Licenses to Bleed: The Universal License Mafia – How Governments Manufacture Scarcity, Trap Workers in Debt, and Gouge Everyone Else
From railway porters carrying bags at ₹10–15 lakh black-market “permits” to auto-rickshaw caps in Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru, to NYC taxi medallions that once traded at $1.3 million before crashing in spectacular fashion: the same rigged playbook operates worldwide, proving “regulation” is often just legalized predation dressed as public service. In a world that never stops celebrating “labor surplus,” “demographic dividends,” and “ease of doing business,” the most persistent economic sin is the deliberate creation of artificial scarcity where none should exist. India’s railway porter licenses, city auto-rickshaw permit systems, and the infamous taxi medallion regimes of major global cities are not unrelated policy quirks. They are three chapters of the same sordid story: governments or their captured agencies freeze supply of a simple service, turn the resulting “right to work” into a tradable asset, push desperate workers (often from marginalized communities) into crushing de...