

The Right to Work - MikeCapone
http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/11/the-right-to-work

======
ZachPruckowski
In the absence of state licenses, how does one prevent license mills? Right
now, there are "colleges" (Diploma/Degree Mills) that will hand you a B.A. or
B.S. or Associate's degree based on "life experiences". You write them a nice
letter about why you think you deserve the degree, wrap it around a $1000
check, and you get your diploma in 6-8 weeks. If we abandon state-run license
boards for professions like doctors, lawyers, or architects, then within a few
months anyone will be able to pay a few grand to hang up a "Joe Schmoe,
Attorney at Law" shingle in front of his office. The end result will be a lot
of confusion for consumers, because unless a consumer's able to do hours of
research, determining which licensure boards have sufficiently rigorous
standards will be an impossible task.

~~~
bobbin
Let's say there are no state licenses, and you need a doctor, so you go to a
hospital.

Would you be concerned about the quality of the doctor?

Would you be the only one to feel that way?

Would a hospital who is capable of addressing those concerns be more
successful than one incapable of doing so?

Would you as a training doctor be concerned of the public prestige of your
license?

Would you as a doctor be willing to work in a place who hasn't justified or
proved its quality to the public?

of course these questions don't answer your main concern, but you post assumes
in the absence of a government monopoly in licensing, people would be
incapable of creating quality control.

There's a tendency to imagine a transition period and think it would be
unsolvable because you can't think how it could be solved.

~~~
btilly
The problem with your reasoning is that we have actually have lots of
historical experience with what it is like when we don't license doctors. It
was awful. I'm no fan of the AMA. But I like having doctors who know basic
anatomy.

On all of your reputation issues, people's judgment of the quality of doctors
is almost entirely a function of their bedside manner, and not their
competence. If you just go off of reputation, and reputation is based on the
decisions of lay people, the result is that competent doctors get bad
reputations and confident charlatans get excellent ones. And health suffers
accordingly.

A similar well-documented example are public health measures. My surface
impressions of a restaurant are a bad guide for whether the cook washes his
hands properly after going to the bathroom. And dysentery comes through
infrequently enough that you won't discover this from your neighbor getting
sick until far too late. But well-constructed licensing requirements solve
this problem and save lives. (In fact there is good data suggesting that
public health measures like these save more lives year in and year out than
all of the advances of modern medicine.)

We also know what happens with public engineering. Before licensing
requirements were created, the USA averaged one random bridge collapse per
_week_. That's pretty bad. It gets rapidly worse if you get an earthquake. I
live in an earthquake prone zone, and I am a very firm supporter of having the
buildings I am around and in be built to standards created by qualified
engineers, then inspected by properly licensed inspectors. California is among
the few areas where significant earthquakes don't tend to come with massive
loss of life, and I appreciate that fact.

I could multiply examples, but the flip side of the argument does not hold.
The article is correct that there are a lot of stupid licensing requirements
out there. The article is correct that the motivation is often restraint of
trade. The article is correct that we're often all better off without those
rules. But the article is dead wrong in concluding that we're better off
removing _all_ licensing requirements.

~~~
timwiseman
You make good and interesting points, but remember you can (at least
hypothetically) have licensing and accreditation without the government
providing it. For instance, there is no legal requirement for IT
certifications, and yet there are a plethora of them, some meaningful some not
but most in the industry know the difference.

Similarly, even if the government did not require a license, insurance
companies would likely refuse to provide malpractice insurance for those
without proper training.

I agree that when it comes to large public engineering and the creation of
buildings, then there is a compelling public need to make sure minimimums are
met. If a building collapses unexpectedly, likely far more people than the
purchaser will be harmed and irrevocably.

But that compelling public good is far weaker in other areas that require
licenses now. If I have a bad florist, only myself and the person I am
bestowing the flowers on is going to be harmed at all, and only minutely then.
If I have a bad lawyer, the stakes may be higher, but again only I am harmed.

------
dwiel
This reminds me of a friend of mine who has worked in the city department for
years and spends his free time reading law. Despite that experience, he can't
be a lawyer in Indiana and advise based on this knowledge without going to
college first, no matter if he can pass the Bar exam or not.

------
imgabe
So, in this brave new license-less world, how would we ever get any new
doctors? Who is going to recommend a doctor he's never used before? If a
charlatan sets himself up as a doctor, how many people have to die under is
care before word gets around that he's really no good?

Maybe florists are taking it a bit far, but it's easy to see a yoga instructor
could cause someone serious injury if they didn't know what they were doing.
Even interior designers have to know about things like egress paths or they
could end up creating a space that becomes a deathtrap in the event of a fire.

~~~
bobbin
it's not about a system without licenses, the problem is the violence involved
in them.

If someone wants to give flower licenses that's fine. The problem starts when
they start to claim the right to take your business from you if you don't have
it. Or give you a fine. Or lock you in a cage if you don't pay the fine.

Of course the issue is more complex in cases of life and death, or just
injury. My point is that it's necessary to consider what does a licensing
monopoly entail. It entrails a group of people claiming the right to
administer punishment backed by violence.

I know there are a lot of good objections to what I wrote, so many I can't
address them all. I wanted it to point out the monopolistic and violent nature
of government enforced licensing, not because it closes the issue, but because
it's essential to understand this when speaking about the issue and
contrasting that with voluntary, non coercive forms of licensing and quality
control.

~~~
ZachPruckowski
The role of government is to protect the liberty and general welfare of the
American public[1]. This involves trade-offs.

For instance, I give up the right to drive over 65 miles per hour on the
highway in order to protect the safety of everyone else on or near that
highway. It sucks that I can't drive as fast as I want to, and it's an affront
to my liberty that's enforced with violence (cops will throw me in jail if I
drive recklessly or persistently speed), but the government decided that that
loss of liberty is less important than the damage to the general welfare if
everyone can go as fast as they want (more car crashes and deaths).

Sometimes, the trade goes the other way. If we banned fast food, the general
welfare would improve greatly. But the government (and ultimately the people
who elected the government) decided that the resulting loss in liberty would
be too great to justify.

In this instance, people lose liberty when they're restricted from holding
certain professions[2] without licenses. But the general welfare is improved
because now people can trust that their doctors and lawyers meet a certain
level of quality[3] as determined by the state. The government weighed the
lost liberty and the gained welfare, and made a judgment call. If we don't
like that judgment call, we can vote for candidates who see things the other
way (or donate to legislators who agree with your position, or start a
grassroots organization and convince people).

[1] - There's also "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide
for the common defence", but those aren't in conflict in these examples.
Government policy still regularly makes trade-offs between them. [2] -
strictly speaking, you can own a law firm or doctor's office without a
license, you just can't practice law/medicine. [3] - whether licensing tests
are great reflections of ability or knowledge is beyond the scope of this
comment.

~~~
justin
Ironically, your speed limit example is exactly a case of government
interference that doesn't cause the intended positive result. See the Montana
no posted speed limits study (TLDR--no speed limit = decrease in fatalities):
[http://www.motorists.org/pressreleases/home/montana-no-
speed...](http://www.motorists.org/pressreleases/home/montana-no-speed-limit-
safety-paradox/)

The author's point is not that the role of government isn't to protect liberty
and the general welfare of the American public. He is simply saying that
licensing doesn't do a good job of that, and in fact causes the exact opposite
effect through lack of competition (bad for prices and quality, and thus bad
for consumers) while really doing nothing to ensure quality. In order to
protect the liberty and general welfare of the public, the government would be
best to _stop_ requiring licensing.

------
owinebarger
I expected an article decrying unions, but found one decrying the licensing of
doctors and lawyers.

To use the case of florist licensing to condemn all licensing is an egregious
leap. In general I believe it is sound policy to license professions where the
ordinary consumer of their services cannot be expected to know how to judge
their quality. Highly specialized professions dealing with the general public
such as doctors and lawyers are obvious candidates. For the actuarial
profession, you might argue that the hiring companies should be sufficiently
sophisticated to judge their competence without formal credentialing. The
hidden consumer in this case are the insurance regulators and the public
relying on them. And, in fact, companies don't always require credentials in
actuarial roles, but regulators won't accept annual statements without a
supporting statement from a properly credentialed actuary.

I think lawyers are a problematic case. With most professions you can go to
court if the designated gatekeepers are acting in an illegal or unethical
fashion. The state Bar association, on the other hand, is going to be nearly
impossible to fight for anyone who plans on making a living as an attorney.
So, while I do support the goal of ensuring a base level of competence for a
professional that may be the only thing standing between you and a jail cell,
I am deeply concerned about the current mechanism for achieving that goal. The
completely free market leaves too much blood on the floor for my taste to be
worth considering as a solution.

------
wooster
I feel like I've read this article in Reason before.

<http://reason.com/archives/2004/01/09/flower-power>

~~~
Semiapies
Nothing's actually changed since then.

------
wendroid
Full employment is a threat, not a promise.

~~~
idoh
What does that mean?

~~~
dazzawazza
When threatened it means labour camps, when promised it is (unfortunately) a
lie?

------
detcader
"John Stossel is host of Stossel on the Fox Business Network."

I was willing to humor Reason, but I won't humor Rupert.

~~~
AngryParsley
"The world's greatest fool may say the Sun is shining, but that doesn't make
it dark out." -- Robert Pirsig

