The big ideas of 2014: Part I
A slew of big ideas were debated in 2014. Uber took on the taxi market, Ukip achieved unprecedented success and Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century was a bestseller.
All of these ideas - ridesharing apps, the UK leaving the EU and theory of capital generating inequality - made their debut earlier, but the past 12 months have seen them truly flare.
1. Uber and the battle over 'ridesharing' apps
In the Western world, largely dominated as it is by free-market principles, the taxi sector stands out as one of the more heavily regulated areas of economic activity.
In New York, taxi medallions - which allow the owner to run a yellow taxi - change hands for huge sums. In London, only black cabs can use a meter. In Paris the number of taxi licences being given out has failed to keep up with demand - at the behest of the unions, critics say.
Defenders of the status quo say it protects them from unfair competition and protects customers from danger - the drivers are registered, reliable and safe. To others it smacks of a closed shop which leads to very high prices in some cities.
In 2014 a major player - Uber - has intensified its attack on the status quo. The firm is rumoured to be bringing in gross revenues of nearly $1bn a month. There are several others, including Lyft and GetTaxi.
Google trends: interest in the term 'uber' since company launch
Uber's management has made no bones about its desire to undercut black cabs and yellow taxis and their equivalents around the world. Uber is the middleman. Its app enables private individuals to use their cars as taxis by putting the driver in touch with people wanting a ride. Customers register and download an app, entering their credit card details. When they are looking for a ride, the phone picks up their location and tells them where the nearest cars are and how long it will take. The driver receives 80% of the fare, Uber 20%. It can be as quick as hailing a black cab but with prices that are often cheaper than most minicabs.
The San Francisco-based company was set up in 2009 and began expanding to many major global cities in 2012. It now operates in around 230 cities in nearly 50 countries. It has been valued at more than $40bn. But 2014 was the year it collided head on with the taxi drivers.
Spain, India and Thailand prohibited Uber from operating. The Netherlands has banned Uber's cheaper UberPop service. The authorities in Portland, Oregon, have brought a lawsuit against Uber. They complain that Uber does not guarantee disabled access, its drivers do not have proper insurance and that there is no maximum price cap.
Uber can operate in London, although there are legal cases pending. The key conflict is over whether the Uber app amounts to a taxi meter. This would be illegal as only black cabs are allowed them. Transport for London has allowed Uber to operate but asked the High Court to rule. The case cannot go ahead until a prosecution brought by the London Taxi Drivers Association in the Magistrates Court has been heard.
Uber has suffered a series of PR disasters. There have been questions over tax - the app's Dutch operating firm, Uber BV, does not pay tax in the UK, for instance. There has also been controversy about the company's attitude to journalists after Emil Michael, senior vice president of Uber, was heard suggesting the company dig up embarrassing details from the private lives of journalists who are negative in their coverage. Others worry about how the company deals with customer's data.
The safety issue is a significant one for Uber. There was an arrest in India of an Uber driver for allegedly raping a passenger. There have been several allegations of rape and sexual assault in the US. An Uber driver in Philadelphia is to stand trial for punching another driver. In London, an Uber driver was sacked after propositioning a customer.
But the company says it is safe. In the US, Uber employs "a three-step criminal background screening with county, federal and multi-state checks that go back as far as the law allows". In the UK, a Transport for London spokesman points out that Uber drivers undergo the same Disclosure and Barring Service checks that minicab and black cab drivers undergo.
But the head of the London Taxi Drivers' Association has said the company's use of recent immigrants as drivers means the checks are no guarantee of safety.
Supporters say the central issue of competition driving down price is important. "People may say they are outraged but if the service on offer is cheap and convenient, it will be hard to resist," the Economist wrote. The taxi trade is in urgent need of a shake-up, it argued. "Taxi markets often end up suspiciously clubby, with cabs in short supply and fat profits for the vehicle owners." It noted that in New York a pair of taxi medallions - for driving a yellow cab - sold in 2013 for $2.5m while in London "the knowledge", which it argues has been made redundant by GPS navigation, can take four years to complete.
Ravinder Johal, secretary of the Taxi Owners' Association in Birmingham, says Uber is competing unfairly. Their cars do not have to be accessible to wheelchair users for one thing. "We take 300-400 wheelchairs every week. What they are doing is trying to cream off easy work - a single person going A to B."
No-one saw it coming. It's 577 pages long. The only photo shows its author, a French academic, in front of a whiteboard covered in algebra. It has chapter headings like The Capital/Income Ratio over the Long Run. The pages are littered with graphs and tables. Yet Thomas Piketty's book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, got to the top of the bestseller lists in 2014. It has shifted about half a million copies in English. Piketty has become an unlikely star.
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