The success of Uber — despite lots of regulatory obstacles put up by taxi companies that don’t want any competition — has been revelatory. It reveals first of all how the market’s discovery process can lead to much better services at lower cost. It also reveals the authoritarianism lurking barely below the surface of many leftist intellectuals. To see that, I strongly recommend this Mises Daily piece in which Andrew Syrios quotes some opponents who just can’t tolerate capitalistic exchanges between consenting adults.

In particular, one lefty whines that Uber “is the embodiment of unrestrained hyper-capitalism.” Well, contracts for services are, by definition,unrestrained, but people make them all the time. And yes, Uber embodies capitalism, but just how is its “hyper” capitalism different from, say, a successful restaurant or dry cleaning place? I suppose what sticks in that writer’s craw is the fact that Uber hasn’t played the “captain may I” game with government regulators.

We could put it this way: You might be a progressive if you believe that innovations that many people like but you don’t need to be stopped.