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Licensing = Extortion + Revenue Generator + Productivity Reducer

Government creates license requirements in the name of “protecting you”, but in the process, they take away decision-making rights from all Americans. In other words, you can’t choose freely who you go to for a service. We all know plenty of people who are qualified to do certain jobs without having a piece of paper from the government giving them permission. Yes, a license says you have certain qualifications, but you don’t need government to tell you a person is qualified. Private certifications, rating systems, and good old word-of-mouth accomplishes the task much better. And again, it should be our choice. The government often creates ridiculous restrictions that create shortages and add to costs.

For example, if I’m on trial for my life or doing a will worth millions, I’d want someone fully trained in the law. If I want legal advice on a speeding ticket or preparing a power of attorney form, I should be able to talk to anyone I want regardless of their law license status, without having to pay $300/hour. Another example is providing talk therapy counseling. Each state is different, but my state typically requires a PhD, MD, or Master of Social Work to perform this much-needed service. These are degrees which require 5-10 years of training and hundreds of thousands of dollars to achieve. Does a thousand hours of research and paper writing really make you a better counselor? Probably a little, but I’d take a caring, empathic listener in a heartbeat over someone who could prescribe a drug or write a great dissertation. Plus, there’s plenty of people who’d be great at the job who see the education & cost requirements and decide not to even try. Yet another example is home improvement. We all know people who are fantastic handymen but are unlicensed and have no formal training, so the government limits what they can do for others.

I don’t want to denigrate any licensed professions. Indeed, it’s just one of many ways to prove you’ve completed training and probably know what you’re doing. But in an era where we have enormous free and cheap online resources to teach ourselves almost anything, when we have labor shortages in nearly every critical profession, the standard of “license to work” needs to end.

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