John Miles Branch and Leigh Anne Schriever for the Century Foundation: Uber has promoted itself as a part of the sharing economy, and the media coverage of the company has usually accepted this at face value. But it isn’t actually true.
Participants in the real sharing economy own some sort of good — a room in an apartment, a bicycle, a spot in a driveway — that they don’t use to its full potential. Airbnb, for example, allows people to rent their unused housing to visitors for short spans of time, but it does not require its users to invest much of their personal time or energy in the process. It simply allows an owner to come closer to maximizing the utility of his or her good. While this practice is hardly new (and is perhaps better understood as a return to older informal economies than as what we normally think of as “sharing”), there is no question that new technology has made these systems of informal exchange easier and more prevalent.
Uber certainly does use new technologies to its advantage, but it requires more than just the sharing of goods by informal participants. A company that did for cars what Airbnb does for housing would essentially be a way to facilitate short-term car rentals between individuals. In fact, a company called RelayRides follows this exact model.
Uber, by contrast, works like a cab service: a user requests a ride, is picked up by a driver (often in the driver’s vehicle), and is then transported to a destination. If Airbnb operated this way, the owner of the house would also have to provide full-time maid service. Uber participants are not only renting out unused goods, they’re also selling their time and labor. As a result, Uber drivers are workers in a way that those who rent their goods in the sharing economy aren’t.
James Madison would be pleased
Thomas E. Mann for the Brookings Institution: James Madison would be pleased. The 5-4 decision announced (June 29) by the Supreme Court upholding Arizona’s use of the initiative to establish an independent redistricting commission is a model of constitutional reasoning and statutory interpretation. It underscores the essential connection between republican government and popular sovereignty, in which the people have the ultimate authority over who shall represent them in public office. The majority opinion quotes Madison to powerful effect: “The genius of republican liberty seems to demand … not only that all power should be derived from the people, but those entrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people.”
Madison worried about the dangers of the manipulation of electoral rules to serve the immediate interests of political actors. He was himself the target of a gerrymander designed (unsuccessfully) to deny him a seat in the first Congress. The Elections Clause of the Constitution, by granting Congress the power to override state actions setting the time, place and manner of elections, was designed partly as a safety valve to contain the abuse of power by those in a position to determine which voters will hold them accountable.
Today’s intensely polarized politics drive major partisan campaigns to seize control of the redistricting authority in the states and to wield that power to boost prospects for majority standing in the House. Partisan gerrymandering is not the major source of our dysfunctional politics, but it surely reinforces and exacerbates the tribal wars between the parties.
Patients want quality for end-of-life care
Brittany La Couture for American Action Forum: In recent years, studies have investigated what is important to Americans as they approach their last years and months. Unsurprisingly, patients are primarily concerned with their physical comfort, mental alertness and the well-being of their families. Yet the care they receive is often at odds with these preferences.
Among those seniors who have taken the time to spell out for their physicians how they envision their final days, only 2 percent of respondents requested “all possible care.” A study of patients who understood themselves to be terminally ill with advanced cancers found that only 17 percent of respondents expressed interest in “life-extending treatment.” Instead, most patients valued quality of life over extending it.
Physical comfort comes primarily from palliative care, which is provided without the intent to prolong the patient’s life or battle any diseases. Instead, palliative care primarily focuses on managing pain, enabling comfortable sleeping and eating, and keeping the patient clean. Mental and spiritual comfort are ranked nearly as highly as physical comfort when it comes to the end of life. Remaining mentally present ranks as a top priority, and may even take precedence over pain management for some.
Compiled by Nathan Rubbelke from think tank research
