More on Licensing
Obviously, not everyone agrees with me about occupational licensing rules. One obvious point to bring up here is that some people are accusing me of believing that one can do competent plumbing work without training. Obviously, that’s stupid. People don’t have an innate ability to fix pipes. You need someone who knows what they’re doing. That’s not the same as saying that you need a legally enforced licensing scheme. People are challenging me to prove that we can get along without a plumber licensing program. It’s difficult to prove the negative. One consideration to start with, though, is that the rules don’t typically require a license to do the plumbing. Consider New York City’s rules (emphasis added):
Only licensed master plumbers and their employees may perform plumbing work in New York City. A plumbing permit must also be obtained before any work begins. The NYC Building Code defines plumbing work as “the installation, maintenance, repair, modification extension or alteration of any waste, domestic water, gas, or firestandpipes in any building or piping system”. NYC also issues a license for fire suppression and piping contractors.
For information regarding the requirements, applications and scheduled test dates, contact the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services at (212) 669-1357. The New York City Department of Buildings issues the license for master plumbers after they have passed the examination and have cleared a background check.
The “and their employees” provision is a dead giveaway. From a consumer point of view, there’s no guarantee that your work will be done by a licensed plumber, so it clearly can’t be the case that we need this rule in order to ensure that work is up to licensed plumber standards. Rather, effect of the law is to ensure that there’s a certain set of people who are perfectly qualified to perform a range of plumbing-related tasks but can’t legally perform those tasks without giving a licensed master plumber a piece of the action.
And of course I don’t want to pick on the plumbers here. In practice, plumbing related issues aren’t that important. And certified master plumbers, though not the wretched of the earth, aren’t exactly fat cats either. But basic dental hygiene is important. There’s a serious problem in the United States where poor people can’t afford standard teeth cleanings, which leads to more serious problems down the road. That’s a public health issue, and it’s also an economic opportunity issue because people missing teeth and so forth have problems getting jobs. The cost of basic teeth cleaning would be lower if it were possible for dental hygienists to operate independently performing their service (cleaning teeth) for a fee. But in general, they’re not allowed to do that — dental hygienists must work for dentists. This is good for the relatively privileged dentists, but bad for the relatively unprivileged hygienists, and bad for patients.
Now dentistry is a medical field and clearly I think there’s a case for some measure of licensing and standards in that regard. I’m not a fundamentalist on this. But still, even in a field where the case for some regulation is fairly compelling, our actual regulations go too far. And not everything is as serious as dentistry or even plumbing. Is it really a good idea to make it illegal to cut hair for a fee without a license? Or how about braiding hair:
On July 1, 1998, a pair of undercover police officers posing as husband and wife walked into Braids by Sabrina, a small shop in Compton, Calif. After the store’s proprietor, 29-year-old hair braider Sabrina Reece, spent five hours braiding the woman’s hair, the male officer handed her $150 for his “wife’s” new hairstyle.
The woman excused herself to use the bathroom and came back out wearing a jacket emblazoned with POLICE on the back and a pistol on her hip. At first Reece didn’t pay her any mind; black policewomen get their hair braided too. But the next thing she knew, a third police officer came barging in from outside the store, barking orders at her.
“The officer came into my shop and told me to sign a piece of paper, or he was going to arrest me,” says Reece, who reluctantly signed the ticket, which ordered her to appear in court. She was caught in a hair sting. She was fined $1,000 by the state cosmetology board for violating the law. The Department of Consumer Affairs says that hair braiding in California is illegal unless a practitioner has a cosmetology license, which Reece doesn’t have.
Can I prove that this law doesn’t somehow improve people’s lives? No, I can’t. But the point is that the burden of proof should be on the proponents of these licensing regimes to show that they’re doing some good. Do states and localities with more stringent rules governing who can style hair get any benefit from that? You can go on and on down the line. I’m not someone who thinks we should have a totally deregulated economy. Far from it! Where appropriate, I love regulation. Regulation to promote public health or cut down on pollution. Regulation of the financial services sector to prevent, well, you know. Regulation of who’s allowed to get public sector jobs that would otherwise become patronage mills. But regulation of who’s allowed to try to run a small business? It’s silly. Ultimately, the best guarantor of quality service in most of these fields is going to be market competition. That means lowering barriers to entry rather than raising them.
73 Responses to “More on Licensing”
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October 21st, 2008 at 8:29 am
Snore.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:30 am
Amen, brother. Amen.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:41 am
Except the regulation you cite calls out plumbers *and* their employees, not *or* their employees.
Splitting hairs, I know. Just not convinced your citing of the regulation is a convincing enough argument.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:45 am
You know, registering your boredom with a post by opening up the comments page and posting on it isn’t exactly rational behavior, guys.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:49 am
Obviously licensing law is confused with protecting turf, but there are big differences between professions with a little at stake, as in the case of hair dressers (bad haircut), and dental hygienists (damaged teeth). I dont think you are advocating unlicensed hygienists, just freedom for them to practice without being linked to a dentist.
The best argument for the need for licensing is Naturopathic Physicians. In states where N.D.’s are licensed, these family practice physicians must attend a four year medical school, and pass rigorous board exams. These physicians have rights to prescribe pharmaceutical medication and are reimbursed through insurance. In states where licensing is not required, anyone with a short weeklong workshop can call themselves a “naturopath.”
You make the call.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:49 am
I think Matt gets the win on hair braiding, at least.
As for the plumbers, the question would turn on whether there are legal consequences for the licensed plumber if his employees screw up.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:51 am
Often this kind of licensing, as is the case with plumbing, is a way to allow a trade to be self-governing. Licensing the plumber means that the insurance company knows whose ass to sue when the pipes burst. Having a licensed plumber removes the need for a government inspector on things where you don’t want it to be a caveat emptor free for all.
But let me tell you, the “licensing” issue, especially non-transferability between states, has been a huge obstacle in the rebuilding of New Orleans.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:53 am
Matt,
What about public school teachers?
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/opinion/30kristof.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
NHD
October 21st, 2008 at 8:55 am
Ultimately, the best guarantor of quality service in most of these fields is going to be market competition.
You’ve been reading McMegan too long; at least there’s no other explanation for what may be the single most preposterous thing you have ever posted on this blog. The only thing that unchecked competition guarantees is a race to the bottom on price (and hence quality).
October 21st, 2008 at 8:56 am
Let’s not forget that there are some hygiene concerns with hair stylists. I suppose the question, though, is whether in 2008 concerns over spreading lice weigh heavily enough on the cost/benefit analysis to favor such rigorous licensing and enforcement.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:59 am
Given that naturopathy is bunkum, I don’t see how licensing makes a difference. A licensed quack is still a quack.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:01 am
From a consumer point of view, there’s no guarantee that your work will be done by a licensed plumber, so it clearly can’t be the case that we need this rule in order to ensure that work is up to licensed plumber standards.
Most of the trades work on an apprenticeship (or similar) model. This means that it’s the job of the licensed plumber to manage his trainees/employees. Think of it rather like a novice accountant having a partner who is CPA sign off on her work, or a newbie lawyer who has yet to pass the bar working at a firm under a senior associate, or a recent engineering grad having a licensed project manager sign off on his work.
The actual person performing the labor might not have the license (because some of it is unskilled), but they’re under the supervision of someone who is. That’s the someone who will know (and have been tested with an exam) the various buildings codes, regulations, etc. This undermines your argument about barrier-to-entry; entry’s not that hard for a newbie plumber if he can find someone willing to hire him and train him. Advancing to the point where he can run his own shop is a significant barrier, but that’s the sort of area where regulation makes sense.
(I don’t know much about beauty salons, but I think most of the license is about use of certain chemicals.)
Are you willing to deregulate accounting and law and engineering?
October 21st, 2008 at 9:07 am
Matt-
You’re not making much sense.
Of course there is an “and their employees” provision. How else could it work? How else could one ever become a qualified plumber other than working under one?
The idea is that a licensed plumber will be overseeing the work, not brazing every joint.
Also, I would suggest that this ties into codes and code enforcement. Do you support plumbing codes and government enforcement thereof? Licensing is one approach to better ensuring that the inspectors are dealing with people who know the code and make their work conform. I would suggest that allowing anyone to do work under a building permit would make code enforcement much more difficult.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:09 am
licensing plumbers is a life safety issue. it’s not just soldering some pipes like a weekend do-it-yourselfer in his or her basement. boilers can be under extreme pressure. extremely hot water under extreme pressure let loose by untrained hands can and will be deadly. sprinklers that are not installed properly can and will be deadly. i for one do not want to be sitting in a movie theeatre when somone yells fire and the sprinklers fail because joe the plumber didn’t know what he was doing. massive deregulation is as bad as massive regulation.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:09 am
the single most preposterous thing you have ever posted on this blog.
Yeah. I’m really not sure what the underlying intent is of Matt’s new anti-licensing enthusiasm–as with Matt’s position on gun control, I suspect at bottom it’s about incorporating some contrarian quirks (a la Christopher Hitchens) into his public persona so he’s not seen as just another boilerplate liberal pundit.
With that out of the way, I present my take on the post: one anecdote and a mass of windy generalization doesn’t make much of a case either way.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:12 am
FWIW, I believe Maine just passed, or is about to pass, a law allowing properly credentialed dental hygienists to work independently.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:13 am
What really happens is that a licensed plumber shows up with a helper or two, then the licensed guy departs and leaves the actual work to the helpers who usually screw things up royally. The licensed plumber then heads out to other work sites to “supervise” other unlicensed helpers. Then the licensed plumber returns at the end of the day and proceeds to fix the screw ups while charging double time for overtime. At least that’s how it worked last time I had an emergency plumbing problem. We ended up paying about five times what the job was worth, which isn’t too bad considering they had to redo their work about three times to get it almost right. I wouldn’t be surprised if our plumber is in the $250K income bracket.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:15 am
One thing that is missing here is a sense of history. Go to the NYC library some day and look through back issues of /Scientific American/ and /Engineering News Record/ from the 1870-1890 period (they will be on microfilm, so you will have to find the one library employee who still knows how to set up the microfilm reader). There you will find many many news reports of the events that led, over time, to the creation of the standards and licensing laws that we have today. /Scientific American/ in particular relished printing every grusome detail of people dying by being boiled alive, flayed, dismembered, drowned in sewage, etc.
It is very easy today to say “regulation and licensing have gone too far”, and I won’t disagree that some rethinking is needed. I don’t see any reason, for example, why the National Fire Protection Code has needed to triple since 1980 except to give more work to code writers, inspectors, and fire chiefs. Once something like the NFPA gets “professionalized” it tends to grow without bound. But the problem is we live in an environment where the basic standards and regulations developed in the 1880-1920 period have been built into the fabric of our existence and internalized as “the way things are”. Well, that wasn’t the way things were in 1885 and a lot of people died grusome deaths until the basics were figured out and enforced.
Not Really
October 21st, 2008 at 9:15 am
I think the issue in most of these cases isn’t whether there should be licensing, it’s how burdensome it should be to obtain a license. There may be some basic hygiene issues that all hairdressers should be aware of, so requiring a license isn’t illogical, but it should be very cheap and easy to obtain a license (i.e. all you need to do is read an instructional pamphlet and then pass a simple test).
I think any city interested in improving their schools should make it easier for smart people to become teachers.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:17 am
Ultimately, the best guarantor of quality service in most of these fields is going to be market competition.
The standard libertarian argument. Isn’t obvious that the problem with this argument lies in the experience of the consumers who have to pay for a bad product or service? And there’s no limit to how many consumers that might be — 10, 100, 1000. It could be an annoying experience, like hair that turns orange because of an incompetent hair stylist; or it could be a destructive experience, like an improperly installed pipe fitting that leaks into the ceiling over your library and rains on your books all day while you are at work.
Why would I care if, by suing the incompetent plumber, I could put him out of business? How will that replace the books that I’ve owned for 30 years, that are OP and can’t be purchased anymore?
I could write a whole blog entry myself in refutation of the argument presented. But, probably most adults have had the bad experience of hiring someone’s brother-in-law or cousin for a project and getting what they paid for. After that experience, the significance of the words “licensed and bonded” is delivered as a home truth.
Thanks.
mp
October 21st, 2008 at 9:21 am
There’s a fascinating sequence in Wiseman’s documentary “State Legislature” where a committee of what seem like conscientious legislators from both sides of the aisle listen to public comment regarding what seems like a fairly innocuous licensing bill. On the one hand, facts and figures, an attempt to balance the economic burden to private interests (cost to the business; cost to the consumer) against the public good (cost to consumer of incompetent, unlicensed work). On the other hand, anti-government ideology. One of the legislators gets bored, and leads a nut-job through the drill: Would you license doctors? No. Lawyers? No. Dentists? No. Accountants? No? Contractors? No… So you basically wouldn’t license any profession, right? Right.
If licensing hair-dressers is a mistake, or a corrupt concession to what? the huge and immensely powerful licensed hair-dresser lobby? then it’s a mistake. And ought to be corrected. But it’s no argument for unlicensed plumbers. Much less against licensing in general. It’s a quote legitimate legislative function unquote to protect the public against unscrupulous or incompetent practitioners of any profession requiring skill and and a trained understanding of, e.g., health and safety codes. In Idaho, that kind of thing happens in the light of day. And the notion that these kinds of laws have been foisted off on the public by secret cabals is just what it sounds like: nut jobbery. And come to think of it, why not issue a license for that?
October 21st, 2008 at 9:24 am
Not very convincing. You wrote:
In practice, plumbing related issues aren’t that important.
Eh, excuse me? Placing ourselves at some distance from our sewage is a signal accomplishment of civilization. When that separation disappears live becomes very, very bad. The consequences of failure are enormous. Houses can literally be destroyed by plumbing gone awry.
And if it does go awry, whom do you sue? If an unlicensed plumber, he’s probably not bonded and doesn’t have the means to reimburse you. So you’re stuck, or your insurance company is stuck. And chances are, your insurance company will demand you use a licensed plumber. If licensing didn’t exist, some (weaker) private industry equivalent would have to suffice.
Hair can be unbraided. Sewage cannot be unspilled. Licensing is one of the things that makes the US and Denmark so much nicer and safer than, say, Haiti. Matt, you really, truly do not want weekend hobbyists plumbing your house.
Of all the places to find libertarian claptrap, this is the last place I’d have expected it.
I guess what I’m saying is, if you eliminate government-sponsored licensing schemes, the plumbing industry will have to come up with one itself. Much like Realtors. And we all know how professional and trustworthy the average Realtor is.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:25 am
When someone is putting together pipes to carry natural gas, or is putting pipes that is taking the effluent to the sewer line … I want them to have something substantial at stake. Somebody needs to be “at risk of losing their license” if and when they screw up in the face of the substantial moral hazard of bidding low by offering substandard work.
Ditto with dental hygienists … its certainly sensible that there should be a class of dental hygienist that should be allowed to work independently, but not that dental hygienists should be permitted to work independently without any certification.
Hair braiding … if the only thing that needs certified there is that they are not spreading hair lice, having a full-fledged professional certification system seems like massive overkill.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:30 am
How bold of Matt to wait for the meltdown of markets to go libertarian. Now there’s a maverick.
Incidentally, one of the many preposterous aspects of McCain’s plumber concern is that this fellow was hoping to buy a business taking in a quarter of a million, not saying he earned that. With a reasonable price based on those earnings, we’re talking someone claiming a heck of a lot of assets then. The claim to be the average joe then looks sillier than ever.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:32 am
Matt,
Perhaps you should stick with subjects you understand. If someone who knows nothing about plumbing starts taking jobs, the consequences could be disasterous. I’m not talking about leaky faucets and water damage. I’m talking about a house exploding because of sewer gases leaking into a building. Faulty plumbing could be potentially fatal. That is why there is regulations and certifications. Stop being so obtuse!
October 21st, 2008 at 9:34 am
Apologies for the bold italics. I didn’t intend that.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:38 am
Regulations & licensing aren’t aimed at ensuring you, the consumer, the highest quality service. That’s the role of Consumer’s Reports or the various recommendation websites.
Regulations & licensing are typically aimed at ensuring minimum standards.
I’m still waiting for some post by Matt indicating he’s seriously thought about this issue rather than bark Milton Friedmanite deregulatory fervor.
One can take any subject in the country on which there exists legislation and say, ‘Hey, golly, look at this stupid law!’, and it still doesn’t address the question of what one would do if one wanted both regulation / licensing and the most reasonable such system possible.
Maybe Matt can read through the economics article I posted on the last thread on this topic.
Also, surely this entire problem can be avoided if all work is performed by right wing libertarians, since as they will tell you they are completely knowledgeable about each and every subject in the Universe, given that all you need to know everything is a big mouth, arrogance, and a right wing “libertarian” (propertarian) outlook.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:40 am
In a single family home, if you make bad plumbing or electrical decisions you might make your family sick – or kill them ( in the case of a fire, gas leak, or poisoning ). In a multi-unit dwelling (like most (?) in New York) you could theoretically kill the whole building. It is a matter of public health and safety that the people doing the plumbing and electrical in those buildings be qualified. Licensing is the way to accomplish that. This is REGULATION to avoid BIG PUBLIC DISASTERS. It is one of the important duties of government.
Hair braiding? Not so much….
October 21st, 2008 at 9:41 am
—– I’m not talking about leaky faucets and water damage. I’m talking about a house exploding because of sewer gases leaking into a building. Faulty plumbing could be potentially fatal. —–
Just to clarify: these are not theoretical or scare-story possibilities. Such things did happen quite regularly in the 1860-1920 period until the existing codes were developed and enforced by law.
And yeah, the “plumbing isn’t important” line is a bit amusing. What we call “modern medicine” and our improved average lifespan is pretty much attributable to clean drinking water, sanitary sewage processing, innoculation, and penicillin. All the rest is margainal. And of those, two are directly related to modern plumbing. If you want to add electricity to that mix I won’t argue, but again there it was the trust built by the standards and licensing process that let electricty go into widespread use in the 1920s.
Not Really
October 21st, 2008 at 9:43 am
Lets see … find an example where licensing is obviously ridiculous and over enforced; therefore, licensing is BAD – QED … Really Matt? That’s such a RedState argument.
‘the single most preposterous thing you have ever posted on this blog’. Top ten at least.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:44 am
—– In a single family home, if you make bad plumbing or electrical decisions you might make your family sick – or kill them ( in the case of a fire, gas leak, or poisoning ). In a multi-unit dwelling (like most (?) in New York) you could theoretically kill the whole building. It is a matter of public health and safety —–
As I said though, it has been since 1920 (perhaps 1940) that the benefits of codes and licensing have been internalized into our society. Probably less than 1% of the population remembers a time when plumbing and electricity weren’t safe and effective and disasters such as you describe happened regularly. No one of Matt’s age can even comprehend the possbility, just as no one born after 1970 can truly understand what it meant to my aunt to be one of the last polio victims in the United States – polio just doesn’t exist in the mass mind any more.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:47 am
If you use the word “obvious” 3 times in your first 3 sentences, I’m unconvinced you deep down believe what you’re saying.
“Master” is a level of licensing like “journeyman” not just a figure of speech. And the law specifically calls out only these professionals AND their subordinates (ya know, the people who are responsible to them). So for any work they do, the buck stops with the licensed master plumber.
I’m not sure how you can dismiss plumbing out of hand with “in practice, plumbing related issues aren’t that important”. Anyone who has had a problem with a bad plumbing job (see previous comment thread on this topic) will tell you otherwise. Plumbing is one of those things you want to ensure is done right because it is black boxed to the end user. Pipes look like pipes to me and if I turn on the sink and get water I think “job well done.” But a bad plumbing job could have countless unseen problems due to shoddy workmanship that will bite you hard down the road financially and water damage-wise.
Decoupling dental hygienists from dentists make no sense, it’d be like decoupling nurses from doctors and letting them freelance. It’s not like separating the oil change guys from the repairmen. Hygienists don’t have the training or experience to diagnose tooth problems and they’d only make the problem worst by forestalling bigger issues. If all I did was changed the oil in my car, got my teeth cleaned once a year and saw a nurse for my cuts and scrapes I’d feel like I was doing a good job but none of these people are qualified to diagnose serious problems with my teeth/car/body and since they’re all freelance there’s no direct referral system to someone with more qualifications. And the insurance companies would jump on this new scheme like vultures and it’d be even harder to see someone more qualified.
If you want poor people to have access to dental care you should be railing against the insurance schemes that prevent them from getting access to good care, not railing against the regulation that ensures that when patients do get care that it’s good. I agree with comment 9 from kth, a lack of regulation would lower cost and quality and cause more problems that our current system. In fact MORE regulation (of the insurance companies) would fix the problem. Regulation is about a set of standards and accountability not preventing the interested and committed from getting ahead. Nothing stops a good unlicensed plumber from getting licensed.
From the same Salon article on hair braiders: “Cosmetology involves the use of chemicals in hair, which is the primary reason the state licenses cosmetologists. Hair braiders argue that licensing doesn’t make sense for them since they don’t use chemicals.”
This article was written in 1999 so hopefully they updated the licensing. But weird or bad regulation isn’t a reason to abandon it, it’s a reason to fix it. And clearly cosmetologists on the whole are licensed for good reason.
But the real point of all this Joe The Plumber bullsh!t lies in your sentence “But regulation of who’s allowed to try to run a small business? It’s silly.” Joe doesn’t have to be a licensed plumber to own the business, but he’d have to be licensed to be the ‘managing plumber’ so to speak. Just like the restaurant owner isn’t head chef, they’re almost always two separate people. So the whole Joe-The-Plumber premise is a huge tangled logical fallacy.
Also, seriously, if you want to change the system, the burden of proof IS ON YOU to really prove why your system is better and would improve people’s lives. I appreciate you taking the devil’s advocate position on this but it’s a bit misguided.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:48 am
If licensing hair-dressers is a mistake, or a corrupt concession to what? the huge and immensely powerful licensed hair-dresser lobby?
At issue is not whether hair-dressers should be licensed: at issue is whether the limited act of braiding hair for pay should require one to have a full-fledged cosmetology license.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:52 am
Without knowing ‘how does one become a licensed plumber?’ it is hard to even know how think if licensing plumbers is a good idea. If it is go downtown and take a two day test, that would be fine. If it is ‘work for a licensed plumber for five years and have him certify your work as high enough quality’, then it raises serious problems.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:04 am
In practice, plumbing related issues aren’t that important.
Enjoy your new home, Matt.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:21 am
i agree with the posters taking the licensing is necessary but should be kept as simple as possible position. and, i agree that the most important function of municipal licensing is bonding/insurance.
i am employed as an attorney by a large northeastern city. we have had problems recently with unlicensed taxis operating in the city. the companies avoid the licensing requirement because getting a license requires getting a decent amount of insurance, and a decent amount of insurance is expensive. the taxi companies operate with limited capital so that they’re basically judgment proof. when there’s an accident, the drivers and passengers can find themselves totally screwed.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:23 am
While studying for the bar exam I initially thought much like the Big Chief here. Why on Earth to I have to learn commercial paper law to such detail? As I studied the amount I had to learn conveniently shrank and became psychologically manageable. At that point my attitude shifted from complaint and self-pity to sheer jealous anger that other professions could get away without proving a general knowledge base.
In my mind the bar exam and medical boards are a sort of high-jump bar that ensures a base level of knowledge and competency. Certainly spending public funds to hunt down rogue hair-dressers seems rediculous, but (as some of the other commenters have noted) it’s relatively easy to point out those professions in need of strict liscensing.
Lawyers and doctors operate in fields that laymen simply cannot. Clients have to trust that people in these fields will behave with skill and ethical integrity. They also need agencies to enforce those codes.
I can agree that many liscenses could be done away with, but I will submit two professions in NEED of strict liscensing: financial services and JOURNALISM.
Financial service industries have liscensing tests, but you simply take a two day course and BOOM, your liscensed to invest money, re-rinance mortgages, and generally control the livlihood of another human. I think we can see why such casual requirements are a bad idea.
If there’s anything these last eight years have shown us, it’s that journalists are at least as essential to the health of the Republic as doctors and lawyers. I would LOOOOVE to have journalists pass their own bar exam with subjects like history, logic, economics, and, of course, sports questions for bonus points. They should require ethics liscensing as well.
I would certainly read newspapers and magazines that only hired reporters capable of passing a test as difficult as the bar exam.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:25 am
You should have an edit button. Sorry for the grammatical errors.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:26 am
If one is following the letter of the law, all new construction and major remo work must be permitted. this means getting the relevant permits – electrical, plumbing, construction etc. The work will be inspected by the relevant City or County inspector at various points in the process and at the end to make sure it is up to code. I have had quibbles with the inanities of some of the codes where I live, but not with the quality of the inspectors. I built my own house with the help of one friend, neither of us licensed in any trade. I did all the wiring and plumbing myself and passed all the relevant inspections. I wired and plumbed the boiler for our hydronic heating system and did the gas line plumbing, two things that if done incorrectly could have catastrophic consequences. The codes are sometimes byzantine, but in most cases clearly designed to insure a safe finished product. So it matters not a whit if you use Jabba the Hut to install your new gas line and furnace. But if the work is not up to code, you could well end up blowing yourself up. So the value of regulation, in the trades, is in making sure the work is done correctly. Any commercial job will require that the relevant tradesperson be bonded and insured, and in the case of electricians and plumbers, you must pass a licensing exam.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:48 am
I would like to offer my experience with building trade licensing regulations. I am an architect in Chicago and have extensive experience with this issue.
There are two main reasons for licensing in the construction industry. First, and most importantly, the license gives a city the opportunity to set minimum knowledge standards to protect the health and safety of the public. Architects, engineers, and builders have an enormous responsibility, far greater than any health worker, to be sure that the buildings they design and construct are safe for the hundreds and thousands of people that inhabit them. Licensing requirements can verify that the people responsible for the work understand the appropriate codes and know how to perform the work. Second, licensing is an important tool that cities use to maintain a record of the people who work on buildings. If there is a catastrophic failure of one of the building systems the license can be used to make sure that the responsible parties are not in a position to repeat their failure.
I can illustrate this with a quick example. In Chicago, mid and high rise buildings require copper or iron plumbing drain pipes and vents to be installed in lieu of PVC, which is commonly used in single family homes and residential 2-3 flats. I have been in arguments with many plumbers, working under the license of their boss, who claim that the PVC will work just as well and should be used to save money. It is true that for draining of wastewater the PVC will work fine, however, that is not the relevant issue in a high rise. The vertical plumbing risers can provide a route for fire to spread through a building. PVC will quickly melt in a fire creating a hole in a matter of minutes. Metal pipes might eventually fail in an extreme fire, but they will buy people time to escape. The licensing requirements for plumbers make sure that they are aware of their impact on fire safety, not simply the functionality of their work. Furthermore, if it is determined that a fire were allowed to spread through a building due to the improper substitution of PVC piping then that plumber will certainly never work in Chicago again.
It is not enough to simply license the building designers. What I draw, and what is permitted, frequently changes as it is being built. This is not a bad thing, late changes can work to the advantage of everyone, but it is critical that the changes do not adversely impact the safety of the building. The licensing system makes sure that everyone has a business interest in creating the safest construction possible.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:53 am
This is an excellent example of theory (lowering barriers to allow individuals to compete in the market) being ground in the woodchipper of practice (exploding sewer gas – ewww). The single thing I took away from these posts is Matthew doesn’t know a specific thing about plumbing, dentistry or hair braiding.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:10 am
Building on #35 and assuming you’re not on the top floor, how would you have your immediate upstairs neighbor make his plumbing decisions?
October 21st, 2008 at 11:18 am
I think Matt’s biggest problem is he thinks lots of people call plumbers to install new faucets or toliets. Or unclog drains. They just don’t. They often will do the first set themselves if they can or call a handyman if they can’t. The second is why roto-rooter exists. Plumbers do new construction, remodeling and disaster services (ie exploded pipes). This isn’t something thats is as easy at Matt assumes it is.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:30 am
At issue is not whether hair-dressers should be licensed: at issue is whether the limited act of braiding hair for pay should require one to have a full-fledged cosmetology license.
Um, no. [T]he point is that the burden of proof should be on the proponents of these licensing regimes to show that they’re doing some good. To assume that that burden hasn’t been met by the legislators who enacted the hair-braiding act in question or any other “licensing regime” is to assume either bad faith of some kind or mistake. I’d assume there’s a burden of proof there, too. The record is public; it’s open for inspection. What does it show?
October 21st, 2008 at 11:38 am
What Jacob Swindler said.
Talked with a contractor about this. He said that being able to say “I can’t do that or I’d lose my license. Are you willing to offer an amount of money equal to all my future earnings and those of my employees?” is all that keeps him (and us) from shoddy, shady, and downright construction practices. Without the risk of license loss (which is a huge time and financial investment on the part of the holder), employers would be able to make all sorts of demands of contractors, plumbers, etc.
Part of the keeping the world safe is making sure that as many steps in the chain as possible are kept accountable. Not to say that sleazy and illegal stuff doesn’t go on, but this at least leaves room for cleaning it up.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:47 am
Ultimately, the best guarantor of quality service in most of these fields is going to be market competition.
Please. The market for plumbing is in many ways like the market for medical care; most people would prefer not to be in the market at all, and if they are, they don’t have the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions about consumption. They are forced to rely on the opinions of the experts (who are usually often the service providers, but that conflict of interest is an issue for another thread). It’s not a free market if the consumer isn’t equipped to make an informed choice.
Once (back in “the day”) I worked as an electrician’s assistant. After a few months I knew enough to accomplish basic wiring and repair tasks on my own, but you wouldn’t have wanted me wiring your house. My work was done under the supervision of a master electrician – sometimes that meant my boss was on site watching (and teaching), and sometimes it meant he checked everything out after I finished. Being a master electrician means actually knowing national and local electrical codes so you don’t, for example, choose the wrong size wire for a circuit in an effort to save money and end up creating a fire hazard. It also means being insured so if you do screw up, the victims can at least get restitution. And the regulating structure also means that if I claim to be a master electrician and I’m not, I’m breaking the law and can be fined or even jailed.
Plumbing is just as important as electrics, for reasons commenters above have noted.
Matt, try to resist the impulse to dig in your heels. It’s o.k. to admit you’ve gone off the reservation or talked a topic that’s outside your area of expertise. You’ve committed a classic error made by many of my writing students; you make a claim that’s too broad for your evidence to support.
Yes, you’re gith, one element of professional licensing is “turf protection.” There’s no doubt that that is true, and that it’s a problem that deserves some attention, but professional licensing also has important, desirable benefits that are worth the cost of a little abuse. If you could limit yourself to a discussion of these costs and benefits that was grounded in reality, you might make some progress toward identifying principles for moving toward a better system. You would also find yourself less like to say really stupid things like “plumbing related issues aren’t that important” or “the best guarantor of quality service in most of these fields is going to be market competition,” or suggesting that people would be well served to have their teeth cleaned regularly without being attended by someone trained to recognize and diagnose oral disease.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:51 am
you’re githshould be
“you’re right”
October 21st, 2008 at 11:54 am
I’m in the plumbing industry and deal with licensed and unlicensed plumbers and I’d like to echo what someone already said. No standards will signal a race to the bottom of pricing and ultimately in quality. I see it every day. If a licensed plumber screws up and doesnt fix his mistake there are reprucussions that would hurt his business. If its an unlicensed guy you might never see or hear from him again or if he does get sued he’ll file for bankruptcy and be open the next day under his wife or brothers name(I saw a company who was responsible for killing a guy by burying him with a backhoe by accident open a month later under his wifes name). You may have a point about hair braiding although I’ll point to you when someone gets chemical burns on their head from some clueless stylist but there is a old world war II phrase from those propaganda posters “The plumber protects the health of a nation” and there is some serious truth in that. Like I said you have a point about some professions but you act like all plumbers do is put pipes together and show their ass crack while there is some serious math and science that goes along with the trade. I find your argument kind of dismissive and without a real depth of knowledge as to the challenge that goes along with doing the proffesion right and being accountable for your work.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:03 pm
FearItself said it best. And I echo the thought that this is Matt’s I’m-not-a-doctrinaire-liberal flag. I have a few of those flags, too. But this is a really bad position. Become pro-life or something, instead, is my recommendation.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
To assume that that burden hasn’t been met by the legislators who enacted the hair-braiding act in question or any other “licensing regime” is to assume either bad faith of some kind or mistake. I’d assume there’s a burden of proof there, too. The record is public; it’s open for inspection. What does it show?
I believe the claim is that legislators did not foresee a situation in which people would start offering limited, specific, simple hair-related services such as braiding, and so licenses were designed with the idea in mind that licensees would be providing hair cutting, hair-dying, and all other sorts of services.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
In practice, plumbing related issues aren’t that important.
I believe that the book Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization might disagree with you on that.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I am a carpenter of twenty five years experience with supervisory experience and I will give Matt a nod in his direction as often plumbers with licenses don’t do any better work than those without. The license inflates the cost usually.
But Joe of Ohio was a fool for bringing his ‘expertise’ up. A license shows seriousness of purpose and is usually necessary in more complicated and more renumerative commercial jobs. Joe was a liar too about his ability to pay for a business. Metal will melt and even burn in a fire just a much as plastic. Often metal with evaporate as did my aluminum based table saw did when a friend accidently burned his garage and some of my tools with it. Architects complain about costs but then should know that many substitutes are still valid. Plastics do give off toxins when buring though…but the expenses of copper piping are so prohibitive, many architects are seeing the light. Chicago? eh, sort of tricky, relatives of my son’s are there and are well-known architects but they still have contractors who use non-English speaking types and cabinets made in Amish country non-licensed shops.
Reputation is more important than a license. And much of licensing is just to inflate costs to keep wages high…which isn’t such a bad thing. But most residencial plumbing can be done effectively by handimen or diy-types.
Sometimes, architects are so out of touch with actually building I have to laugh. Having gone to a year of architecture school.. and if I wasn’t so old, I wouldn’t mind finishing it sometime and after seeing architects in the field…some of their arguments are so airy-fairy I have to respond and fix their problems. So many of them can’t even design stairs and have trouble with soffits just on residential designs I get reactionary when they complain how much craftsmen cost? And plumbing safety is a joke. Some expensive plumber warned me about the threats of sewer gas….it’s an annoyance but no one’s ever died from it. Sometimes the fear-mongering is total bs…like asbestoes abatement and killer mold. Annoyances but not the same as Deadly Flu breakouts, hardly.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Licensing Hair-braiding dressing is probably out of bounds but …
After moving into our house, we moved the stove and found an electrical line duct-taped to the gas line.
Having fewer houses blow up is a significant benefit. I submit this as “proof” for electric- and gas-line work.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:43 pm
it seems to me that I have 2 concerns when I hire a plumber. first, do they know what they are doing, and second, is their work insured. While I believe that unlicensed people can do as good a job as those who are licensed, i believe this is a flaw in THE WAY that people are licensed, not in the act of licensing them. Insurers, on the other hand, need some type of standing to determine how to insure an individual. Any method that they will use, effectively becomes a license.
So, I believe that this argument should move on from license or not, to a more valid, what are the costs and requirements of a license, and how can we make the government more responsive to consumers and not to the already licensed.
For instance, i once had a new home built for me, on a cul-de-sac, on a hill. To prevent my kids form waliking up, and ruining the grass, I had the builders build a concrete stairway. The township came by and fined me for building the stairway without a permit. I was required to both pay a fine and pay for the permit. The question I asked the township was why should I now have to purchase a permit, as the plans could not be approved after the fact, nor could the work be inspected for safety reasons. The township had no answer, and clearly paying for the permit was nothing more than making sure the township got “their cut” on the job. That is an example of a system with no interest in helping the taxpayer or people, but simply increasing the revenue.
When discussing licensure, which is a necessary thing for public safety and fair consumer protection, the licensure boards MUST be organized to serve the consumers, NOT the professions being licensed.
October 21st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Ultimately, the best guarantor of quality service in most of these fields is going to be market competition. That means lowering barriers to entry rather than raising them.
Just the thing to read for a good laugh while waiting at the airport.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
This is a really good and informative discussion. Thanks.
My own two cents about licensing hair braiders. Anyone whose work involves close physical proximity with and especially touching their customers should at a minimum have to periodically prove they are not carriers of a communicable disease that is easily transmitted in the course of business. Renewable licensing seems a simple, if imperfect, way to require such proof.
But then who licenses the licensers?
October 21st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
There’s a movie producer friend of mine who’s been practicing dentistry sans license since the late 70’s. He preys on vulnerable friends who find themselves with raging toothaches in the wee small hours. If there’s anyone who thinks this a dastardly offense that it ought to be stopped – I’ll gladly supply his name.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Matt,
Let me repeat. You really don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
Plumbing is rather important to public health and safety and having a responsible individual who is well trained, insured, and understands the plumbing codes is no small thing.
Seriously stick to writing about what you know rather than posit bullshit liberterian tripe you’ve heard from McMegan while sharing a joint. Sheesh.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Look, Matt, Megan’s not going to fuck you either.
I’m going to make an ‘elitism’ point here, which is to say that someone from a family of artists really needs to demonstrate a degree of clue when it comes to skilled trades.
The old apprenticeship model that was common in my parents’ generation is withering on the vine, whereby it was possible to assess the capabilities of even a relatively young tradesman — and it was a male-only domain back then — by whom he served his time under. In the absence of that kind of tacit guarantee, you need something abstract to take its place. The apprentice-master model (the guild system, if you like) has been a kind of turf protection and a guarantee to distinguish skilled trades for a long time. Oh fucking noes.
In the meantime, please do call in Joe The Cowboy when you need some significant trades-based work doing on your new place, and let us know how you get on.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Ultimately, the best guarantor of quality service in most of these fields is going to be market competition.
I’d like to know if Uncle Miltie or William F. Buckley called up the first 1,000 names in the Boston phone book to sort out burst pipes in winter.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Licensing that ensures a minimum degree of quality, that the person who’s services we are paying for will make things better rather than worse, I support.
However, a lot of licensing requirements are just a way to restrict the labor supply into skilled professions & drive up prices. Dean Baker talks about this extensively in The Conservative Nanny State
The former I support, the latter I don’t.
I want my Dentists accredited and skilled. I don’t want my Dentists making the decisions over which or how many or which Dentists I can choose from & if I want a teeth cleaning, I should be able to pay an independent licensed dental hygenist if I want to.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I’m sorry to hear datadave has so much mistrust of architects. I am certainly aware of the reputation architects have among some trades people, and it’s unfortunate. Some architects are incompetent, but most know quite well how buildings come together. Some are arrogant SOB’s who like to think that they know better than people that have been working in a trade all their lives, but most that I know respect and defer to trades when it comes to methods and means of construction.
Having said that, any competent architect will defend specifications or details that impact the safety of the building. Not all substitutions can be determined by cost. While is true that both PVC and metal will burn, the critical issue is how long it takes for a fire to get hot enough to melt the material. Imagine you are sleeping in your condo above or adjacent to another unit where a fire breaks out. Would you rather have 3 hours, iron, 1 hour, copper, or 10 minutes, PVC, to wake-up realize there was a fire next door and get out of the building? Two years ago, in Chicago, there was a fire at night in an apartment building that didn’t have the proper fire separations and six young children died. This is not a hypothetical concern.
Building codes and inspections attempt to minimize the instances of tragedy such as this. It is the responsibility of architects, engineers, and all building trades to understand these regulations. Licensing provides a strong motivation to obey the rules and build safe buildings. My architecture license required six years of education, three years of residency and a very comprehensive 11-part board exam. You had better believe that I am not going to risk all that work over minor cost savings for a client.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Licenses, permits and fines for license/permit-violators are important revenue generators for many municipalities and states. Much or all of that revenue is frequently earmarked in turn for enforcement of safety, sanitation and environmental codes within that industry, as well as collection of statistics and other useful research. It’s a way of making the licensees pay for their own oversight. Without licensing, you still need oversight, regulation and enforcement, but you’ll have to find some other way to pay for it, which I’d argue would be inherently less fair.
I don’t have a problem with the concept of licensing, but I agree that in practice it is often corrupt, ineffective, arbitrary, discriminatory, etc. On the whole, however, I think licensing has solved and prevented many more problems than it has created.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I live on 5th floor of a building in NYC, with the water-walls shared by 30+ other apartments. Hmm, could anything go wrong with an unsupervised amateur plumber designing and implementing his plumbing solution in one of the apts on the 15th floor?
Oh, yeah, I know! 20 apartments get ceiling and wall damage, and several get flood damage. Glad I rent (though I should really demand a rent reduction from the cracked moldings I still have.)
October 21st, 2008 at 11:07 pm
All of you licensing supporters, I just don’t get you. In regard to medical licensing, Paul Starr and Milton Friedman are pretty much in accord. See, Paul Starr’s (now classic) The Social Transformation of American Medicine and the appropriate chapter in Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom for both a leftwing and a rightwing critique of licensing in health care.
http://www.amazon.com/Social-Transformation-American-Medicine/dp/0465079350
October 22nd, 2008 at 2:26 am
I’m just a passing conservative, wandering through here almost by accident, but I’d like to offer my thoughts, just this once.
Ultimately, the best guarantor of quality service in most of these fields is going to be market competition.
Is making wisecracks the best anyone can do to respond to this proposition? It’s easy to thoughtlessly write it off when everyone in the room agrees with you (a sentiment with which, as champions of the value of diversity and equal opportunity, you all would, of course, be among the first to agree). Mr. Yglesias should be commended, not condemned for expanding his vision to include good ideas from the Dark Side.
Get control of your knee reflexes and look at the world around you. It is fundamentally one of markets. Market competition is the reason you can shop for food at Whole Foods, Safeway or your local farmer’s market; buy your clothes at Armani, The Gap or WalMart; drive a Ferrari, an F-150 or a Prius. Heck, it’s the reason why we can have a financial catastrophe and you can still eat food, wear clothes and drive cars.
Mr. Yglesias was stating a fact of life, not some “Libertarian claptrap”. Stop falling all over yourselves to be anti-conservative and open your eyes.
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
to mr yglesias and his critics of this article i am currently studying for my maryland home improvement liscense test and i can tell you that none of the questions are about building code or construction skills they are all about taxes and wether you know the right way to pay them you dont need to know anything about construction to pass it further more they have the testing place in Croften which is 25 miles from baltimore to make it more difficult for people to get there its mainly to keep out compitition . for a good understanding of thiss read a book b james fallows called More like us . sincerly pete
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