I'm a PE (electrical) and I think what most people don't realize is that the licensing was largely driven by the insurance industry.
Let's say you pay some people to design a building for you. You get insurance of course. A year later, the building falls down. You call your insurance company to collect. The first thing they ask is whether you took every reasonable precaution you could to prevent that from happening. Part of that would include having a licensed structural engineer design the building. If you let Joe Shmoe off the street design your building and it falls down, the insurance company is going to say you're basically SOL, because you didn't find a person you could verify was qualified.
It's really about transferring the liability from the building owner to the engineer. If there's a mistake in the design, the engineer gets sued. Guess what happens then? The engineer has professional liability insurance to pay that! How does the professional liability insurance company decide who to insure? Well, they insure people with licenses, of course. It's an elaborate scheme to transfer money from one insurance company to another.
Is it necessary for a florist? Probably not. I can't think of a situation where you'd need to sue a florist. Interior decorator might be more problematic than people realize. First, it depends on whether it's a decorator or a designer. A designer may move walls around, affecting egress paths, and can possibly have some life safety implications, so they should be able to take responsibility for that.
That doesn't make sense. Insurance companies can make policies conditional on certifications whether or not those certs are mandatory. Likewise, they can sub-insure away some of the risks to the engineer without the mandate.
You ask for a policy on your house, they ask if a person qualified by XYZ standard approved it.
If we want to make certain protections mandatory, we can at least move the regulations up one abstraction level. Instead of "you must meet these standards", it could be something more general like, "you must have an insurance policy against these events for this much", and people go with whatever insurer is willing to take that risk. That would allow for more experimentation about which standards are good enough or too stringent, by the people who have something to lose if they're not strict enough, and provide an impetus for obsolete bits to be removed.
> I'm a PE (electrical) and I think what most people don't realize is that the licensing was largely driven by the insurance industry.
A certification program endorsed by insurance companies seems like a great idea, as does contractor-maintained liability insurance. And in a field where contractors have little to differentiate themselves except reputation and word of mouth, many specifically advertise themselves as "licensed and bonded", and people seeking a contractor look for those specifically. (Some kind of trademarked certification seems even better, to avoid any ambiguity.) All of those seem sufficient to drive contractors to voluntarily step up and seek such certification.
None of that requires mandatory licensing, though.
That's an unfair characterization. Licensure is not just about protectionism, it is also about making sure that people who need to know what they're doing actually know what they're doing. And while it's far from perfect, it's pretty effective. In the U.S. it is very rare for buildings to collapse, or faulty wiring to set buildings on fire. That is in no small measure because we enforce building codes and licensure requirements for structural and electrical engineers.
> Well, they insure people with licenses, of course. It's an elaborate scheme to transfer money from one insurance company to another.
I think that's missing the point (at least the point in theory; the point in practice might be different). The idea is that, if you're licensed, you're sufficiently unlikely to make mistakes that an insurance company can profitably insure people like you without having to charge any individual one of you too much money. In essence, it's a way of converting the concept "People who know what they're doing are less likely to screw up" into something the market can quantify and deal with and reduce variance on.
In theory, the amount of money the building owners pay their own building insurance company is exactly equal to the chance of their building falling down times the cost of that building (plus the overhead of calculating that risk, etc.). If you want that cost to do down, the most efficient way is to convincingly lower that risk. Assuming the market is reasonably effective at transmitting information (which is a big assumption), insurance seems like a perfectly reasonable way to use the market to calculate.
The attitude of "license all the things" comes from two places.
Existing groups use licensing to shut out newcomers. They are largely anti-competitive, and anti-capitalistic.
The other is where unlicensed activities results in people dying. The outrage from such events often ends up with "license the people", so that Bad Things can't happen.
That's arguably a better approach, for mechanics, nuclear power technicians, etc. Perhaps even hairdressers, who work with toxic chemicals and need to know basic safety.
For me, the "health and safety" requirements make sense. Anything outside of that is typically anti-competitive, and likely rent-seeking.
As UK citizen it really surprises me how much things are licensed and regulated in the US. I've been following /r/diy recently, and in some states you need to be licensed to even change a light switch. I assume this is to prevent someone from doing it wrong and burning down a 10 storey apartment building, but come on? Can't you trust people to use their own judgement as to whether they can do it sensibly or not?
Today I read a story about a car getting tickets for $100k [0], one of the tickets was for being in a "hazardous and dilapidated condition", broken headlights and cracked windows. I'm currently living in Rome, Italy - the traffic wardens would have a field day here, basically every car has some sort of damage from an incident.
In other words, older companies put barriers to entry for new comers through government intervention such as licenses, patents, copyrights.
But even though government intervention tried to cut risks, or to ban offensive activities, they still exist. Look at how many "hairdressers" from "Pakistan" are in the west, or how much "slavery" still exist although its illegal. Banning alcohol made it go into the underground route and made Capones rich.
The decline of western civilization is happening right now.
Here is what Adam Smith said about occupational licenses centuries (1776) ago :
"The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbour is a plain violation of this most sacred property."
Certification driven by insurance industry makes sense, criminalizing people without licenses is a conspiracy against poor.
This article seems quite specific at first – but when you dig down, it is actually rather vague.
For example, the author complains that his mother needs a license to bake food. What kind of license? What state?
Maybe a food handlers license? These are incredibly common, and very easy to obtain.
Maybe a business license? Again – most states are falling over themselves to make it easy to give you a business license.
It's hard to tell exactly what is being argued against.
Food safety is incredibly important – and food handler's licenses are easy to obtain. States need to collect taxes, that's the basic reason a business needs to get a license. Neither of these things are controversial. That's why I'm guessing the author of this article didn't go into specifics.
The business, may require a food service permit (unless they are selling packaged food) in addition to a business license, too, in combination with food handler's permit for workers. At least, that's the case for the county where I live. (King County, WA) In fact, places like Trader Joe's (where they don't sell, but merely give away food sample) require an appropriate license to do that, too.
They are also inspected fairly routinely, and every couple does get shut down for incompliance (problem with temperature, separation of raw meat, etc.) and I can see why these would require a license in order to prevent food-borne illness.
I worked in food service for 5 years, I was given basic training on what safe food handling was, and how to ensure our guests didn't get sick, at that time in California, no license was required.
I don't think licensure brings any advantages - because dont forget - its not the business that needs a license, its the individual working for a low wage that does - its just an extra burden for the guy trying to find a job - and I'll note, the state (in California at least) doesn't even issue these things (or seem profit from them) - its issued by private entities.
For engineers who have to sign off on matters related to regulatory bodies, that's been the case more or less forever. I assume that includes software engineers who approve software that has to be approved by regulators. It's certainly true of construction plans, etc.
In my first engineering job (offshore drilling rig design and construction), pretty much all the senior engineers had PEs.
Yeah, and thats when you know "tech" has actually changed the world instead of just imagining it does.
A civil engineer pointed out to me that the licenses come when it really starts to affect people and infrastructure. Programming does this by proxy, but not directly enough yet.
New York State's bitlicense was the closest to burdening software engineers with licensing requirements, until the one person at the head of the financial agency clarified it wasn't intended to be interpreted that way, and modified the wording of the law.
Since many of us fully expect AI to accomplish all programming in the future, I don't think so. Unless a licensing regime is humankind's last stand against AI.
Yet another possible reason licensing requirements have proliferated is that we have a less trusting and less trustworthy society, a much more fluid and transient society, today than in the past. We literally don't know anybody out there.
Where I live, people from a wide variety of locations across the globe are constantly arriving, setting up shop, and offering some kind of service or other (legally or otherwise).
It's not clear they're offering a high quality service or that they'll be available later to fix any problems they may create. It's not clear which community they belong to (if any) and are accountable to (if any). It's not clear how long they'll even be in country.
On the surface then, government licensing seems like it might be a tool that transforms a "Random, Unknown, Migratory Service Provider from Somewhere Else" into a "Locally Known, Certified, Accountable High Quality Service Provider"
I read a recent news about proposed law being drafted in India related to needing a license for mapping the country, I clicked on this story thinking it was about exact issue I just read. Here is link :
http://www.voanews.com/content/proposed-law-on-use-of-maps-s...
"license" is too loosey goosey a term. It could be related to insurance/safety regulations, or it could be in relation to a trade group's attempt to limit competition. An article that fails to clearly say what they mean by "license" isn't going to make any clear point.
[+] [-] imgabe|10 years ago|reply
Let's say you pay some people to design a building for you. You get insurance of course. A year later, the building falls down. You call your insurance company to collect. The first thing they ask is whether you took every reasonable precaution you could to prevent that from happening. Part of that would include having a licensed structural engineer design the building. If you let Joe Shmoe off the street design your building and it falls down, the insurance company is going to say you're basically SOL, because you didn't find a person you could verify was qualified.
It's really about transferring the liability from the building owner to the engineer. If there's a mistake in the design, the engineer gets sued. Guess what happens then? The engineer has professional liability insurance to pay that! How does the professional liability insurance company decide who to insure? Well, they insure people with licenses, of course. It's an elaborate scheme to transfer money from one insurance company to another.
Is it necessary for a florist? Probably not. I can't think of a situation where you'd need to sue a florist. Interior decorator might be more problematic than people realize. First, it depends on whether it's a decorator or a designer. A designer may move walls around, affecting egress paths, and can possibly have some life safety implications, so they should be able to take responsibility for that.
[+] [-] SilasX|10 years ago|reply
You ask for a policy on your house, they ask if a person qualified by XYZ standard approved it.
If we want to make certain protections mandatory, we can at least move the regulations up one abstraction level. Instead of "you must meet these standards", it could be something more general like, "you must have an insurance policy against these events for this much", and people go with whatever insurer is willing to take that risk. That would allow for more experimentation about which standards are good enough or too stringent, by the people who have something to lose if they're not strict enough, and provide an impetus for obsolete bits to be removed.
[+] [-] JoshTriplett|10 years ago|reply
A certification program endorsed by insurance companies seems like a great idea, as does contractor-maintained liability insurance. And in a field where contractors have little to differentiate themselves except reputation and word of mouth, many specifically advertise themselves as "licensed and bonded", and people seeking a contractor look for those specifically. (Some kind of trademarked certification seems even better, to avoid any ambiguity.) All of those seem sufficient to drive contractors to voluntarily step up and seek such certification.
None of that requires mandatory licensing, though.
[+] [-] lisper|10 years ago|reply
That's an unfair characterization. Licensure is not just about protectionism, it is also about making sure that people who need to know what they're doing actually know what they're doing. And while it's far from perfect, it's pretty effective. In the U.S. it is very rare for buildings to collapse, or faulty wiring to set buildings on fire. That is in no small measure because we enforce building codes and licensure requirements for structural and electrical engineers.
[+] [-] wrong_variable|10 years ago|reply
If a florist does something stupid - no one gets hurts.
But bankers,programmers treat their profession like the wild west.
[+] [-] geofft|10 years ago|reply
I think that's missing the point (at least the point in theory; the point in practice might be different). The idea is that, if you're licensed, you're sufficiently unlikely to make mistakes that an insurance company can profitably insure people like you without having to charge any individual one of you too much money. In essence, it's a way of converting the concept "People who know what they're doing are less likely to screw up" into something the market can quantify and deal with and reduce variance on.
In theory, the amount of money the building owners pay their own building insurance company is exactly equal to the chance of their building falling down times the cost of that building (plus the overhead of calculating that risk, etc.). If you want that cost to do down, the most efficient way is to convincingly lower that risk. Assuming the market is reasonably effective at transmitting information (which is a big assumption), insurance seems like a perfectly reasonable way to use the market to calculate.
[+] [-] adekok|10 years ago|reply
Existing groups use licensing to shut out newcomers. They are largely anti-competitive, and anti-capitalistic.
The other is where unlicensed activities results in people dying. The outrage from such events often ends up with "license the people", so that Bad Things can't happen.
That's arguably a better approach, for mechanics, nuclear power technicians, etc. Perhaps even hairdressers, who work with toxic chemicals and need to know basic safety.
For me, the "health and safety" requirements make sense. Anything outside of that is typically anti-competitive, and likely rent-seeking.
[+] [-] lucaspiller|10 years ago|reply
Today I read a story about a car getting tickets for $100k [0], one of the tickets was for being in a "hazardous and dilapidated condition", broken headlights and cracked windows. I'm currently living in Rome, Italy - the traffic wardens would have a field day here, basically every car has some sort of damage from an incident.
Don't even get me started about HOA rules...
[0] http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/39/3958.asp
[+] [-] id122015|10 years ago|reply
But even though government intervention tried to cut risks, or to ban offensive activities, they still exist. Look at how many "hairdressers" from "Pakistan" are in the west, or how much "slavery" still exist although its illegal. Banning alcohol made it go into the underground route and made Capones rich.
The decline of western civilization is happening right now.
[+] [-] NoMoreNicksLeft|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tn13|10 years ago|reply
"The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbour is a plain violation of this most sacred property."
Certification driven by insurance industry makes sense, criminalizing people without licenses is a conspiracy against poor.
[+] [-] JacobJans|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unsignedint|10 years ago|reply
They are also inspected fairly routinely, and every couple does get shut down for incompliance (problem with temperature, separation of raw meat, etc.) and I can see why these would require a license in order to prevent food-borne illness.
[+] [-] Aloha|10 years ago|reply
I don't think licensure brings any advantages - because dont forget - its not the business that needs a license, its the individual working for a low wage that does - its just an extra burden for the guy trying to find a job - and I'll note, the state (in California at least) doesn't even issue these things (or seem profit from them) - its issued by private entities.
[+] [-] Rmilb|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|10 years ago|reply
In my first engineering job (offshore drilling rig design and construction), pretty much all the senior engineers had PEs.
[+] [-] cloudjacker|10 years ago|reply
A civil engineer pointed out to me that the licenses come when it really starts to affect people and infrastructure. Programming does this by proxy, but not directly enough yet.
New York State's bitlicense was the closest to burdening software engineers with licensing requirements, until the one person at the head of the financial agency clarified it wasn't intended to be interpreted that way, and modified the wording of the law.
[+] [-] trentmb|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonh|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ComteDeLaFere|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] digi_owl|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cududa|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HillaryBriss|10 years ago|reply
Where I live, people from a wide variety of locations across the globe are constantly arriving, setting up shop, and offering some kind of service or other (legally or otherwise).
It's not clear they're offering a high quality service or that they'll be available later to fix any problems they may create. It's not clear which community they belong to (if any) and are accountable to (if any). It's not clear how long they'll even be in country.
On the surface then, government licensing seems like it might be a tool that transforms a "Random, Unknown, Migratory Service Provider from Somewhere Else" into a "Locally Known, Certified, Accountable High Quality Service Provider"
[+] [-] mohsinr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intrasight|10 years ago|reply