tamny
John Tamny, research fellow of AIER, is editor of RealClearMarkets. His book on current ideological trends is: They Are Both Wrong (AIER, 2019)
