Occupational Licensing Blunts Competition and Boosts Inequality (economist.com) 373
Occupational licensing -- the practice of regulating who can do what jobs -- has been on the rise for decades. In 1950 one in 20 employed Americans required a licence to work. By 2017 that had risen to more than one in five. From a report: The trend partly reflects an economic shift towards service industries, in which licences are more common. But it has also been driven by a growing number of professions successfully lobbying state governments to make it harder to enter their industries. Most studies find that licensing requirements raise wages in a profession by around 10%, probably by making it harder for competitors to set up shop.
Lobbyists justify licences by claiming consumers need protection from unqualified providers. In many cases this is obviously a charade. Forty-one states license makeup artists, as if wielding concealer requires government oversight. Thirteen license bartending; in nine, those who wish to pull pints must first pass an exam. Such examples are popular among critics of licensing, because the threat from unlicensed staff in low-skilled jobs seems paltry. Yet they are not representative of the broader harm done by licensing, which affects crowds of more highly educated workers like Ms Varnam. Among those with only a high-school education, 13% are licensed. The figure for those with postgraduate degrees is 45%.
[...] One way of telling that many licences are superfluous is the sheer variance in the law across states. About 1,100 occupations are regulated in at least one state, but fewer than 60 are regulated in all 50, according to a report from 2015 by Barack Obama's White House. Yet a handful of high-earning professions are regulated everywhere. In particular, licences are more common in legal and health-care occupations than in any other.
Lobbyists justify licences by claiming consumers need protection from unqualified providers. In many cases this is obviously a charade. Forty-one states license makeup artists, as if wielding concealer requires government oversight. Thirteen license bartending; in nine, those who wish to pull pints must first pass an exam. Such examples are popular among critics of licensing, because the threat from unlicensed staff in low-skilled jobs seems paltry. Yet they are not representative of the broader harm done by licensing, which affects crowds of more highly educated workers like Ms Varnam. Among those with only a high-school education, 13% are licensed. The figure for those with postgraduate degrees is 45%.
[...] One way of telling that many licences are superfluous is the sheer variance in the law across states. About 1,100 occupations are regulated in at least one state, but fewer than 60 are regulated in all 50, according to a report from 2015 by Barack Obama's White House. Yet a handful of high-earning professions are regulated everywhere. In particular, licences are more common in legal and health-care occupations than in any other.
Milton Friedman is right (Score:5, Interesting)
A prospective: Milton Friedman's thoughts on Licensing [google.com].
Who does the licensing? (Score:2)
My question is, who does the licensing? If it is a state board ensuring that a plumber knows the difference between a PVC sewer pipe and a PEX-A water inlet, that is one thing. However, if regulatory capture happens, and the licensing becomes knowing how to use one product maker's stuff above all else, then it is worthless.
IT doesn't really have many certificates that are vendor independent, except perhaps the A+, and the CISSP. Instead, we have RedHat certs, Cisco certs, Microsoft certs, Amazon certs.
Re: Who does the licensing? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're confusing two different concepts. Certifications aren't licences. In a field which requires a license you cannot legally work unless you have it. Whereas in IT I do not NEED an MCSE "license" in order to play minesweeper or solitaire; I'm just more likely to be hired by a pointy haired boss if I have the certification.
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Adam Smith went over this topic too except back then it was called the journeymen and masters guild system.
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Eek!
Re: Milton Friedman is shite (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the prevalence of autocorrect, it is no longer possible to distinguish a typo from choosing an incorrect but similar word.
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+1 irony. Or -1 whoosh. Hard to tell. Let's ask Poe?
That's the trouble with you Americans (Score:3, Insightful)
You want a capitalist free market, but only for other people.
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It's not a problem with Americans, it's a problem with government. People in the public sector spend the majority of their time coming up with useless ways to justify their existence. There's a slow creep where governments create more oversight bodies, comities and other useless organisations which create more useless regulations. This leads to a situation where the government is wasting vast amounts of money while doing very little of value.
I think a lot of Americans would like the government to be scal
Definitely a problem with American government. (Score:3)
The thing you didn't mention explicitly is that coming up with these things is not useless to them.
Unless a way can be found to make it so, they'll keep doing it, and their power extends strongly downward, while ours extends upwards in a very weak and diffused manner. Even that may be an illusion; the number of non-establishment legislators who are willing to reform the various agencies with r
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Another problem with Americans is that they think the problems with their country and government are universal and fundamental, and can't be solved except by the best and brightest (i.e. Americans) despite the overwhelming number of other countries that aren't affected by equivalents of America's (for example) gun culture or business-enthralled healthcare...
A third is that this will likely be modded troll by people who don't understand that pointing out they lack context isn't just an attempt to make them f
Re:That's the trouble with you Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
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About 2/3rds and likely the suicide group would find another way. That still leaves 11K (there are about 33K gun deaths/year). I don't see a problem with allowing guns, but I don't see the reason to allow assault weapons. If I want a tank, can I have one? An RPG? Cannon? One could argue the 2nd amendment should allow me all of those things.
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Ha silly Euro
http://ww2live.com/en/content/... [ww2live.com]
Running Sherman Tank for sale or would you prefer a different make ?
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On a Federal level (individual states get weird with stuff)
If I want a tank, can I have one?
Yes, although for the actual guns you'd need the appropriate tax stamps. Same for the actual exploding munitions, tax stamp (and associated background checks, etc) for each one purchased. Oh, and there aren't that many of the machine guns registered for civilian ownerhsip... so its gonna cost a whole lot of money. You probably won't be allowed to drive on city/county/state/fed maintained roads since tracks mess up
Re:That's the trouble with you Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
FWIW I think I ought to be able to own anything that a law enforcement agency can own. Or, if you'd rather, law enforcement agencies should be restricted to the same firearms, magazines, ammo types, etc. that I can own :)
Re:That's the trouble with you Americans (Score:4, Informative)
Second as to your biased and incorrect claims about "assault weapons" First of all homicides using long guns of all types is usually less than 300 per year, lower than the number killed with blunt objects. Yes they get used in High profile, big news events but otherwise are very rarely used in homicides. They are not the biggest problem. Handguns account for the vast majority of firearm homicides.
Additionally regarding "Assault Weapons" That classification is based entirely on cosmetic features that do not impact their functionality. They are semi-automatic as are most firearms sold today. That means pull the trigger once and one bullet comes out. They are not automatic or burst capable. Such weapons have been tightly restricted and controlled since 1934 and since the Hughes Amendment of 1986 have become very expensive as no new automatic weapons can be sold to the public.
And yes one could argue that those other weapons could and should fall under the 2nd. Cannon certainly did. Citizens owned licensed warships and cannon. But more specifically, why shouldn't I be allowed to own them if I can use them safely? If by my negligence or intentional actions with said weapons injury or damage to others or their property occurs I would be fully liable. But if I can drive my Self Propelled Howitzer to the local public artillery range and safely send the rounds down range why not let me waste my money throwing 100 lb slugs of metal a few miles downrange? If I use it inappropriately and cause harm or damage throw the book at me.
As to Nukes (people love to bring up Nukes) they are not safe to use anywhere due to the spread of fall-out thus they are not in consideration.
No I'm not going to campaign or push for the right to own my own howitzer (I can already own one if it's a muzzle loader) but if we go back to the principle of holding people responsible for when their actions harm others why shouldn't a responsible owner be able to own one?
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Yes, to all...
If I want a tank, can I have one?
https://www.cnbc.com/2014/07/1... [cnbc.com]
An RPG?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=rpg+for+s... [lmgtfy.com]
Cannon?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cannon+fo... [lmgtfy.com]
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I don't see a problem with allowing guns, but I don't see the reason to allow assault weapons. If I want a tank, can I have one? An RPG? Cannon?
The guys who fought the revolution that led to their leaders writing and approving the Bill of Rights used personally-owned cannon and personally-owned warships in the war - which was the peak military technology of the time. Many of the foot-soldiers' long guns were rifled, and higher-tech than the muskets of their opponents.
They'd just fought a revolution against
Re:That's the trouble with you Americans (Score:5, Informative)
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So, ~300,000,000 million people need to give up their right to defend themselves because ~.0001% of them are fuck ups, instead of dealing with those individuals. While those mass shootings are tragic, Also, 317 is a lie...
"Between 1966 and 2012, there were 90 such incidents in the U.S."
https://fivethirtyeight.com/fe... [fivethirtyeight.com]
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As a certified and licensed modder and card-carrying member of the MRA (Modulators Ruffle Association) I intended to give this +1:interesting but misclicked and gave it +-0:frunobulous. Slashdot only allows a modicum of modified moderations to a more modern modality via modem. Bummer.
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...aren't affected by equivalents of America's (for example) gun culture ...
Besides being off-topic (but since you went there), what "gun culture" are you speaking of? You can go about your business in the U.S., as the vast majority of the population does, and outside of police and security guards, or video games and TV, it's extremely unlikely that you'll see or hear a gun...likely for months or years, unless you make an effort to do so. Sure there are exceptions in certain gang infested, crime ridden areas. And I say this having lived through the '67 riots in Detroit, and bei
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For example, the EPA was created because of environmental concerns about dumping/burning waste. That's an $8billion annual budget on making sure companies do the right thing.
You want it scaled back? Companies need to comply with the regulations enough that the number of FTEs can be dropped. It's a long timeline, but it does happen - especially when government c
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The EPA enacted nearly 4,000 regulations during the previous administration. You're telling us that that's all necessary? Bullshit.
How about federal agencies monitoring individuals w/o a warrant, I suppose you're okay with that, and that it's not overreach.
How about the government telling women they can't have an abortion, or that adults can't smoke pot, or gays (for many years) can't get married? Or that screwing anyone but your wife in any position other than missionary would land you in jail.
People in
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How about licensed hair stylists?
They did mention a few specifically: make up artists, hair stylists, cabinet making, to name some of the top of my head.
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How about licensed hair stylists?
They did mention a few specifically: make up artists, hair stylists, cabinet making, to name some of the top of my head.
I'm on the fence on this. Hair styling can be a vector of disease if you don't clean your tools well. Then there's the issue of how difficult getting one really is. There's some math test requirements to get the license in some states... and many people simply fail to pass them, which then ask the question "why do I need this to get a license to cut hair."
But then I know people from other countries that pass the test and go the license because for them it was pretty much elementary school math.
So, in th
Re: That's the trouble with you Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
By that logic, you're also on the fence for people such as:
- road sweepers
- dog walkers
- bird owners/breeders
- cat owners/breeders
- pretty much anyone who has a rodent pet
- gun owners
- delivery drivers (even small vehicles such as mopeds/bicycles)
- any sort of entertainment venue (especially if kids of any age go there)
- sysadmins
- programmers
The list goes on - all these roles have some associated public risk if they chose to do the role badly/incorrectly/illegally. Should they all require a license to operate at all though? Wouldn't a single law addressing "doing harm to others" cover it all, and mean zillions of professions can operate without licenses?
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Re:That's the trouble with you Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue here is insuring that any solutions proferred by an "expert" surpasses some minimum threshold of safety and effectiveness. Regulation accomplishes that.
The two are not incompatible. Where you get into trouble is when you believe so much in regulation that you start imposing regulations on things that haven't been tried before or hasn't proven to be a problem before - that ends up impeding the market's ability to find new innovative and unconventional solutions. e.g. the EU mandating GSM, thereby preventing EU companies from trying what turned out to be the better solution - CDMA (which turned out to be so much better that the EU had to incorporate it into the GSM spec for 3G data [wikipedia.org]). Or when you believe so much in the free market that you start repealing basic regulations which have safeguarded the market against activities which had proven to be a problem in the past. e.g. the U.S. repealing the regulation separating savings banks from investment banks, thereby exacerbating the housing bubble.
This isn't an either/or choice. In fact the people presenting it as an either/or choice (on both sides) are the ones causing the problems. The licenses TFA calls a "charade" really aren't. Stylists don't just put on makeup, they can also apply caustic chemicals to your hair or skin. Likewise, bartenders mix substances which are consumed - do you really want someone merely pretending to be a bartender to mix something you'll end up drinking? Food service workers (cooks, chefs, waiters and waitresses) must pass a food handling exam for the same reason. All this is to guarantee that someone working in these fields have at least been taught basic pitfalls and mistakes to avoid.
Re:That's the trouble with you Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry - I don't buy the evolution analogy. There's elements of it that match but here's the issue. In a free market, companies don't 'evolve' to innovate. Innovation isn't the end goal, surviving and profiting is. There's a hell of a lot of ways to profit other than innovation and innovation is always a risky strategy to reach that end. Often it's easier to make a measured approach and plan to drag down anyone else who innovates, especially once you're big enough.
A free market is about the profitability and survival being the end goal and whatever achieves that is what happens. This is why licensing is required, to ensure that people don't get trampled underfoot on the way to that profitability.
As Solandri stated, licensing applies to people who could endanger your wellbeing through incompetence or negligence and we all benefit from that. You _could_ argue that people can vote with their feet, avoid restaurants that develop a reputation for food poisoning etc. Noone wants to be one of the ones who dies on the way to building that reputation, though.
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Sorry - I don't buy the evolution analogy.
That's because you misunderstand it. Allow me to explain.
In a free market, companies don't 'evolve' to innovate. Innovation isn't the end goal, surviving and profiting is.
Individuals of a species don't evolve either. Survival and reproduction is their goal. Evolution is something that a population does. Just as the statistical distribution of alleles in a population changes over time, the statistical distribution of business practices in a market changes over time. E.g. the slow fade of brick-and-mortar stores in many sectors.
A free market is about the profitability and survival being the end goal and whatever achieves that is what happens.
So, yeah, just like nature.
licensing applies to people who could endanger your wellbeing through incompetence or negligence
Everyone you meet could endanger your wellbeing through incomp
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If you believe in evolution, then you also believe capitalism works.
Evolution is brutal though. It works by the weakest members of the population dying before they can reproduce. Okay, it's a bit more complicated but it's not a process that produces good outcomes for a lot of individuals.
That's why most capitalist societies also have regulation and welfare.
I suppose you could say that capitalism is the baseline, a system that works but which is not very desirable.
e.g. the EU mandating GSM
Actually a great counter example. We don't have the horrendous network lock-in that the US does. European phones
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No. We want people who at least half-know what they're doing before they put their hands on nuclear reactors/people's internals/motorized vehicles etc, just like you (assumed) europeans do. Of course, most of this is moot because licensing has become little more than a papermill industry shim between real life applicant experience and HR department expectations.
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In Arizona, it takes more hours of education to become a licensed hair stylist than it does to become an EMT. It's crazy. Currently the legislature is trying to at least exempt people who only wash hair from the hair stylist license, but the State cosmetology board is fighting them on it. 1,000 hours of education to wash hair!
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People go into government so they can get in the way of things so they can get paid to get back out of the way.
In most countries, corruption is so rampant, that's the only way to get ahead. In most countries in the west, they have to hide it better and use better rhetoric to get the useful idiots on their side.
Don't have to bring an "extra" $200 to the DMV to get a driver's license-or-wait-5-years?
Lucky you.
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Okay, so you're technically correct, but I would argue that the AMA, and ABA, and a few other licensed professional organizations are virtual unions, pushing the same thing.
My kid's friends did cosmology (Score:3)
I think the rise of licenses isn't just mean spirited folks wanting to raise wages. It's got more to do with computers making it easy to track folks and wide spread mass media leading to more people hearing stories of what happens when somebody without training does something dangerous. If it's one thing that 20 years in the workforce has taught me it's that companies do as little training as humanly possible.
Re:My kid's friends did cosmology (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a theory that most regulations and red tape are unnecessary - we should rely on common sense.
There's another which states that most regulations and red tape are there because common sense is actually quite rare and someone did something stupid.
Re:My kid's friends did cosmology (Score:5, Insightful)
Or rather, someone did something deliberate which was stupid - such as using a non-human-grade product because it was cheaper than the human-grade one and burned someones scalp off.
That's the main reason things tend to end up licensed - illegal behavior on the part of the unlicensed actor.
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One of the rules of the universe you learn as you get older is.
"No matter how stupid, cruel, or evil a thing is, someone, will think it is a good idea."
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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. [grammarist.com]
Re:My kid's friends did cosmology (Score:5, Funny)
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. [grammarist.com]
If we allow cosmologists to be unlicensed, the entire universe could collapse into a black hole. There is some evidence that this is already happening [nationalgeographic.com]. That is far worse than a bad haircut.
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If we allow cosmologists to be unlicensed, the entire universe could collapse into a black hole.
With a little skillfully applied makeup no one will notice the difference. The universe will look young again.
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A license ensures the person doing the make up has some way of telling the everyone that the make up will not be a problem.
Everyone will look as needed and be able to look good over the days and week.
Everything used will be safe and no questions of what is been used has to be asked every time by everyone. That "new" makeup effort would slow everything down and add extra complexity
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there are multiple tiers of the license. How much you need depends on what chemicals you work with. If you're a dude (most of us /.ers are) you have no idea how crazy some of chemicals they work with are. The stuff women will do to get straight hair if they're born with curly or curly hair if they're born with straight is absurd. Come to think of it, every girl I've ever met wants the opposite type of hair they were born with....
There's also questions of hygiene, such as how often you clean your hands, equipment, towels, environment etc. Some of the stuff being done by cosmetologists blends over into the quasi-medical, like Botox injections, mild chemical peels, laser, IPL or waxing hair removal (in sensitive places). etc.
If I was a woman I'd be in favor of at least some basic qualifications for the people working on me.
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Besides working with strong chemicals, hairstylists and similar trades would need proper sanitation and often business skills, so it's not just aesthetics, but the length of schooling required still seems absurd.
To help out (Score:3, Informative)
If you want to help solve this, donate to the Institute for Justice [ij.org]. They are the most prominent organization fighting "license to be employed" laws.
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I wonder if they would be helpful in my attempt to set myself up in business as a self-taught attorney.
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Do the also fight mandatory Union membership?
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I'm sure they do other things as well, an
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Likewise, prior to licensing, people were allowed to sell all manner of literal snake oil as medicine...
That's the general argument, yes. You can't get rid of a single legal requirement on anything, no matter how ridiculous it is, because then you'd repeal all legal requirements on everything.
No. You wouldn’t. You'd keep the few that you need and repeal the rest. And then see how it goes. And then add a couple back or repeal a couple more based on the results just like any other intelligent people would if they were trying to serve their society instead of themselves.
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Which ones do you want to repeal, exactly?
I would pick 10 at random, challenge the licensing supporters to find or conduct a scientific study of whether they prevent a significant harm to the public, and repeal the ones that aren't proven necessary. Then repeat that every year.
Since licensing laws vary by state and locality, it should be simple to look at jurisdictions with no licensing requirement for a given profession and see all the harm to the public from unlicensed practitioners in those places. If there is no harm, or if the difference is
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The same compensation that victims of the current laws get. There would be zero change in anything like that.
How are you compensating people who can't get a good job because of someone's phoney FUD campaign?
Whence training? (Score:2)
You couldn't work in that industry without documented skill, knowlege and experience in the speciality for which you were employed.
Then how does one gain experience in the first place? It's like no one wanting to hire junior programmers anymore [slashdot.org].
Planet Money (Score:2)
There's an excellent Planet Money episode about this:
https://www.npr.org/sections/m... [npr.org]
Licensing also benefits... (Score:2)
Licensing also benefits bureaucrats and enforcement agencies as well as providing fees to boost the budgets of government.
If you can't tax it, license it to death.
This should be an easy issue- broad consensus (Score:2)
Merit is what keeps everything good working (Score:5, Insightful)
Giving away the word "engineer" to someone with no skills for "equality" reasons will not result in a bridge that works long term.
Nations need to have confidence in the bridges they use.
Need medical care? the doctor, any doctor in any hospital should have passed that nations medical exams and be under constant review and have their results look at.
A medical system needs to have confidence that any on duty doctor can do what they got a job for.
A rescue helicopter to get people to hospital that can fly day and night needs the crew to actually be able to fly in day and night conditions.
A person working on a production like and its electoral system needs to be able to show they have the skills to work on that system.
That "licence" tells the factory owner, the insurance company and all other workers the work done is to a nations standards and was correct and safe.
That any further work can build on existing quality work.
The electrical, water, gas networks have to be designed and installed to some standard so all surrounding homes are safe to some standard for many years.
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The cases you list are precisely those where government dictated licensing is unnecessary, and the reason it is unnecessary is for exactly the reasons you have invoked -- the need for qualified individuals in those positions is crucial and self-evident. You might as well pass a law that no one can be hired to be CEO of a multibillion dollar company without an MBA. Quite obviously, no multibillion dollar company is going to hire an unqualified person for that position and is more than capable of doing the ne
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Quite obviously, no multibillion dollar company is going to hire an unqualified person for that position
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA OMG YOU SAID THAT WITH A STRAIGHT FACE (deep breath) BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The frightening part is, judging from your username, you're an educated person and yet you somehow still stumbled on this pollyanna belief. Allow me to inform you that you are 100% mistaken. Honestly America would be a better place with a licensing test for CEOs. Not an MBA. One that includes a
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Professional Electrical Engineer here... No, being licensed doesn't mean you are good, but it does serve to keep a very high percentage of people that are not good out. It also places responsibility and pressure on young engineers to know their shit.
Federal-level licensing for most fields makes more sense though. Structural engineering is the obvious exception; geotechnical might be as well.
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No. Employers must validate experience and provide reference. It can be tricky for people that work in a one licensed engineer shop, but most people will provide a reference.
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No they didn't. Many died.
Blame the guilds (Score:5, Insightful)
What guilds you ask? Way back when, anyone could claim to be a bread maker, or tanner, or brewer. At some point, due to various reasons, those who took pride in their work and felt their standard of excellence should be met by the shyster down the stall banded together and formed guilds.
Those guilds set minimum standards for quality such as no sawdust in bread or beer which wasn't watered down or had spices thrown in to cover up bad tastes or bad alcohol.
Fast forward to today and for somewhat similar reasons, professions want people to meet minimum standards of service. For example, the person who colors your hair should have some basic knowledge of how not to burn your skin or turn your hair into straw when applying the mixed chemicals.
Now I know what many of you are going to say. "I'm a programmer and I've never been involved in a guild or union or anything like them. Employers simply hire me."
Oh really? Those employers never asked what your qualifications were? Never asked how many years experience you had in python or Rust or whatever language they're looking for? They never asked to see examples of your work? Never quizzed you on your knowledge?
What they did is no different than what people being licensed go through. You have to meet some minimum standard set by the employer in the same manner someone has to meet the minimum standard to be a cosmetologist, an attorney or doctor.
To those who say, "Free markets!", what happens when your scalp is burned getting your hair colored? What if the person, somehow, gets the wash in your eyes and causes damage? Your response is most likely to get an attorney to sue them for damages. Question: how do you know that attorney is qualified to handle your case?
Distinction (Score:5, Interesting)
At some point you are correct. There are certain professions that should require licensing. Generally these are professions that involve some level of personal safety (medical) or fiduciary responsibility (legal.)
At some point your argument falls apart. Not exactly sure why you need to be licensed to:
Decorate a house
Braid hair (NOT cut it)
Walk dogs
Sell caskets
Be a locksmith
Run a pawn broker
Run a flower shop
Operate a food truck (ON TOP of your regular commercial drivers license AND health certificate)
Install home theater equipment
Run a travel agency
Package things for shipping
Upholster furniture
I'm sure you could come up with some corner case that would involve safety in any of these cases, but you could do the same for, pretty much, ANY profession.
So the question becomes is if the licensing scheme is doing more to protect consumers, or to protect established professionals from competition.
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Some of those need to be licensed for reasons you aren't aware of.
Decorate a house: Since some design elements are expected to hold loads, or not fall down on people, they need to know enough to design "safe" decorations.
Sell caskets: States have a lot of rules when it comes to putting bodies in the ground. A casket needs to be sturdy enough that it won't be crushed when you put 6 feet of dirt on it, or rot when you expose it to years of damp soil and insects.
Upholster furniture: There are fire codes tha
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That requires registration so the state can visit them from time to time to watch for criminality. That doesn't require licensing with respect to skill.
There seem to be 3 kinds of licenses out there (Score:2)
There seem to be 3 kinds of licenses out there for jobs.
There are licenses that you absolutely do want to exist (for example you most definitely should need a license to be a doctor or a lawyer or a pilot or a bus driver)
Then there are licenses that definitely should exist but where the things that require such a license go far too overboard. A requirement that someone doing electrical work have a license is a good thing (since it ensures they know how to make things safe) but too many cases exist where a "
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If you go back far enough in PC history, the first PC cases had a switch on the front that switched the incoming power (110v/220v). This required wiring the power input to the front of the case and back again. The connections of these wires at the switch were exposed. So you had the possibili
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>If you go back far enough in PC history, the first PC cases had a switch on the front that switched the incoming power (110v/220v).
Actually, it did not. It required a dual-power power unit, which had a control circuit. Wiring 120 to the front panel would have required far more heavy duty internal wiring.
I remember those days. Wiring the main power to the power supply could be done very badly by the original manufacturer, but even the cheap vendors did not want to pay for a switch that could handle 120 a
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I didn't make myself clear. I didn't mean that it switched between 100V and 220V, but instead, it switched the incoming power on or off and the incoming power could be 110V or 220V.
Re:There seem to be 3 kinds of licenses out there (Score:4, Insightful)
Areas where tourism is a big industry obviously are going to want to license tour guides. Bad tour guides can give a destination a bad reputation or lead to tourists getting ripped off or mugged. Much like a hotel wants to maintain a level of service, tourist destinations do as well. Some places also have a healthy respect for their history and want to make sure it is accurately represented.
Carpenters frame houses. I've seen a badly framed house. I've seen a ceiling collapse due to poor carpentry. Why you think being able to build to code shouldn't require a test is beyond me.
So I checked my state's bartending licensing. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're required to pass a test on how to recognize fake ids, determine if someone has had too much to drink and needs to be shut off, and what your legal responsibilities and liabilities are as a server. The permit cost is $8.99, and includes a video tutorial.
That seems pretty reasonable to me. It's not like they're testing you on whether you can mix a Martini.
This is how civilizations collapse (Score:2)
when people cannot understand why a standard or a right exists. Because they live in a world made safe by the existence of it. So they get rid of it.
Morons regulating programmers (Score:2)
The people who were involved were all assholes. At a local conference someone jokingly suggested that they be blacklisted; which the
dumbing down (Score:2)
Of course licensing is unequal: only those who can pass the tests can be licensed. Some can do it while others can't. Welcome to life, we are NOT equal. We are diverse. As a result, I do not have a problem with testing for ability. However, I do have one with the many licensing schemes that fail to do this while producing armies of half useless paper-mill drones. It's turned into a system wide scam.
Stossel (Score:2)
John Stossel likes to go after the whole overly "licensing" thing. Here are some good videos of him that are very relevant to the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Of course, few people think that all licensing should go away, Stossel doesn't either. But it is getting a bit ridiculous.
No need to be flippant about bartenders and MUAs (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who has been involved in fashion, art, and glamour photography for some time, I find the article's dismissal of cosmetology licensing to be careless and poorly researched.
Applying makeup is a licensed activity because of significant health and safety issues related to hygiene and proper use of certain products (such as latex, for example, as used in the movie and theater industries). You could very literally lose an eye, go into anaphylactic shock, or get a nasty rash because some village idiot decided to play makeup artist and didn't know what they were doing. People doing this really DO need to know what they are doing.
Likewise, bartender licenses are less about memorizing obscure drink recipes and more about properly working within the law around alcoholic drinks and potentially inebriated customers. These licenses are not a burden to obtain (working with a non-profit art gallery, we obtained them for some of our board members so we could legally serve wine at our shows), and they are a serious intervention to help cut down on drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, and underage drinking.
Here in Texas, the licensing agency recently got rid of mandatory licensing of interior designers (my wife is one) and talent/modeling agencies (which, again, I'm familiar with through photography). The result is a total disaster in both fields. To do an effective job, interior designers need to understand building codes, proper construction techniques, when to call in a structural engineer, permitting, blueprints and drawings, special laws around commercial furniture, etc. But without a license, anyone who watches a bunch of HGTV and thinks they are the next Joanna Gaines can go represent themselves as a designer, and homeowners and businesses *don't know what they don't know*. And in the talent agency world, particularly in modeling, there is a HUGE problem of outright scams, not to mention sketchy guys claiming to "manage" models or singers, who act more like wannabe pimps.
So yeah, maybe licensing can be a bit of a protection racket in some industries, but it's way too easy to deride someone else's education from a place of ignorance about the service they are performing and the risks involved in the decisions they make.
(Also, make no mistake, this article isn't about makeup or pints of lager, it's about an ongoing, long-term, well-funded dispute about what the differences should be between a doctor and a nurse practitioner. The arguments about other industries are merely window-dressing.)
Re: (Score:2)
You're missing the point: the article is basically the standard neo-Liberal (for US readers: Libertarian) propaganda piece you'd expect from The Economist.
While not as bad as Koch-funded think tanks, on economy their stance is virtually the same: take away all worker protections and let the owner class run Gilded Age style rampant.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't disagree; it's good to have some verification of the expected qualifications. But it needs to be applied sanely. Last time this subject came up, I looked up my state's list of licensed professions (outside of engineering and medicine), and requirements thereto. Most were sane enough -- some 50-60 hours of training for the more-basic jobs, a bit more for the more-complex.
And then there was the weird outlier -- a requirement of 1100 hours of training for (IIRC) physical trainer. And I was like, WTF? D
pathetic article (Score:2)
Many of those "licenses" are trivial to acquire and contain relevant legal or otherwise need-to-know information. Even if much of that knowledge is trivial, you want to be sure that your (insert-profession-here) in fact does have it.
In particular, licences are more common in legal and health-care occupations than in any other.
And those are exactly the kind of professions where a) a laymen has no chance to spot any even halfway good con-man and b) you really, really want to be in the hands of someone who actually has the skills they claim.
Re:Bartending = makeup artists? (Score:4, Informative)
The one who wields a brush applies dangerous chemicals to peoples faces.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, chemicals [dermnetnz.org]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The latter makes perfect sense to license or oversee in some way or another.
Why? The guy at the 7-eleven who rings up your beer purchase isn't licensed. Home brewers aren't licensed. A friend who has you over for a couple beers isn't licensed.
People have been drinking beer and for thousands of years without government meddling. Other than the government collecting a fee and employing a professional meddler, how is it different or better with government meddling?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It keeps the equipment sanitary. I don't want my beer strained through the brewer's wife's old unwashed stockings.
In other words, because of the profit motive, people will take shortcuts and cheat at the expense of the consumer - even if it kills them.
The Libertarian fairy tale is that the Free Markets (all be Praised Hallelujah!) will take care of it. Folks will realize the bad behavior and not give them business anymore.
One, people are stupid. Read 5 star reviews on Amazon and you'll see folks are too n
Re: (Score:2)
If the bar has an A rating from the health inspector, why does the guy behind the bar need a separate, redundant rating?
Re: (Score:2)
No so much what a city and state and nation wants to be covered for who gets to buy alcoholic beverages.
That "rating" ensures everything related to alcoholic beverages is safe and legal.
Re: (Score:2)
That "rating" ensures everything related to alcoholic beverages is safe and legal.
Can you cite any evidence of this? What's the incidence of injury or illness from unlicensed bartenders in jurisdictions that don't require a license? Is it higher?
Or are you just making up FUD and/or repeating a few isolated anecdotes without regard for whether they’re significant in a large population?
Should we deny people employment whenever someone says "but what if something bad happens"?
Re: (Score:2)
They do sting operations to catch people breaking the rules. Word gets around really fast about that. No bartender wants to lose his job to serve a minor or break some other rule. Breaking a rule doesn't benefit him much. Getting caught breaking a rule costs him a lot — bartending can actually pay pretty well.
Re: (Score:2)
To ensure that he knows to cut off inebriated people and can spot a fake ID.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's why your talking out of your lardy arse.
One, Saudi Arabia.
Two - and you might have heard of this because it's from your own history - the 18th Amendment.
Re: (Score:2)
Why? The guy at the 7-eleven who rings up your beer purchase isn't licensed.
As far as I know the guy at 7-eleven doesn't open my beer nor can make mixed drinks for me. A bartender can. In fact the 7-Eleven is required to have a food serving license if it serves food as opposed to merely selling prepackaged food.
Home brewers aren't licensed. A friend who has you over for a couple beers isn't licensed.
So my friend is a home brewer is operating a business which sells beer for money? Wouldn't he require a license to do so?
Re: (Score:2)
So? Finding a place to drink is the world's easiest puzzle to solve. You can drink anywhere the police aren’t looking plus almost anywhere else if you cover up the container.
Re: (Score:2)
While true, IIRC, you have to have gone to law school for three years to be allowed to take the bar exam. If there are states that don't require that, I'd like to know. I figure it's the kind of thing one can pass after self-study.
Re: (Score:2)
Washington State requires that you intern with a lawyer for 4 years in order to take the bar exam.
As for the law library, that's actually really easy. Most law schools have public access to their law library (to read volumes within the library, not check out books). It may be constrained to regular business hours, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
Pharmacists are important. Don't underestimate them.