Drivers for the car-for-hire service Uber may not be so happy with the company. But the good news is that the free market, unencumbered by most government regulation, gives them both job mobility and income mobility. Why would some people want to stifle this?

Religious liberty is being eroded in this country, and if that goes, how much of the rest of the Bill of Rights is really secure? Talk show host Erick Erickson makes the case in his new book, "You Will Be Made to Care". If you pre-order before February 22nd, you will get access to many other books, as well as interviews with people on the topic of religious freedom. This time, I except an interview of Christian author and apologist Ravi Zacharias. Bill Blankshaen asks Ravi about a rather large contradiction in how the Left deals with sexual orientation and gender. Are you born this way, or not?

Mentioned links:

Book website for "You Will Be Made to Care"

Uber drivers say that driving for Uber kind of sucks

Why taxi medallions cost $1 million

Show transcript

Last December, car-for-hire company Uber released a survey that found that 81 percent of its drivers said they were "satisfied with the overall experience" of driving for Uber. That number seemed suspect to some. A new survey by Harry Campbell, an Uber driver known for his "Rideshare Guy" podcast and blog, suggests that less than half of drivers are happy about driving for Uber.

There’s an article in the show notes that describes the issue of driver satisfaction, and it has this line in it from Campbell. “There hasn't been a whole lot of loyalty on either side, and drivers are starting to take notice of other opportunities and go wherever the grass is greener.”

When I read that, I thought, wow, you couldn't have a better definition of the free market than that. If you don't like the company you're working with? Switch. Don't like the company you're working for? Switch. The more small-time, independent operators you have, with less government interference, the more mobility you have, and the better opportunities everyone has.

But when government regulation makes the start-up costs prohibitive for only the very rich, you get the taxi system. In that system, you have to spend about a million dollars to get a medallion to run a taxi service. That’s just the governmental price of admission. After that, you have to run the business.

Uber, on the other hand, runs on what’s called the “gig economy”. It doesn’t own a single car, but in some places it’s the largest car-for-hire company. Anyone can sign up, set their own hours, and make money at it. Granted, Uber has lowered fares during the winter months to try to boost business during this slow time, and that means each fare for the drivers brings less in their pocket. But as Campbell notes, there may be greener pastures, like the competing service, Lyft. And when you can turn on a dime, so to speak, that job mobility turns into income mobility. When you can sell your services to anyone at any time, at a price agreeable to both of you, that’s true economic freedom and opportunity. It’s the free market in action, in its purest form, and it works.

The taxi system, in the meantime, is trying to remake Uber and Lyft in its image. I really hope that fails. It needs to.

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As I mentioned in the last episode, radio talk show host Erick Erickson has been showing that our religious liberties are being eroded in this country, and his slogan for this is, “You will be made to care”. Basically, it doesn’t matter if you say you want to be left alone to believe what  you want....