The same arguments can be applied to laws passed requiring the licensure of certain occupations all in the name of "consumer protection".
One that comes to mind is Clinical Psychology (including it's companion professions of Marriage & Family Therapy and Clinical Social Work). None of them are exact sciences, and the practice of psychotherapy is more of an art than an acquired skill. Like an artist who attends art school, the artist does so to pick up some additional techniques and sharpen his or her skills. Art classes don't automatically create artists, and graduate schools of psychology and post-graduate licensing prerequisites don't automatically create competent therapists. Western clinical psychology and psychiatry are also Eurocentric biased.
Another profession that most U.S. states require needless licensure of is private investigations, which retired cops got their legislatures to pass so they could restrict competition in their advocations of retirement. Private investigating is just the gathering and selling of information, so why should that activity have to be under any more scrutiny than the profession of news media investigative reporting?
Such licensing laws are not only anti-free market, they are discriminatory. Most states require self-employed plummmers and electricians to be licensed. I knew a guy who was very competent in both trades, but he couldn't get a license because he was dyslexic and couldn't pass the written contractor's exam because of his disability. So he had to work under someone else's license.
Extremely perceptive post.
By "the Right" and "the Left" you must mean the peons who are duped into thinking their leaders are fighting for ideologies, rather than merely rent-seeking
Are there no trackbacks implemented for this blog. I can never get one to function, which is a real annoyance when one is trying to link to a particular article.
There are supposed to be but I have never understood how they work. If you need the permanent link to any article, however, you can find it rather easily -- even if it is hidden. Just highlight the time and date of posting under the article in question. Then hit copy link. If you use that it will always go to the article in question.
Commenting by HaloScan
