{"id":234,"date":"2014-12-01T19:15:53","date_gmt":"2014-12-01T19:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/?p=234"},"modified":"2014-12-01T19:19:43","modified_gmt":"2014-12-01T19:19:43","slug":"free-markets-and-union-thugs-efficiency-v-equity-in-south-parks-handicar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/?p=234","title":{"rendered":"Free Markets and Union Thugs: Efficiency v. Equity in South Park\u2019s \u201cHandicar\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In a recent episode of South Park<\/em>, creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker made a biting social commentary on recent transformations in the transportation marketplace.\u00a0 The episode, entitled \u201cHandicar,\u201d focuses on a fictional ridesharing application created by fourth grader Timmy Burch<\/a> — a disabled character bound to his wheelchair. The app, to which the episode is named, is a satirical depiction of ridesharing service Uber<\/a>, in which Timmy escorts customers around town in a red wagon attached to the back end of his motorized wheelchair.\u00a0 Having created the application as a way of fundraising for a camp for the disabled, the service quickly becomes popular throughout the town of South Park.\u00a0 However, not everyone in town is quite so fond of Handicar.<\/p>\n

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Nathan<\/a> and Mimsy<\/a>, two other attendees of the camp, want Handicar put out of business so that they don\u2019t have to spend another summer at a camp they detest.\u00a0 Handicar\u2019s rise to prominence also irritates the cab drivers of South Park who claim that the service is taking business from their industry.\u00a0 In their conjoined efforts to take down this new service, what follows is an absurd and hysterical storyline that pokes fun at Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk<\/a> and Lincoln Motors\u2019 advertising campaign featuring Matthew McConaughey.\u00a0 This story culminates in a \u201cWacky Race\u201d<\/a> that pits Handicar against these other modes of transportation in a battle for market supremacy.<\/p>\n

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While it may be easy to laud the \u201cHandicar\u201d episode for its comedic value it is also important that we recognize the episode as a site of public argument.\u00a0 As scholars of argument and debate it is important that rhetoricians analyze and critique these mediated forms of argument in the public sphere.\u00a0 In their uptake of the Uber debates, Matt and Trey demonstrate their well-known Libertarian viewpoints<\/a>, portraying Uber as a free market response to inefficient unionized cab services across the country.\u00a0 In making this argument South Park<\/em> highlights what scholar Deborah Stone, in her book Policy Paradox<\/em>, refers to as the myth of an equality-efficiency trade off in public policy debates.<\/p>\n

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Equity, Stone contends, is a goal of policy concerned with maintaining a just and fair distribution of \u201cgoods and services, wealth and income, health and illness, or opportunity and disadvantage\u201d (p.39).\u00a0 Concerns about equity have been common topics of debate surrounding Uber across the country.\u00a0 These concerns are voiced, most commonly, by labor representatives and unionized taxi drivers. <\/a>\u00a0On the other side of the debate are those who argue that a lack of regulation on services like Uber create a more efficient market for consumers<\/a>. Deborah Stone contends that efficient organizations are commonly thought of as ones that \u201cget things done with a minimum of waste, duplication, and expenditure of resources\u201d (p. 61).<\/p>\n

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The arguments presented in the \u201cHandicar\u201d episode regarding Timmy\u2019s new ridesharing service employ similar claims to those lauding Uber, employing a free-market rhetoric of efficiency.\u00a0 Absent in its uptake of the Uber debates is a treatment of issues of equity in compensation and employment practices.\u00a0 Rather, Matt and Trey choose to frame equity and efficiency as contradictory ideals, portraying union cab drivers as crooks and thugs who are unfairly disrupting free competition and efficient innovations in the market.<\/p>\n

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Recognizing unionized cab drivers as natural allies in their quest to ruin Timmy\u2019s business, Nathan and Mimsy attend a meeting in which these drivers are plotting to get Handicar out of South Park.\u00a0 While the unionized drivers offer solutions that involve governmental intervention in the market, such as asking the mayor and police to shut down the business, Mimsy, Nathan\u2019s lackey, in a moment of lucidity, states \u201cWhy don\u2019t you guys just make your cars cleaner and nicer, and try to be better to your customers so that you can compete with Handicar\u2019s popularity in the marketplace?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Choosing to ignore Mimsy\u2019s advice, the cab drivers instead break into Timmy\u2019s house and break his legs as a warning message from the union.\u00a0 In doing so, Matt and Trey are portraying a common argumentative trope of the union thug in a rather literal way.\u00a0 Depicting union drivers this way further invites audiences to view unions in a negative light, and as an obstacle to more efficient markets.\u00a0 Later in the episode Mimsy echoes this sentiment in another lucid moment when he extols \u201cMaybe if they [cab drivers] are that incompetent we shouldn\u2019t try to save their jobs,\u201d viewing this new competition in the market as a \u201ckind of economic survival of the fittest\u201d where good drivers weed out the bad ones.\u00a0 Framed in this Darwinian light, unionized cab drivers must adapt and evolve or they are destined to become extinct.\u00a0 Further, this Darwinian frame suggests that markets operate according to natural laws that exist outside of human control\u2014ignoring the fact that markets are human constructs subject to man-made laws.\u00a0 Matt and Trey\u2019s argument not only operates under this natural understanding of the market, but also suggests that this point is so obvious that even one who is mentally disabled should be able to recognize free competition as the best solution to the ridesharing controversy.<\/p>\n

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Ultimately, this argument operates under a logic of free-market efficiency that, in portraying unions as obstacles to the natural progress of industry, ignores questions of equity that surround the debates on Uber.\u00a0 While the episode frames efficiency and equity as incompatible goals, it is important to recall Deborah Stone\u2019s argument that \u201cefficiency is always a contestable concept\u201d (p. 65). \u00a0What is efficient for customers may not be considered efficient by laborers.\u00a0 The myth of the incompatibility of efficiency and equity is a powerful force that helps shape the contours of debate, but this myth is a rhetorical construct that benefits some while disserving others in very real, material ways.\u00a0 In order to create better, more desirable policy outcomes it is thus imperative to expose this myth and redefine the appropriate parameters of debate regarding policy outcomes in the public sphere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent episode of South Park, creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker made a biting social commentary on recent transformations in the transportation marketplace.\u00a0 The episode, entitled \u201cHandicar,\u201d focuses on a fictional ridesharing application created by fourth grader Timmy … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetoric.commarts.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}