Center for American Progress house blogger Matthew Yglesias confesses that he has an unlicensed barber, and has no regrets.
Regulation of this sort seems totally unnecessary. People don’t die of bad haircuts, and since hairstyle is a quintessential matter of taste there’s absolutely no reason to think consumers can’t figure out for themselves who has a decent reputation as a cutter of hair. You can cut your own hair perfectly safely in your own house, and if you screw it up all that happens is you need to find a real professional to fix it. But what’s more, even if regulation were somehow a good idea, the composition of the board couldn’t possibly serve a legitimate consumer protection function. It’s overwhelmingly composed of people from the industry whose incentive is to limit competition and raise prices.
But barbers are licensed and heavily regulated in much of the country nonetheless. What could justify this? Sraight razors perhaps? No dice, says Yglesias.
though “torts and the free market will take care of it” isn’t the answer to everything, it’s surely the answer to some things. Getting some kind of training before you shave a dude with a straight razor is obviously desirable in terms of strict self-interest. If you screw it up in a serious way, you’ll face serious personal consequences and the only way to make money doing it—and we’re talking about a very modest sum of money—is to do it properly. People also ought to try to think twice about whether their views are being driven by pure status quo bias. Barbers are totally unregulated in the United Kingdom, is there some social crisis resulting from this? Barber regulations differ from state to state, are the stricter states experiencing some kind of important public health gains?
The government licensing and regulation of barbers, like other hair stylists, is driven by the self-interest of the profession. Licenses restrict entry and reduce competition, enabling those with licenses to capture more rents. This is actually the case with most licensing regimes, even those that appear to serve a greater public interest than barber licenses. Though I doubt Yglesias would go this far, I would argue that it’s rare that a licensing regime of this sort is put in place without the support of those who stand to benefit economically, and that many public spirited rationales, including health and safety, are a smokescreen.
It’s also important to remember that the creation of a licensing, permitting and inspection, or other regulatory regime hardly guarantees protection of the public interest, even if the system was not created for rent-seeking purposes in the first place. Government regulators and inspectors are people too, and may shirk their responsibilities, become corrupted, or otherwise fail to safeguard the public interest. In many major cities, licensing and other local regulatory regimes are opportunities for corruption and graft. We have our share in Cleveland, but we’re not alone. A friend of mine in D.C. was shaken down during the health inspection for her bar in our nation’s Capitol, and check out this story about one building inspector in New York who submitted hundreds of fraudulent inspection reports.
Ygelsias is correct that barber licensing is completely unnecessary, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I am not prepared to say that all such regulatory regimes are unnecessary or unwise, but as a former colleague of mine would say, this is an area in which one could swing an axe for days and never hit live wood.
Alessandra says:
What? That is because no one has ever completely messed up your hair…
No mere tort, it’s a felony.
(I hope I got the legal jargon right…!!! )
August 21, 2010, 1:45 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
People who deal with other folks’ hair all day are supposed to know what precautions to take, to avoid spreading such things as lice and scalp fungi from one customer to the next. So there is a public health aspect, FWIW.
August 21, 2010, 2:56 pmfinman says:
The best way to deal with this is to allow barbers to set their own association of barbers, and the association can require all barbers in the association to abide by the association’s standards (or else they get kicked out). If customers aren’t worried about getting lice, they can go to a barber not in the association. If they’re worried about getting lice, they can choose to go to a barber in the association. I see no reason for the government to be involved (other than to buy votes from barbers).
August 21, 2010, 3:11 pmjeffry house says:
How do you feel about the reasons for licencing lawyers? Is it a smokescreen to think that a state-determined level of competence is required?
We could make law schools voluntary, and professors could be paid only if they actually attracted students to a given lecture!
On the market principle, pay would of course decline if attendance did.
August 21, 2010, 3:16 pmJohn A says:
I think it probable that barbers are not licensed because they are cutting hair, but because they are running a business. Well, the shop is – if you are an employee only, this may break down. It may, in that case, be a relic of the days when barbershops were one or two person establishments and just carried over into the twenty-stylists-available business model.
OTOH, that does not seem apply to non-commercial fishing licenses or some other aspects of government regulation.
I am confusing myself. Alas, not unusual.
August 21, 2010, 3:28 pmlucia says:
Laura–
The lice issue is a bit serious, particularly since an individual customer isn’t going to know where they got lice.
If hair dressers weren’t licensed, I would want them to create some sort of “seal of approval” for dyeing hair, perms and straightening. Customers do know when their hairdresser screwed those up, but some of those processes involve some pretty harsh chemicals. (Plus, the loss in damaging shoulder length or longer hair is greater than the loss in damaging a short hair which can be regrown quickly.)
Presumably, we could do the same with kitchen cleanliness? After all, most of the time, so-so- not up to commercial kitchen cleanliness standard doesn’t kill anyone. If it did, lots of people would die based on not quite properly stored left overs hidden in the back of the fridge (or just not recently cleaned fridges.) My husband read an article stating the average frequency that families clean refrigerators and I was shocked to discover I clean mine more often than average. ( On the other hand, I know I vacuum, mop floors and iron less frequently than average. I number among the group my sister calls “the great unironed”. )
August 21, 2010, 3:29 pmruuffles says:
In Michigan, it is the individual stylists that have a license.
http://www.michigan.gov/dleg/0,1607,7-154-35299_35414_35459-154925–,00.html
August 21, 2010, 3:32 pmj.edward hollington says:
I am glad to see some debate started about the alarming and unnecessary explosion of regulations of everything. We need to remind all that this executive branch power grab only started with the 1930s APA, which unfortunately has been embraced by all states. How about some movement to amend the APA and limit rule making authority and question the blind judicial allegiance to “Chevron deference”. Ed
August 21, 2010, 3:33 pmnick056 says:
Finman,
Why should a barber who doesn’t comply with basic safety standards set by an association of barbers be allowed to offer services — to anyone? “People who don’t care about headlice” sounds a lot like “poor, uninformed rubes” to me — and the kind of person seeking customers like that sounds a lot like “unscrupulous scammer.”
Seems to me like the government should be able to shut down such a place — which, voila, leads to licensing requirements. Yglesias’s commenters got the better of him here.
August 21, 2010, 3:34 pmruuffles says:
Oh and apparently the blogger’s commenters are wise to him
August 21, 2010, 3:35 pmruuffles says:
ACKK. I think the VC poster did not post the most important part of Yglesias’s post
He’s not actually cutting other people’s hair without a license. He’s cutting his own hair, and then musing about licensing requirements.
Furthermore, is there a distinction being made between barbers and stylists? That is, the use of only scissors and razor, or also using chemicals?
August 21, 2010, 3:38 pmruuffles says:
This is just line drawing. What criteria would you use to determine if a particular licensing regime is necessary and wise?
All sorts of corruption occurs in police departments, it’s no different than the examples you mention. Should we shut down the police?
August 21, 2010, 3:45 pmDon Hamrick says:
Ray Stevens – The Haircut Song
ROFLMAO
August 21, 2010, 4:02 pmKen Arromdee says:
On the other hand, consider this comment:
There’s a difference between regulation for safety and regulation to create barriers to entry.
August 21, 2010, 4:06 pmFub says:
Yglesias got it right.
When I was a kid, my parents often cut my hair. Not always, but often. No doubt in today’s nanny state they would be convicted of felonious unlicensed barbering.
August 21, 2010, 4:06 pmruuffles says:
The two parts of the comment say the same requirement. You can enforce them by having inspectors or having exams. It’s again just line drawing as to how its enforced. The commenter is not saying that there should be no regulations. I think by definition regulation for safety end up creating some barrier to entry due to time cost and fees.
August 21, 2010, 4:17 pmSteve says:
The argument comes in two steps
1) obviously it’s totally unnecessary to license barbers… I mean they’re barbers! Pshaw! Whoever heard of such a silly thing!
2) libertarian lecture about barriers to entry, etc.
No analysis of what the barriers to entry are, how burdensome they are in reality, how much we think the licensing scheme affects prices, what the negative effects of unlicensed barbers might be, etc. No actual argument. If you’re instinctively against regulation, you’re probably going to agree, but you’re not actually agreeing with anything.
August 21, 2010, 4:22 pmJ Richardson says:
Having heard of Yglesias but not having a clue what he looks like, I googled him. As to him using an unlicensed barber or doing it himself, all I can say is that it looks it.
August 21, 2010, 4:28 pmGuy says:
I thought proper disposal of the hair was one of the important things that the licenses were supposed to ensure? If so, it seems that’s pretty clearly an externality. Am I wrong on this?
August 21, 2010, 4:43 pmTim says:
Should I be amused that one of my textbooks used an example about expecting a professional barber to know how to keep his razors clean and shave someone with a clean razor?
I’m not actually saying that without this regulation, that hepatitis or worse would be rampant. But it’s pretty obvious to me that, especially hundreds of years ago when these professions started, that the expectation that a barber have the skills to protect his customer’s safety were once a far bigger issue than they are today.
One could say, “Society has changed, and barber regulations are currently unnecessary” and I might agree. But to suggest that there never was such a reason or that the entire basis of regulating barbers was irrational from the outset is not entirely accurate.
August 21, 2010, 4:48 pmfinman says:
Because I believe that mutually consenting adults should be able to trade services as long as no others are harmed. Until I see evidence that “poor, uninformed rubes” would be taken advantage of by careless barbers, and that this would be widespread, I’ll remain skeptical of the need for regulation in this area. My default position is that laws shouldn’t be passed or exist unless there’s strong evidence or reason to believe that the laws are actually necessary. In this case, it seems much more likely that self-interested politicians are creating barriers to entry to please self-interested barbers and hair-stylists than that wise, informed politicians passed the legislation for the public good.
August 21, 2010, 4:52 pmKamal says:
I agree, this shouldn’t be required. I do think there’s a public interest to certify people if they choose, and I’m for having a public agency do it, but it shouldn’t be mandatory . I feel the same way for prescription drugs.
August 21, 2010, 4:56 pmU.Va. Grad says:
Well, as to barriers of entry, here’s a sample from Minnesota.
Minnesota requires 1,550 hours of schooling. This requirement is independent of either (1) passing the “rules” test (about health regs, etc.) or (2) the skills certification (that is, you can actually do a good job cutting hair). So you can be an excellent haircutter with encyclopedic knowledge of rules and regulations, but unless you can prove you attended a state-approved cosmetology school for 1,550 hours, you can’t be licensed.
Now, let’s say you’re in Minneapolis. If you’re lucky enough to have known from the time you were a kid that you wanted to cut hair, you could have gone (for free) to Edison High School, which has an accredited cosmetology program for its students. But if you didn’t realize cosmetology was your calling until later, you’re stuck paying tuition. At the Aveda Institute in Northeast Minneapolis, you’ll pay $17,000+ for a 40-week program. So no matter how well you cut hair — maybe you cut everyone’s hair in your family growing up and got really good at it — and no matter how well you know the rules and laws applying to barbers and cosmetologists, you have to shell out close to $20,000 just to be allowed to cut hair without going to jail.
August 21, 2010, 5:03 pmJay says:
I get that, as a matter of libertarian dogma, all these licensing regimes must be meant as protectionist rackets. And I’m not denying there’s a certain level of truth to that. That said, is there really some shortage of barbers that would be corrected if licensing was no longer required? The suburbs are full of chain unisex shops and fancier salons mostly catering to women. Large cities tend to have a lot of owner-operated places, often by immigrants. It’s not as if people have to drive 500 miles and wait in line for hours for a haircut.
August 21, 2010, 5:16 pmmack says:
Most licensing is unnecessary and merely supports layers of government employees for inspecting and for filling out paperwork and supports a private sector of licensed educators. And colleges and professional schools are rife with money making scams. How much do books cost college kids these days? It is obscene.
I’ll be writing a book soon – the fall of the American Empire – due to unlicensed barbers, bad hair, and the lice epidemic. Why if it weren’t for strict licensing we’d have an epidemic of bed bugs.
Anyway, have to go – got to post a bunch more gun free zones signs to stop criminals with guns. The sky is falling, the sky is falling….or maybe the emperor doesn’t have any new clothes.
This news just in – unlicensed illegals are doing alot of construction work. Unlicensed electricians do much of the electical work on family homes. Unlicensed people are cutting hair all over the country. Unlicensed automobile mechanics do a large portion of all the car repair in the the country. Unlicensed plumbers do a large portion of all the plumbing in the country. All that restrictive or expensive licensing does is to make a robust totally unregulated blackmarket for services and give extra employment to government and educational gatekeepers.
A voluntary system would be much better – and allow people to choose and to compete. One could still have laws regulating specific harmful actions.
August 21, 2010, 5:18 pmFederal Dog says:
“No analysis of what the barriers to entry are, how burdensome they are in reality, how much we think the licensing scheme affects prices, what the negative effects of unlicensed barbers might be, etc. No actual argument.”
The burden of argument is properly on the people demanding government interference.
August 21, 2010, 5:21 pmSuperSkeptic says:
You are joking, right?
August 21, 2010, 5:30 pmmack says:
I worked as a licensed counselor for over twenty years. In the specific field of alcohol and drug treatment – I saw increasing licensing requirements – and I saw a lot of talented and otherwise qualified individuals pushed out or away from the field. I also saw a lot of licensed clueless individuals attempting to work as counselors who had not the first idea of what to do or how to do it. In turn, that increased licensing cost money – individuals going to school for years and then completing years of training all had loans to repay and there was a reduced pool of licensed individuals – so the cost of treatment and the cost of providing treatment increased. That lead in turn to attempts to cut costs which meant larger case loads, less client contact, and less one on one time and less of a personal or real connection with the client. All of which has lead to poorer outcomes. As a bureaucratic colleague of mine once asserted to me – but we are so much more professional now and better – I agreed we were more “professional” but not that we were better. Or as the old saying goes – the client is dead, but the file is perfect.
August 21, 2010, 5:42 pmByomtov says:
Licenses restrict entry and reduce competition, enabling those with licenses to capture more rents.
Given the number of places to get your hair cut, it’s hard to believe there’s much rent being extracted by barbers. My guess is it’s a pretty competitive business.
If the figures U. Va. Grad cites for tuition are common, though, there may be some rents extracted by the schools. Could this be true of law schools also?
August 21, 2010, 5:51 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Probably not; but who cares? I do not recall ever hearing that as a rationale for the regulations – “it’ll optimize the amount of barbers out there!”. Your comment makes it seem as if you think we should continue onerous and pointless and costly regulations on people simply because you feel that there are enough barbers out there right now. That’s absurd.
If the regulations were relaxed and there was some skyrocketing of people entering the haircutting profession, I’m sure they/we would figure out soon enough that there were too many. Let’s worry about that if/when the time comes.
August 21, 2010, 5:56 pmnick056 says:
Finman,
Are you kidding with me? You think that the potential spread of headlice is a case wherein “consenting adults are trading services and no else is harmed?”
A bad haircut is such a case. Spreading lice is not. Your default position appears to be that there’s no way to determine the difference between the merely cheap and the unsanitary, and that even if you could, you don’t have a right to bar the sale of unsanitary services unless there’s “strong evidence” that the services are causing problems. Okay, but when it comes to something like this, there are in fact processes you follow to keep your work sanitary, and waiting for “strong evidence” that unsanitary procedures in a given case actually require curtailment is basically being in favor of deteriorating public health. And why? Because people should be able to undercut the competition until it’s apparent that they’re doing so by creating, at best, a public health nuisance?
But if we know beforehand what conditions will lead to a public health nuisance, why wait? It’s like you want especially strict diligence enforced as a means of protecting people who neglect safety regulations. But businesses run like that aren’t worth protecting, and the doctrine of consenting adults trading services is cheapened if you want that to occur in an environment where not just quality, but safety, is at issue.
The free market principle you’re talking about only flourishes if you exclude from the playing field people selling unsafe products. And you can only do that through regulating. It’s not that rent-seeking and barriers to entry aren’t an issue, but to describe them as a “smokescreen” — just look at the people who regard unsafe work with some nonchalance. It is not a smokescreen.
August 21, 2010, 6:02 pmLarryA says:
The tradition is to go into the shop and select the barber with the worst haircut, since he’ll be the one cutting the other barber’s hair.
Texas Workforce Commission recently sent me an email concerning licenses required for certain fields. In part:
August 21, 2010, 6:38 pmThe Electrical, Air Conditioning, Towing and Vehicle Storage Facility programs all have licenses which require simple applications, a small fee and the successful completion of a background check.
A veteran looking for work in these fields would have to have a license before being hired.
Wallace says:
The same should apply to the legal “profession.” There should be no requirement to pass any bar exam or be licensed. Let the market sort out the bad attorneys from the good ones.
August 21, 2010, 6:44 pmleo marvin says:
Ya think?
August 21, 2010, 7:11 pmrpt says:
August 21, 2010, 7:40 pmStephen P. Wenger says:
While the point has been made that some states require many more hours to get licensed as a cosmetologist (or an undertaker) than to carry a deadly weapon under the color of authority of a police officer, I would still like to make a comment.
To my knowledge, barbers used to be (and may still be) required to recognize certain lesions of the scalp, much as dentists are expected to recognize and inspect for signs of oral cancer, even though those don’t involve the teeth. For a few years, my hair has been cut by a cosmetologist, not a barber. It would have been nice had she been trained to recognize that all those little red patches where my hair has thinned were actinic keratoses, pre-cancerous lesions that finally were treated proactively when I visited a dermatologist.
The challenge is who decides just what level of responsibility we expect from the different levels of people who provide services for us – which ones do we expect to be true professionals, with a license, a minimum standard of knowledge, and a fiduciary relationship to the client?
August 21, 2010, 7:40 pmLaird says:
“I am not prepared to say that all such regulatory regimes are unnecessary or unwise . . . .”
I am. The heart of every licensing scheme is rent-seeking. Abolish them all.
August 21, 2010, 7:49 pmCDR D says:
I have been going to the same barber since 1978. He was a ship’s serviceman in the Navy, a Filipino, who before enlisting in the U.S. Navy was a guerrila fighting the Japanese in the Phillipines in WWII.
He cut hair as a civilian working for the Navy and the Coast Guard for over 20 years after he retired from active duty in 1965.
He’s 87 years old now, and it took quite a while for me to train him on how to “get it right”.
He cuts my hair in his garage now.
But we’ll sure keep an eye out for the haircut Nazis.
August 21, 2010, 8:41 pmSheila Todd says:
Couldn’t this same argument about barbers being unlicensed be used for driver’s licenses? In fact, most DOT regulations could go.
And if you’re thinking Hey but people could kill someone if they are not properly licensed to drive – well, you’re probably right. But then you could say that about unlicensed barbers too. Though there are no head lice arguments here.
August 21, 2010, 8:44 pmBarberism – A few thoughts. says:
[...] Adler points out that major supporters of licensing regimes are often the very folks who would benefit from limiting [...]
August 21, 2010, 9:03 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Stephen, she may have been trained. Some people are trained but they’re still idiots. Even some MDs. I don’t know what you do about that.
August 21, 2010, 9:13 pmAllan Walstad says:
So, let’s see — barbers should know and practice proper technique to prevent the spread of head lice. Perhaps a few other safety measures. This justifies the 1550 required hours of schooling that U.Va. Grad was talking about? I think not. If it really was about preventing the spread of head lice, the state could put out a pamphlet and require people to pass a test on the contents before getting their license. But it’s not about preventing head lice. It’s about protecting incumbents in any field against competition.
The tip-off here is grandfathering. My impression is that often, when license requirements are escalated to raise the entry barriers, already-established practicioners are exempted. ANYTIME that is in fact the case, it should be obvious that the aim is not to protect the public but to protect the incumbents. Can we all agree on that much?
August 21, 2010, 9:18 pmAllan Walstad says:
Sheila Todd
Shela, maybe things have changed since I got my license, but I don’t require 1550 hours of training, to the tune of $20,000. being required.
August 21, 2010, 9:21 pmSheila Todd says:
Oh, Allan: If more training were required think how much better a driver I would be! I could cut people off easier, I would know other ways to get out of speeding ticket rather than batting my eyes and winking (works though), and not one driver next to me would get lice. I promise.
Maybe this is a new market tactic for car dealers: free car with $20k driving program, includes enhanced license. The states could charge extra – and boy do they need the money.
But wait! I don’t want any drivers licenses, nor barbers’ licenses either.
August 21, 2010, 9:40 pmBob Stump says:
Yes, there is more to this iceberg than the licensing of hair cutters. Some Benedictine monks near Baton Rouge, Louisiana were forbidden by the state funeral board from selling coffins. They have sold some anyway, and sued for relief in federal court under both the due process and the PORI clauses of the 14th Amendment. The Institute For Justice is legal counsel.
Never having died, I can’t speak with authority about that one-in-a-lifetime event, but is it possible a bad casket might somehow injure the newly departed? A second death, perhaps?
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/7160419.html
As it turns out, the Institute For Justice has also been fooling around with flower arranging licensing requirements in the Pelican State, and won.:
August 21, 2010, 9:41 pmhttp://reason.com/blog/2010/07/12/a-victory-for-floral-freedom-i
whit says:
when i was a cop in Mass, all that was required for cops was to attend a iirc 40 hr reserve academy.
and constables (elected cops on the town level) didn’t have to attend ANY academy whatsoever
constables actually had greater authority than town police, since they could do both civil and criminal stuff. cops were limited mostly to criminal process.
August 21, 2010, 9:44 pmL says:
I’m no libertarian, but this is an easy one. Licensing barbers is arguably unnecessary because market pressures will require successful barbers to be good, clean, and safe barbers. No such pressures exist to make people good drivers. A bad barber only affects the customer who voluntarily came to him and chose to sit in his chair. A bad driver potentially affects the other drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians who share the roads, and who had no say in the bad driver being behind the wheel.
You could make the argument that people are motivated by their own self-interest to be good drivers, but the problem there is that bad drivers don’t know they’re bad drivers, and there’s no market to provide them with negative feedback.
August 21, 2010, 9:47 pmwhit says:
speaking of cops and barbers. in mass, when i went to police academy we had to bring in $10 to get our hair cut by the “academy approved barber” in the first week
this guy had a set of electric clippers and ran through us like a knife through butter.
turns out he was literally just “some guy” that the tac officer approached to provide haircuts for the recruits. granted, he gave everybody the same haircut – which was done with clippers at a very closecut level, but still
i actually thought it was pretty funny.
one guy showed up with a mustache, which is a cardinal sin for mass state troopers. the tac officer gave him a bic style razor and made him dry shave it off
i am sure some of the attorneys here are just salivating over these stories thinking of potential lawsuits :l
August 21, 2010, 9:47 pmSheila Todd says:
Hey L: Next time you’re on an interstate highway look around: some of these people are driving without a license. They are breaking the law. Unless there is some other kind of moving violation no one is going to find this out. The only real remedy for this is to stop everyone as they enter the interstate via the on-ramp and ask to see their license. Well, that’s not going to happen. So in the meantime you are driving along side people who are unlicensed and there’s nothing you can do about it until they kill someone. At least my barber has to post his license where I can see it.
August 21, 2010, 9:53 pmByomtov says:
SuperSkeptic,
I do not recall ever hearing that as a rationale for the regulations — “it’ll optimize the amount of barbers out there!”
True, but we have heard, as an argument against the regulations, that they establish a sort of barbers’ cartel. That doesn’t seem accurate to me.
My own opinion is that regulations ought to assure that barbers understand and follow sanitary procedures, but that the schooling requirements are probably excessive.
August 21, 2010, 9:54 pmwhit says:
i think motorcycles provide an excellent market to provide negative feedback to bad (motorcycle) drivers. at least in the case of a motorcycle, they rarely hurt anybody (that badly) except for themselves. and painful roadrash and/or broken bones provide good feedback.
Columbian proverb: one learns best with blood
reckless motorcycle drivers are generally a self-correcting problem. there is a reason that we refer to them as “donor cycles”
August 21, 2010, 9:55 pmJohn Burgess says:
Forget the legal and licensing crap. I want to know where, in America, you find a barber using a straight razor!? These days, US barbers’re using the same 2-3-4-5 blade disposable razors they sell in drugstores.
August 21, 2010, 9:58 pmSheila Todd says:
L: And, another thing: what barber can make money on servicing just one person? If it’s a small town maybe the word would get around quicker not to go to this guy or gal for your barbering needs but if it’s a big city he or she is no better than a bad driver.
August 21, 2010, 10:01 pmL says:
Can’t. Too busy texting.
This is a good point to show that driver licenses are not completely perfect in achieving their purpose. But I wasn’t trying to show that driver licenses are perfect, or even that they’re any good at all. I was only trying to show an important difference between barber licenses and driver licenses.
That’s false. People who never killed anyone are prosecuted every day for driving without a license, or with a suspended license. If you change the hyperbolic “kill someone” to a more reasonable “do something else wrong,” then it becomes very close to true.
Another difference between barber licenses and driver licenses, good.
A good point in favor of barber licensure, yes, but I wasn’t trying to attack it, I was, as I said, only trying to point out an important difference between licensing drivers and licensing barbers.
August 21, 2010, 10:17 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
I’m thinking about the excellent job the market did of protecting the public against Typhoid Mary.
If you hired her to cook for you, and you died of typhoid, then other people knew not to hire her. And that was the market working. Right?
This has nothing to do with licensing barbers, of course. As others have said, the hours of training and amount of money prospective barbers have to lay out is probably ridiculous overkill. I’m thinking a one- or at most two-day training course dealing with louse and fungal and other infection control, safety regarding use of chemicals, and so forth, ought to be sufficient.
And there are lots of things the market should regulate because it does that very well, especially if the government leaves it alone.
But public health – no. IMO.
August 21, 2010, 10:18 pmInstapundit » Blog Archive » LESSONS FROM an unlicensed barber. “The government licensing and regulation of barbers, like other … says:
[...] FROM an unlicensed barber. “The government licensing and regulation of barbers, like other hair stylists, is driven by [...]
August 21, 2010, 10:27 pmfinman says:
No, I was serious. And because I don’t go around wearing hats that belong to other people, and I don’t think many other people do that, either, I don’t see much of a negative externality in allowing someone to pay less to go to a barber that may be less sanitary than other barbers. Without such an externality, the government should not be involved in regulation.
August 21, 2010, 10:34 pmben says:
Texas has particular laws for barbers. A haircutter gets one kind of license, a barber gets another kind. The difference is that a only barber can use a razor to cut hair. Why is this important? Black men generally need a razor for their hairstyles. If a black man could go to “SuperCuts Sports Express” and pay $14 for the same haircut that a black barber would charge $30 for, then the black barbershops would go out of business. A valuable African-American cultural resource would be lost. A black state congressman from Houston got this law passed in Texas. Now African-American men have to pay more to get their hair cut than white men in Texas.
August 21, 2010, 10:53 pmHMI says:
No one has mentioned my favorite factoid on this topic. In NY State, we jail felons, offer them training in prison as barbers, and then refuse to license them because they’re felons.
August 21, 2010, 10:57 pmrb1971 says:
I got a straightrazor shave a few weeks ago in SF, and I used to get them in NY all the time. I know a place in Atlanta as well. Look for a place with a barber pole, staffed by older dudes.
August 21, 2010, 11:00 pmpetetheelder says:
I used to have my series 7 and 66 licenses. 7 is basically a license to sell and trade securities and 66 is for giving financial advice. Along with a state license to sell life and health insurance. Compared to the barber college, you had to pass a series of fairly difficult exams to get the 7 and 66 license and pass a background check. I knew smart people with finance degrees who had to take the 7 more than once, and iirc you only need an 80% on a long multiple choice test to pass almost all of which were fairly complex finance questions. No classes or experience required. The health and life insurance test was a joke on the other hand and any one with a college degree who spends a day or two reading the exam prep book should pass it easily. I think my total fees for the test were in the $200-300 range, with not much else needed besides some fairly low annual license fees.
I do think this licensing is needed since there is long history of problems occurring without licensing with SEC regulations doing a fairly good job of reigning most of the problems in, at least where it concerns broker fraud and gross incompetence. You are potentially risking other people’s life savings and dealing with fairly complex financial terms and instruments. Trading in options in particular is fairly complicated and easy to mess up and with short puts you are potentially risking near unlimited losses.
I think that is how most licenses like that should be handled: pass a well written and thorough test that is very specific to the activities being regulated, with minimal fees and classes needed to actually apply for the license.
August 21, 2010, 11:04 pmmasstexodus says:
My wife cuts my hair (#2 clippers all the way) and she does rather a nice job (and the price is right too!)
August 21, 2010, 11:11 pmJacknut says:
I once saw an unlicensed barber on Fleet St. He was a demon with the straight razor. Yummy pies from the unlicensed bakery around the corner.
August 21, 2010, 11:22 pmMilwaukee says:
When I first starting teaching in an unnamed state, I taught a computer class, supposedly under “supervision”. I was then granted a certificate for teaching computers. I didn’t not teach computers again until 20 years had passed. My, computers had changed. I started with Apple IIe computers. But I had computer certification. Public school teaching is one area where licensing is restricting access to work. My opinion is 1550 hours is a bit much for licensing. I would agree there should be some requirement of expertise, or knowledge of hygiene and enough wherewithal to say “You ought to have these spots looked at”. But 1550 hours seems really extreme.
In my previous town, I owned a house in which I did a ton of work to improve, in order to resell. Homeowners where given wide latitude in the way of home improvements. In Milwaukee, a person needs a permit to replace a toilet or a hot water heater, and a city plumbing inspector. What a load of crap. That protects plumbers and city inspectors, and city coffers.
August 21, 2010, 11:23 pmBertrand Russell says:
The solution is simple. License only those barbers that shave all and only themselves, then wait for licensing bureau to self-destruct from paradox.
August 21, 2010, 11:29 pmF says:
The comparison between barbering and driving is misplaced: a driver’s license is not required to drive, only to drive on a public street or highway. You are not prevented from driving if you don’t have a driver’s license; you just can’t (legally) drive where most folks do — on the public highway. Drive all you want on private property (with the consent of the owner).
In all this talk of licensing I’m surprised no one has mentioned the cost of medallions for taxicabs — talk about rent seeking! Or the cost of a liquor license in a large city!
F
August 21, 2010, 11:30 pmgospace says:
The way it works in NY, so far as I understand, barbers are licensed, requires years of apprenticeship, and primarily cut hair, with a few shaves now and again. A stylist requires far less training and apprentice hours, and in addition to styling, can cut hair. A barber is not allowed to “style”, perm, shampoo, or color. So, with far less training, a stylist can do a barber’s job, but a barber can’t do a stylists job. Makes perfect sense- to someone else, not me.
Oh, and NY does NOT license electricians. NECA-IBEW makes waves about this in ads every election season. Doesn’t change. Rochester, Buffalo and NYC license stationary engineers. The rest of the state doesn’t. Some municipalities license plumbers, many don’t. In most of the cities that do license plumbers, if you’re not part of the good ol’ boy network, you ain’t getting your license.
Should some professions be tested and licensed? Probably yes. But the present mish-mash of licensing laws and regulations is completely non-sensical.
August 21, 2010, 11:48 pmHarry Haircut says:
The real racket is the cosmetology schools. 1,600 – 2,000 hours and $10,000 and up in cost. Most graduates cannot cut hair adequately when they graduate.
August 22, 2010, 12:15 amWarren Bonesteel says:
Think about he number of licenses, fees, permits and other ‘services’ you pay out of pocket to your government, from your local courthouse to D.C.
Then, look in the mirror. look yourself straight in the eye and tell yourself that you are a free person.
If you’re an honest person, you should have some difficulty in meeting your own eyes.
August 22, 2010, 12:30 amtaviteh says:
Okay, so a hair stylist has to know how to work with chemicals that have the potential to burn the scalp, or even cause the hair to fall out…well, instead of a stupid license, or the neccesity of going to beauty school…how about an apprenticeship? this would provide the training and expertise required to work with potentially hazardous chemicals…
August 22, 2010, 12:55 amCharlie says:
If I remember my history correctly, it was that colossus of the Progressive Era, Andrew Carnegie, who financed and championed business and professional licensing. Prior to that in America, you could hang out any shingle you wanted. It was up to you to attract and keep customers.
August 22, 2010, 1:30 amthebruce says:
Reading this, I immediately thought of George Will’s column on rent-seeking, and intended to link to it. Then I realized it would be way more fun (and appropriate) to link to the VC thread discussing said column. http://volokh.com/posts/1174605683.shtml
August 22, 2010, 1:38 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
Anything that might lead to death tolls in the thousands.
August 22, 2010, 2:11 amJ.T. Wenting says:
would be fine. Those lawyers who don’t know their thing would soon find themselves without customers and probably banned from courtrooms as well.
August 22, 2010, 2:46 amIn fact a lot of lawyers now should likely be banned for unethical practice which is endorsed and maybe encouraged by their “professional brotherhood” or whatever.
josil says:
which is the bar exam?
August 22, 2010, 2:53 amDavid M. Nieporent says:
Primarily the latter. And worse, keep in mind that the bar exam is only a small part of the game: in the vast majority of states, you can’t take the bar exam unless you first go to law school, and in most of those states, you must go to an ABA-approved law school. That’s 3-4 years of schooling required, most of which neither prepares you to take the bar exam that you must pass nor prepares you to actually practice law. (*) Meanwhile, the bar tests you on lots of things superficially; passing the bar does not make you competent to practice in any area. Nor, obviously, does it make you honest.
(*) Although one can take practical courses in law school if one chooses, that’s optional rather than part of the regulatory scheme.
August 22, 2010, 3:09 amBen says:
It is easy to provide for safety without these sorts of licensing requirements. Simply pass a law making it illegal to spread lice, with the punishment being a fine and a prohibition on barbering without a license. The key difference is that anyone can be a barber as long as they do it safely. Licenses (or some other special permission) are only required for barbers who have screwed up.
A similar plan would solve the problem with many other unnecessarily oppressive or intrusive regulatory requirements, including the needless requirement for a license to drive a car. There’s no need to regulate good drivers or good barbers, only bad ones.
(We currently license all drivers. That makes everyone a good driver. Right? No? Then what does it accomplish besides giving the government a means to control people?
It also provides a ready rationale to argue against any unregulated action or circumstance. You need a license to drive, don’t you? By the same token, we can take away your freedom to do X and selectively license it back to you, granted subject to our approval and revokable at our pleasure. And X is absolutely anything, including recently buying health care.)
August 22, 2010, 6:00 amDr. K says:
Simply, it’s a grab for the dollars that the state gets for issuing a license. Public safety has noting to do with it.
As a licensed Professional Engineer, I pay some for a triennial license. I also must pay for continuing education. I worked for various companies for 20 years before getting my license and it was legit, as I worker under the industrial exemption. Also, no Cont. Ed. requirement or other regulation from the state.
But get licensed, and the rules change. Once I pay the license fee, do I get to practice engineering? Not until I pay an additional fee for a Certificate of Authority.
What can keep me from renewing? Missing the Continuing Ed requirements. But if I pay a fee, I get an extra year to make it up. But if I worked for the state prior to a certain date, I do NOT have to meet the Cont. Ed. requirement.
Or failure to pay Child support. That is on the renewal form.
If one gets convicted of a misdemeanor, they are subject to discipline by the board. Typical case: Someone gets arrested for DUI. Gets convicted. Also gets pulled in front of the Engineering board. Gets his license suspended for a year, pays a $1000 (or so) fine and the suspension is stayed and gets 1 year of probation. That has a lot to do with engineering practice. In fact the recent cases where the license was voluntarily suspended were manslaughter and drug dealing.
It’s just a moneymaking proposition for the state.
August 22, 2010, 6:29 amJoe T. Guest says:
At my barbershop, yesterday morning. Got a haircut, paid an addition $5 for a shave. Closest shave ever, hot towels, moisturizer and this zingy mint aftershave. *Tremendous*. Not old guys but 20- and 30-something guys of VietNamese, Korean and Phillipino origin. I’m not unhappy that the guy with a straight blade at my jugular has been certified in its use…
August 22, 2010, 9:03 amtheBuckWheat says:
It appears that the public health issues for barbers is no more complicated than for food handlers. Looks like every other licensing requirement is just collusion to restrict entry to the market. Government involvement only then needs to be restricted to issues of health.
August 22, 2010, 9:16 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Is a barber’s license required if you cut your own hair, your spouse’s, or your kid’s? Is it not only required if you barb for the public?
August 22, 2010, 9:25 amL says:
This was already answered:
A felony! Sound legal advice from Fub, who is only prevented from selling his legal wisdom on the open market by those lousy collusive barriers to entry…
August 22, 2010, 9:40 amSemper Why says:
The American Barber Shop in Woodbridge, VA (suburb of Washington DC) still trims your neck with a straight razor. Also, there is a barber shop in Blacksburg, VA that will do the same, but I can’t remember the name.
It’s easy enough to find – just follow the ROTC cadets.
August 22, 2010, 9:57 amRobin says:
The arguments for licensing barbers seem pretty weak. On the other hand, I think proponents of licensing based on health arguments have a strong case for licensing of prostitution.
August 22, 2010, 9:59 amA. Criminal says:
Look to the medical doctors for the consummate example(s) of successful rent-seeking; one measure of how successful they’ve been is that nobody’s mentioned them yet in this thread (Kamal did, obliquely) since it’s almost universally accepted that you no longer legally own your own body in any useful sense, e.g. the requirement for legal “permission” of a rent-seeking third party to get most medications. Licensing for any profession dealing with private individuals should be completely optional.
August 22, 2010, 10:03 amShelbyC says:
I’m not sure how much of a job regulation does either. No license required to be a cook, right?
August 22, 2010, 10:35 amold maltese says:
There’s a ‘bar in our nation’s Capitol’?
That explains a lot. :∙)
August 22, 2010, 10:48 amEllen says:
Forget barbering. The question is licensing. And the other question is whether a licensing regime does its job. Think, then, of taxis – and how well licensing does its job. When I use a taxi in Minneapolis, it is invariably driven by a Somali immigrant who barely speaks and understands English, and doesn’t know the city. When I took a taxi ride in New York City, I’m not sure of the ethnicity of the driver, but he spent most of his time and attention delivering some kind of impassioned speech (in a language far from English) over the taxi’s radio transmitter. The situation obviously varies from place to place, but I do not think the licensing regimes I’ve ridden under were doing their jobs very well.
Thus, also, with barbers and hairdressers. I’ve had a lot better luck with hairdressers than I have with taxi drivers. Obviously, the licensing is doing a better job there.
August 22, 2010, 11:09 amBecky says:
As someone with a family of licensed businesses, and possessor of a builder’s license, I think they imply to the public a false sense of security. A beautician and barber cannot use the same sink if they work in the same shop. It is also illegal for friends to cut or process each other’s hair, something the elderly and young do a lot of (home hair care).
Remember the woman who was accused of running an unlicensed day care in Michigan after the state received a complaint about her watching her friends kids for a short time before school? That is where licensing leads to. I know a social worker who thinks people should have to get a license to have kids. Can’t wait for her to have her own. There is also the Michigan lawmaker that wanted to license reporters. Why not license everybody? Then a license will be as useless as a high school (and working on college) diploma, except in promoting bureaucracy.
Milt Friedman had a lot to say about this, and I think licensing does a poorer job of weeding out the bad than the market does.
Does anyone really think that the financial regulation just passed will end the financial scams of the future? I don’t.
August 22, 2010, 11:38 amAllan Walstad says:
F says:
Good post, F. And I’d add that we can’t choose who we are sharing the streets with, but we can choose who to go to for haircuts.
Charlie
If true, it would be an example of what libertarians and market-oriented economists have known since Adam Smith: capitalists are not generally the best defenders of capitalism or individual liberty generally. I mean, look at George Soros, or even Bill Gates.
Joe T. Guest
Fine. Let the government or private certification agencies (on the model of Underwriters Laboratories) issue certifications, and let individual customers decide for themselves how much it matters to them. This is a model that could be used more widely, such as for drugs and medical practitioners. In other words, offer the (presumed) protection, and let people decide for themselves whether they want it.
August 22, 2010, 11:53 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
Shelby, under HACCP, you’re not supposed to have contagious people working around food.
August 22, 2010, 12:11 pmamadeus says:
More than a bad haircut, the general public, as this article exposes, has no idea what exactly is involved in the ‘beauty industry’. Chemicals are used which can cause serious burns and permanent damage. Other than the lice issue, there are communicable forms of dandruff, staph infections that can be spread by the reuse of instruments that have not been sufficiently cleaned, and it goes on. Cometology licenses are far more involved than the avergage person knows, and rightly so. Having been a cosmetologist, I know the laws, but most people don’t. I have been to salons that are practising in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. I know that you can’t use metal instruments on the feet, for example. Many of my friends do not and several now have serious staph infections that have caused permanent damage. If the general public were educated sufficiently on these things, I might agree with the author, but they are not. It is the state boards that check applicants for their knowledge of the laws and the state board that follows up on complaints about salons. Do they do thier job as well as they could? Probably not, but I want them around anyway.
August 22, 2010, 12:32 pmSkip says:
Attorney licensing is the biggest crock. What is the practice of law, anyway? Other than representing another in court, what lawyers do is already done by many others, e.g. real estate brokers, financial planners, union agents, business agents, etc. Why not just license “barristers” and forget the rest.
August 22, 2010, 12:47 pmFub says:
Some medical advice: Early onset of choleric dyscrasia is marked by irony deficiency. Barbers can cure it at that stage through a simple procedure to rid the body of bilious gall. Consult Figaro for traditional treatment, or Samuel for more recent developments. Sweeney only handles hard cases.
August 22, 2010, 1:27 pmAllan Walstad says:
Amadeus
Maybe you should move to an enlightened state in which such conditions have been eliminated by licensing requirements. Oh, wait…
August 22, 2010, 2:13 pmPaul says:
As usual, anti big government forces here recommend tossing the baby out with the bathwater.
While it may be true that all licensing rules and regulations are perhaps not necessary they are an attempt to mandate minimum training and competencies only.
I worked as an RN for over 20 years. While I agree that I worked along side of many RNs and MDs over the years that I fully believed were incompetent I still would have chosen them as my caregivers over any old person who walked off the street with zero medical training.
Most people I know still prefer to receive their primary medical care from licensed RNs & MDs and other licensed medical professionals. However all of you are free to receive your medical care from your local home depot cashier or your Childs best friend who received a stethoscope at his graduation from grade school.
August 22, 2010, 2:32 pmnick056 says:
But children bringing headlice into school will spread that lice to other children, who will then bring it home. Do you expect that children won’t “wear each other’s hats?” Do you want to have to assume that every hat for sale probably has headlice because of all the un-associated barbers spreading lice through unsanitary practices?
You’re not thinking this through and you’re advocating for the right to knowingly sell unsanitary services that can lead to the spread of a nuisance like headlice.
August 22, 2010, 2:45 pmGeorge B says:
Did a quick Google check of the licensing requirements for barbers in my home state of Texas. The license fees and test were less of a barrier that the requirement of 1500 hours of training. The rent seeking weasels in this case appear to be the barber colleges, not the state government. Separate the training/accreditation/diploma from the state mandated basic safety test and one could have all the benefit of protecting customers against lice with much lower barriers to entry. Some kids might suffer the indignity of an occasional bad haircut, but basic hair trimming would potentially be less expensive. If you’re paying more money for more services, check for the diploma.
August 22, 2010, 3:01 pmMick says:
What a horrible idea. We have a system that weeds out lazy idiots and leaves mostly good, smart, hard-working lawyers (with a few idiots that magically slipped through). You’re proposing to let any idiot practice who wants to practice, and dump the burden of sorting it out the people whose job, kids, money, liberty, or life is at stake. Nice idea, Einstein. I’m sure the suffering clients will thank you for sticking to your heartless, brainless Libertarian principles!
August 22, 2010, 3:03 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Well, I’ll echo Kamal and complain about having to have an MD update my prescriptions every year. I’ve been taking primidone for essential tremor since 2003. The dosage is fine, no side effects that I’m aware of, and with the help of nadolol it’s doing a great job. I have to get my doctor to re-prescribe it every year, though. Any problems? No. Any questions? No. OK then. What a freakin boondoggle.
You could tell me to get this done at the occasion of my annual physical … except that that is done by my OBGYN and she won’t prescribe these things. I need her to do my annual physical for unrelated reasons. So I have to make a special trip b/c he won’t do this over the phone.
This same doctor – I went to see him about this once and was just coming down with a mild cold. It was just a little sore throat and nasal congestion, not anything I’d go to the doctor for, simply coincidence that I was seeing him at that moment. So he wrote a prescription for an antibiotic that I could have filled, should the cold worsen and I decide that I needed it. WTH.
August 22, 2010, 3:18 pmgasman says:
You’re thinking too one dimensionally. There would be created by the marketplace many barber accrediting organizations. They would attract their barber customers by providing professional liability insurance in exchange for a fee. The barber is interested in low insurance rates so is incentivised to comply, the customer has a covered barber, and the insurers are free to determine what means of regulation and monitoring are required to provide in order to remain competitive in the marketplace. The only regulation that need be applied by government at most would be to require a very minimal level of insurance coverage. Most barbers would opt for more than state minimums (as most of us do with auto insurance) to protect their assets.
August 22, 2010, 3:53 pmParamedic in King County WA says:
Licensing for paramedics is totally messed up.
In every state you have to be State Licensed.
Half of the states will accept you having passed the National Registry for EMT-Paramedic exam as satisfactory for being State Licensed in their state (or county, if it’s a state which licenses by individual county.) The other half of the states have their own exams which you must pass. PLUS many states/counties have additional requirements such as training requirements, currently being employed by an ambulance company or hospital, currently being certified by a physician in the last six months as having done six intubations, plus a current ACLS (Advanced Cadiac Life Support) and current BCLS (Basic Cardiac Life Support, i.e.: CPR card, both from the American Heart Association. Plus whatever other bullshit they want to throw in there.
I live in King County, WA, home of Seattle. While the rest of the state (by and large) will satisfy itself with National Registry, King County won’t let you be licensed unless you pass their test AND you’ve gone to THEIR paramedic program. So in my case, it doesn’t matter worth a flying fuck at a rolling donut that I graduated second in my class from the #1 paramedic program in the United States (that year; actually, we were tied for #1 with the University of Hawaii according to the National Registry’s Al Weigel who ran the Paramedic Exam that year.) And it doesn’t matter that I practiced as a paramedic in four of the top five most populated regions of the country. None of my experience in the mountains on rope teams means anything. None of my experience in white water work means anything. None of my experience teaching emergency driving, teaching ACLS and being a BCLS Instructor Trainer and a Paramedic Instructor. Nothing I did for ten years means jack-shit in King County. To work here, I have to become a rookie, start in their paramedic class (which costs a LOT of money and only people hired already by ambulance companies and/or the fire department can even go, pretty much) and then go Full Time (no part time option) and learn it their way. When I’ve written TWO Paramedic Programs from scratch and taught in one of them (plus taught in one other which I didn’t help write.)
This is purely in order to keep rents under control. Why? Because — so I am told; I have not done the work to personally confirm this. But I have been told this by three different paramedics working in King County as well as by one flight nurse, and I believe it — the Medical Director at Harborview, who is also the Medical Director for the University of Washington’s Paramedic Program, and the Medical Director for the Air Ambulance (rotary wing) out of Harborview, has his financial claws in all of it. He gets a cut out of the paramedic program; gets a cut out of the Air Ambulance program, and is the Medical Director for either the Trauma Center or for the Pre-Hospital Care stuff in King County. Therefore he has a financial interest in keeping everyone doing things his way at all times. Again, I don’t know this personally; it’s what I’ve heard.
But it makes it impossible to practice here. My only real choice is to go down to Tacoma, get my license there, and then I can be the medic on a mountain rescue team, for a ski patrol, or even do some air ambulance work… anything which isn’t BASED out of King County.
I’ve always believed that this kind of county by county licensing should be illegal. It treats different people differently and it makes it damn near impossible for people to move freely without losing their ability to work. Not being a lawyer, I get stuck at this point, but it feels as if these should be/could be constitutional violations. Anyone?
August 22, 2010, 4:01 pmKen Arromdee says:
He’s not a libertarian, he’s caricaturing libertarians by claiming that (on a blog with a lot of attorneys) they should object to attorney licensing for the same reason they object to barber licensing.
It’s caricature because attorney licensing differs from barber licensing in several important ways, one of which is that a court system is one of the few state functions that libertarians accept, and deciding who is allowed to be an attorney in a court is therefore a legitimate state function.
August 22, 2010, 7:44 pmfinman says:
You’re absolutely right–I haven’t thought this through as thoroughly as you. Without 1,550 hours of training, barbers wouldn’t know they’re supposed to wash their utensils and/or they would intentionally spread lice as part of an evil plot. Only through government licensing can we have any hope of stopping this. Thanks for helping me think this through.
August 22, 2010, 7:47 pmChris W says:
Given the extraordinary hoops that many bureaucracies require one to jump through in order to legally perform certain work, I don’t think you can say that they are “an attempt to mandate minimum training and competencies only.” I’d be willing to bet my next paycheck against yours that if we researched the origins of all these laws, many if not nearly all would have grandfather provisions that allow current practitioners to continue relatively unmolested.
Case-in-point: my state requires new school employees to be fingerprinted. Since I already had my certification when the law went into effect, I’m under no such obligation. Nice to know that I’m not considered as much of a threat to children just because my paperwork went through before the cut-off date.
Similarly: which of these would you rather have as your child’s school nurse? An LPN with over 30 years working with children at a premier children’s hospital, or an RN fresh out of school with no experience. Personally, I’d rather have the former but I’m a bit biased because she’s my mother; however it would require at least two more years of full-time classes before the state considers her “qualified” to work at a school.
Also, I missed the post where someone advocated getting medical care from “any old person who walked off the street with zero medical training” etc. However, I have had people choose me for first-aid type situations based on my military medical training/certifications rather than sit in an emergency room for an hour or three. (Sometimes they choose my mom over me, but I don’t hold any grudges).
Don’t even get me started on the frustration and headaches my best friend is going through right now because of muck-ups in the state capitol and bureaucrats who won’t give definitive answers to certification questions. Her clients would be ecstatic (and still seeing her) if she had the option to put a sign on the door saying “My licensing is currently in red-tape limbo.” Unfortunately, the rules don’t allow that and now lots of people are in limbo waiting for the bureaucracy to get its thumb out of its collective posterior.
August 22, 2010, 8:01 pmohwilleke says:
FWIW, in Colorado, sunset provisions insure that professional regulation is, if not always necessary as a matter of policy, at least not something that remains in existence merely out of political inertia. It isn’t uncommon for professions that are regulated to be deregulated, and there are some like funeral home services, that seem to be in a perennially liminal state, always on the verge of going from one regime to the other.
It is also worth noting that one of the reasons to have a profession regulated is to carve out territory that might also be claimed by another profession for more lenient regulation. A lot of professional regulation is about deliberately narrowing the scope of somebody else’s profession, rather than regulating the conduct of the profession that is actually regulated.
For example, one of the reasons that audiologists, barbers, life care institutions, pharmacists, acupuncturists, podiatrists, chiropractors, dentists, massage therapists, midwives, nurses, nurse aides, nursing homes, optometrists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, and psychiatric technicians all actively seek to be regulated as professions is to prevent physicians from claiming that they are engaged in the unlicensed practice of medicine.
Escort services and massage parlors, are regulated to indirectly regulate prostitution by defining the boundaries of related legitimate businesses in a way that is so narrow that it is harder for prostitution to hide in those niches.
Bail bonding agents, debt collectors, title insurers and real estate agents want to avoid being characterized as engaging in the unauthorized practice of law.
Money transmitters and pawnbrokers want to escape regulation as banks.
Often, pre-emptive regulation is used like a vaccine against more intrusive regulation.
August 22, 2010, 8:04 pmMicha Elyi says:
Being itchy and scratchy may be unpleasant, even embarassing but compare that to how many people burger-flippers have killed in the last few decades. Licenses for burger-flippers and the kids who set the buffet at Sizzler must be imposed now, before they sicken or kill again!
August 23, 2010, 12:22 amWallace says:
This is absolute nonsense. The current system produces ivory tower elitists with no common sense or the ability to think rationally. It’s built on producing mindless automatons who will exploit others in the pursuit of raw power. The idea that the current system somehow weeds out lazy idiots is not one that is supported by fact. I suspect your real problem with eliminating the “bar” is an aversion to giving up the power to control others. In other words, you are a wannabe tyrant.
August 23, 2010, 12:33 amBen says:
One thing that gets overlooked in these types of discussions is the true course of action advocated by the pro-licensing side.
Somewhere out there, there is an innocent guy cutting hair for folks without a license. He is hurting no one. He provides a service his clients are happy to pay for.
The pro-licensing people want some sort of government hair police to stop him, by force, at gunpoint if necessary. The licensing crowd wants him fined or imprisoned, even though he has harmed no one. They want his business and his livelihood taken from him.
Some of us don’t think innocent people should be abused by the government for profit, even if there is some not-completely-absurd pretense to a public health rationale.
When someone gets hurt, deal with the person at fault. Until then, he is innocent and has the right to freedom in his daily activities.
August 23, 2010, 1:10 amAlessandra says:
Philly requiring bloggers to pay $300 for a business license:
===================
They will be coming for Eugene next.
August 23, 2010, 2:47 amPeter says:
Just a quick question, is it that folk are opposed to licenses or education precursors coupled to licenses? I don’t personally have an issue with licenses or certification (government or private), I do I have an issue with education requirements as a precursor to the license. If a barber is can pass the exam (or for that matter a medical doctor), I could careless how he got there (home schooled, self taught, family trade, 10 years of formal education).
August 23, 2010, 3:14 pmTed says:
Do you apply this to all human actions? Do you really think that it is inappropriate for the government to prevent the likely bad things happening to people? Do you think that government should only operate in the aftermath of some bad action?
If so, should the government be able to prevent me from operating a vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquors, even though I’ve never hurt anyone by doing so?
August 23, 2010, 3:39 pmTed says:
What if your doctor passed the test by taking the MedBri(r) 2 week preparatory class, which guarantees a passing result for all of its students. The class teaches only test taking strategies and drills students on past Medical Board examinations, which, according to statistics, results in a 97% pass rate independent of any experience or educational backgrounds.
On the upside, your doc probably charges a lot less for his services because the $3,000 he paid for the MedBri(r) class was less than the $250,000+ the doc up the street paid for a quality undergraduate education that prepared him for a rigorous four years of medical school.
But he probably didn’t learn that much anyway, right? I think you’re totally right in choosing the guy who chose “A” because the fact pattern of that problem used key words that correlated with the answer in “A.”
August 23, 2010, 3:50 pmPeter says:
Ted:
That would be fine with me. What you describe is a failure of the certification exam to properly access the minimal requirements of what it takes to be a doctor, not a failure of the certification / licensing concept.
As a consumer nothing is stopping you from choosing a doctor with a medical degree over cram course and most likely in such environment doctors would advertise their credentials better, just like in any other industry.
August 23, 2010, 4:43 pmBen says:
Am I the only one that finds this line of argument extremely predictable and extremely tiring? “Freedom can be abused, therefore we should revoke it and happily oppress people to the maximum possible extent. Then we can all say our position is consistent in all situations.”
No. Humanity and existence are not conditions that can be perfected with hard and fast rules for every situation. You can’t successfully engineer a society to any desirable outcome. You aren’t one or two more rules away from achieving a utopia.
Freedom is the best choice, in general. In some very rare, very specific situations, freedom is not the best choice. A person may have to use some judgement to determine when one of these situations has presented itself. A simple rule is not necessarily available to substitute for ordinary judgement. Sorry.
For your specific example, if a guy hasn’t harmed anyone, it’s almost always going to be unjust for the government to harm him or punish him. Certainly the severity of any penalty should reflect that.
If you want to impose a harsh penalty on someone who hasn’t harmed anyone, I’d suggest a system where you need to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the harm is inevitable. If a drunk driver is certainly going to kill someone, convince a jury that that specific outcome is certain and sentence the person for the harm you’ve all decided he is absolutely certain to cause. It’s going to be hard to get a conviction. But that’s why we have a jury system, to prevent unjust convictions.
August 23, 2010, 4:45 pmTed says:
I apologize in advance if I misunderstand you, but I interpret your response as suggesting that DUI laws should be repealed because they restrict freedom based solely on a possibility of future harm to another. Is this correct? If am reading this correctly, which, if any, of the following actions is the government justified in prohibiting through criminalization (Hint: all of these actions are currently illegal):
1. Carrying a pistol onto an airplane.
2. Hijacking an airplane.
3. Carrying a bomb into a school.
4. Blowing up a school.
5. Making meth-amphetamine.
6. Selling meth-amphetamine to a minor.
7. Hiring someone to kill another person.
8. Killing another person.
9. Entering into an agreement with others to rob a bank.
10. Robbing a bank.
I look forward to your responses.
August 23, 2010, 5:05 pmBen says:
No. Please stop trolling in this forum.
August 23, 2010, 5:20 pmTed says:
Sorry to challenge you. I’m just trying to understand your position on where government regulation insects with actions that create a potential for harm.
But I think I understand what I missed. You don’t advocate the repeal of DUI laws. Those laws should remain on the books, available to any prosecutor wishing to bring them. Rather, you advocate for a change in the standard of proof required to obtain a conviction under those laws. One that would (almost) never be able to met in cases involving typical DUI facts. Is this right?
I mean, a prosecutor would never be able to prove that a run-of-the-mill drunk driver was certainly going to harm someone. After all, lot of people drive drunk and the vast majority of them never injure anyone. Indeed, the vast majority of them aren’t even caught. Proving “certain” future harm would be near impossible in most DUI situations.
Do I understand this correctly now? If not, what am I still missing? If I do understand correctly, how are the odd-numbered examples in my post any different from a DUI law? How could a prosecutor prove that “certain” harm would occur if I carried a gun onto an airplane? If I carried a bomb into a school? Seems like bright line rules, with very harsh penalties, are the way to go in these situations despite the fact they curtail liberty in order to prevent only potential harm to others.
I would argue that preventing future harm to people is a legitimate governmental interest. And I would also suggest that such an interest can support regulation of certain activities, whether it is barbering, surgery, practicing law, or wiring houses. The only question to be hashed out is what degree of risk and harm justifies what level of regulation.
August 23, 2010, 5:50 pmPeter says:
Ted, I’ll bite:
I think the point of contention here is the governments legitimate interest in preventing actual harm v. perceived harm / contributing factors.
Making it illegal to drink and drive criminalizing routine and socially acceptable behavior is a lot different that criminalizing killing somebody with your car and/or (just for argument sake) having his car magically evaporate a second before impact once it becomes apparent via the law of physics that his action (drinking and driving) is actually going to harm somebody.
Ditto with your pistol on a plane argument. If the concern here is actual harm (hijacking with intent of mass murder) then this could be addressed via both tighter construction requirements (bullet proof engines and pilot compartments) couple with the expectation that other passengers (or a private rent-a-pig) on the plane will also be carrying pistols and most likely shoot the hijacker once it becomes apparent. You could equally address this via the market by allowing private airlines to prohibit pistols as a matter of internal policy on their airplanes and then let them privately police this (via internal methods and private security air marshals). Folk willing to pay a premium for no pistols could ride that particular carrier, folk willing to take the risk can ride the cheaper one. Once again you don’t need the government to ban pistols as carrying pistols on a plane isn’t (or shouldn’t) be a crime unto itself, hijacking the plane is (theft, possible murder).
August 23, 2010, 6:45 pmTed says:
I see. I wonder how market-based airline security would play out. I mean, how can you know how the industry would adapt? Would a cheap airline let a guy on board with a gun? Or, what if it does so negligently via lax security? What happens if he then decides to crash that airplane into a building and Cheap-O-Air is under-insured for such an event? Is this justice? Does this maximize freedom and happiness of all people? Or is better and more efficient to just have the government prohibit guns on airplanes?
I can see other, more subtle, problems too. If market-based security was the rule, wouldn’t we see an increase in misinformation in order to sway customers to fly on “safer,” more expensive airlines? Wouldn’t the focus of airline advertising be how dangerous or lax the other airlines are, highlighting and magnifying alleged security gaps regardless of whether they actually increase risk? Wouldn’t this biased information cause a form of market failure? Do you know whether or how much a full-body scan x-ray increases your individual safety while flying? What do you base your decision on?
Also, there is the moral aspect. Should an individual’s safety depend on his wealth? Should richer people, even assuming they create more value to society and should be richer, be safer? Should there be a “floor” of safety provided? What if the market doesn’t provide such a floor? Should the government force one?
I don’t mean to be a naysayer. I honestly would be curious to see how a purely market-based airline security industry would function. To see if prices went up or down. It’d also be interesting to see whether more or less hijackings/events would take place. Unfortunately, I don’t think many people, on either side of the issue, have the stomach for this kind of experiment.
August 23, 2010, 7:42 pmBen says:
No. I advocated no position on the subject.
You seem bizarrely desperate to find opportunities to hurt people who haven’t harmed anyone. You’ve repeatedly changed the subject, appealed to emotion, deployed armies of strawmen, made up positions that no one has advocated, and ignored distinctions that an 8-year-old would consider obvious. What’s with the near bloodlust for the guy who is just out there minding his own business? What did he ever do to you?
Oh. That’s right. He didn’t do anything to you or anyone else.
Lots of things are in the government’s interest. Government can get a lot done in government’s interest if we all just forget about justice, right and wrong, and all those pesky victims of government’s actions. Believe it or not, some of us still care about things like that.
Some of us also don’t pretend to know the future.
If you know the future well enough to punish someone for hurting people in the future, then you should be able to convince a jury of that future’s certainty beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s a fairly well understood safeguard. I acknowledge it’s an inconvenient obstacle to your apparent intention to harm folks who are minding their own business. That’s why I suggested it.
August 23, 2010, 11:17 pmTed says:
I think I’m pretty clear on your position now, so I can respond to it appropriately. It’s rubbish. Your fantasy world in which only those people who actually harm other people should be punished is unworkable, or at least, highly undesirable. Personally, I like living in a place that significantly reduces the likelihood of an individual unwittingly creating chaos that he can’t possibly compensate for.
If uninsured Joe hops into a car drunk and kills 2 people in a family of four, he can’t possibly pay for the damages he’s caused, much less provide an emotional remedy. I prefer a law that prevents Joe from getting in the car (deterrence), or removes his right to drive if he is caught. Even he is caught before he kills people, damages, property, or even harms himself.
Thus, laws requiring insurance are good ideas. Laws requiring drivers to be sober also are good ideas. As is licensing people to drive. These laws should be crafted to be on balance with a person’s freedom, e.g., how much insurance is required, what level of intoxication is considered too high, how difficult should licensing be, but there is no doubt that the laws are good ideas and serve a useful purpose.
I guess the premise that really undermines your position is that ff you live and interact with other people out in the world, you’re never just “minding your own business,” no matter how tempting it might be to think you are. If you have the potential to harm another through any particular action you take, the government should be able to regulate that action in a reasonable manner. So yeah, if you’re just minding your own business, say…in the middle of the wilderness, your right, the government should not involve itself. But that’s not where most people live. And the government has the job of preventing the ignorant and stupid members of our species from hurting the rest.
August 24, 2010, 11:50 amBen says:
Every dictator, every warlord, every tyrannical monarch, and every author of genocide throughout human history says “Amen” to that.
August 26, 2010, 11:01 pm