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.
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.
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.
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.
I'll write a piece of an answer I gave to another person:
> Lets say we want quality control in dentistry. You like the government quality control the government gives and would like your dentists to count with their approval. I, on the other hand, think it's requirements are excessive. Most of what my dentist does is find black spots in my teeth, drill them out, and then fill the hole. This does not require 4 years of study. If I ever get to need a root canal I would need someone with more studies but until then I'd me happy with someone with less studies, maybe a certification given by the manufacturer of the equipment, I don't know.
If you like the government certification you can limit yourself only to government certificated doctors. No problem.
A group of people should be able do give public approval of university courses and degrees. If you like the government that OK.
I'm just object locking people in cages when they don't comply with these regulations. The violent monopoly is the problem.
> But the article is dead wrong in concluding that we're better off removing all licensing requirements.
The key word here is requirements. Not removing all licensing. The distinction is not expressed clearly. If you don't comply with the "required" licensing they lock you in jail, or the demand money from you, and if you don't comply, then you go to jail.
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.
Yes, but lots of things were 'awful' in that same era. Science and medicine were cruder; people were less educated; people were poorer; communication options were slow and limited.
Now we know more, are richer, and have instant worldwide communication and deep searchable public databases. Lots of the old paternalism, even if once justified, can now be discarded.
But also: even the welfare gains we might think were from licensing, because they occurred after the licensing was introduced, may have instead been from the same rising wealth/standards/awareness that triggered the demand to "do something".
Consider for example the trend in workplace deaths, before and after the creation of OSHA to improve occupational safety:
You can prosecute someone for fraud for claiming falsified or unaccredited credentials without requiring the government itself to accredit. Also, it's hard to justify why florists need to be formally accredited.
By things such as group purchases or consumer reports. There's no accredition board telling you which stock to buy, must people just let their mutual fund decide.
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.
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.
Presumably, people would bootstrap themselves into careers in pretty much the same way they do now. Of the top of my head ...
1) Working with (or interning with) someone reputable, and getting their public stamp of approval.
2) Certification agencies won't suddenly cease to exist; they just wouldn't have any force of law. Nothing would stop you from refusing to see a dentist who isn't certified by the ADA, just like nothing stops you today from buying a toaster that's not certified by Underwriters Labs.
3) Speaking of underwriting, insurance companies have an enormous incentive to only insure competent people.
I don't think he ever called for a "license-free" world he simply pointed out that skilled people who don't have them shouldn't be prohibited from working in a field if someone wants to hire them.
I don't endorse a world without licenses either but I'd point out that the world got by just fine without them for centuries using apprenticeships and if my doctor retired and told me "I trained this person and he's who I'd suggest you go to" I'd take that recommendation a lot more seriously than I'd take a medical license.
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.
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.
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...
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.
You give up the right to drive 65 miles per hour on a public highway. If own a large enough tract of pavement, you can drive as fast as you want on it.
I agree with the general idea but there's an important distinction that needs to be made.
I have no problem with speed limits or licensing of doctors. If you want a group of people to dictate how does someone qualifies to be a doctor that's fine by me. When one does that in specific situations it's necessary that everybody follows the same rules, like in your example of the speed limit. I find no problem with that too.
A group of people should be able to determine rules for their property, the problem is when you start forcing others to do the same. This could be confusing in cases when compliance from everyone is needed like with speed limits, so I'll take my time explaining it.
Lets say we want quality control in dentistry. You like the government quality control the government gives and would like your dentists to count with their approval.
I, on the other hand, think it's requirements are excessive. Most of what my dentist does is find black spots in my teeth, drill them out, and then fill the hole.
This does not require 4 years of study. If I ever get to need a root canal I would need someone with more studies but until then I'd me happy with someone with less studies, maybe a certification given by the manufacturer of the equipment, I don't know.
This requirement drains the wallets of the poor. It's fine if you want to comply with the state regulation but I don't see the need for imposing it on everyone else.
There are different cases, like with speed limits, where everyone needs to comply for you to benefit from the regulation.
the Canandian Hockey federation used to lack reglamentation concerning helmets. Players would have benefited from using helmets but didn't because if someone didn't use one they had an advantage over the others. So the federation started demanding helmets and everyone benefited.
This is different than speed limits. If it where like speed limits the hockey federation would have made illegal all over Canada to play without helmets. It would be illegal to start a hockey federation without that rule and it would land you in jail to do so. There would be violence involved. Instead in the voluntary system you can participate in games without helmets just next to one with helmets and nobody will throw you in jail.
In the speed limits scenario I think you should be able to drive any street you want, but you can't force me to build one with the regulation you want. If I build a street, and someone wants to use it then it's their call.
If I want to go to a dentist or doctor without governmental accreditation that's my choice, and I wouldn't like to be imprisoned or fined (which without compliance ends in imprisonment) because of it.
I understand it sound chaotic if you are not familiar with the ideas. I don't know if this is the medium to discuss this.
I notice the article didn't mention anything about engineers, either. Licensing doesn't make sense in every industry, but when people's lives depend on someone doing their job right, I think it's fair to require that someone demonstrate a minimum level of skill.
Engineering is mostly critical because it is optimized for cost.
If cost wouldn't be such a major factor in construction then 'rule of thumb' and 'overkill' would be valid ways to get around having the knowledge to get an exact answer.
In olden times it was customary for the designer of an arch to stand under the arch when the construction scaffolding was removed. This quickly eliminated those that were not capable of constructing stuff that held up, even if it led to some constructions that were probably more solid than they had to be for their designed use.
On the other hand, that's why we can still marvel at some of this stuff today.
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.
Understandable reaction, but Stossel is at least an alternative to the red-meat GOP partisans in the Fox news media.
I was sad when they got rid of Radley Balko awhile back - he used his time working for Fox writing about misuse of force by the police and the failings of the drug war and thus explaining them to people who wouldn't have come across those realities.
