Bob Livingston: Stopping the hidden theft: "occupational license"

万得福

Have you ever heard of the Bradbury building in downtown Los Angeles? It's one of the city's most beautiful buildings, old yet somehow still modern. Its origins are also still quite a mystery. The story is that an inexperienced, $5-a-day apprentice draftsman, with no formal architectural training and who only took the job after consulting a planchette (a heart-shaped piece of wood used in séances) designed the beautiful Bradbury. He created no other buildings of significance, ever.

The question often asked is, how was a young draftsman of no experience and of no note before or after, allowed to design something so important as a millionaire's office building? And how did he create something so enduringly beautiful?

The question I ask is, why is this such a rare instance?

My question is also rhetorical, since the answer is the least-noticed and most widespread tool of government control, intimidation and graft. The "occupational license."

People love to fight over the minimum wage. The debates make news all over the country. The left and the right love to argue over whether or not unions are good for workers or bad. The powers that be love it too, because meanwhile, they're busy making laws that restrict your right to create a living for yourself while you pay for the apparatus that imposes the restriction!

Occupational licensing laws directly affect more workers than the minimum wage or unionization (study by Krueger, 2010), and give sociopathic government officials a huge pool of "revenue."

Truly, if you thought the art of distraction was only employed by comedians and magicians, now you know they have nothing on government officials in their pursuit of a piece of your money at every turn. "Look over here at the minimum wage, look over there at efforts to unionize — while we take a huge bite out of more pre-tax earnings than you ever dreamed of."

One paper looking into the growth of occupational licensing noted that it's "stealth regulation" that restricts labor markets, stifles innovation, and stops worker mobility (Kleiner 2015). Why should a practitioner have to "re-license" in each state they move to? Why do some states have occupational licenses for hair braiders and some don't? Who do some states require 372 days of study to become a manicurist and a paramedic only 33 days (study by Dranias, 2007)?

The answer is that the desire of government officials to render unto themselves is unquenchable. Occupational licenses are simply accepted, even though they are a pre-tax on our earnings and products created.

State and local governments do not have a printing press that can run off trillions of new dollars, nor create them out of whole cloth in accounts designated by the Federal Reserve. Local and state budget deficits are real deficits. Licensing anything and everything that should be a right and not under the purview of any government — little by little, gradually, as always — is how they incrementally increase their control and graft. It's how they obtain more money to create more services to bring more people under the auspices of Big Government.

The Institute for Justice's report "License to Work" states: In documenting the license requirements for 102 occupations nationwide, this report finds that these laws can pose substantial barriers for those seeking work, particularly those most likely to aspire to these occupations — minorities, those of lesser means and those with less education. Moreover, about half the occupations studied offer the possibility of entrepreneurship, suggesting that these laws hinder both job attainment and creation.

Why would government impose such a burden, especially one in a country that claims all citizens have the opportunity for betterment?

Remember that Big Government is a masterpiece of corporate cynicism, propaganda perfection and people control. It was not created for the people, by the people nor of the people. It was created, or at least evolved, for the power and benefit of the elite and their politicians and bureaucrats.

And occupational licensing is definitely not benefiting the people. Especially the people who believe most in, and would benefit most from, the "American Dream" of entrepreneurship and pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps.

I have many readers write to me about inane and insane laws and taxation, complaining, "What are they doing? Are they clueless?"

Government is not haphazard and bungling. It does everything with careful calculation for the benefit of government and the concealment of its fraud upon the people. Licensing is just one more example, if a hidden and mostly accepted one.

There is an old saying: Where you stand depends on where you sit. Those who benefit from licensing fees and organizational fees like to tell you that this absurd and random form of taxation is simply an evolution of the guild system which flourished in medieval times. Hogwash. That's an attempt at justifying union dues and membership fees to the American Dental Association as if they were merchant guilds.

The "License to Work" report, in looking at over a hundred occupations subject to licensing fees, concludes that the inconsistent way the laws are made and which occupations are licensed means there is "... good reason to doubt that many licensing schemes are necessary. These inconsistencies may reflect not the relative public health and safety risks of occupations but instead the lobbying prowess of practitioners in securing laws to shut out competition."

In just over 60 years, the number of people subject to this new form of taxation has gone from 1 in 20 people requiring a license to 1 in every 3. Slowly, always slowly, do they tighten the screws on Americans' freedom to live and work. And raise the cost of living. Government regulations increase costs of goods for everyone involved.

Make no mistake, once empowered, licensing boards practice "license creep" which is when officials engulf other related practices in order to regulate them all — and stop competition, or impose their own morals, beliefs and standards. Did you know that cosmetology boards in 14 states have outlawed fish pedicures? Do you truly believe government should be involved in such a thing?

There are alternatives to licensing. One major type of commerce that occurs in the U.S. under the noses of the tax collectors is barter. I have a friend who lives in western North Carolina and has acres of land. One neighbor keeps bees on his land and trades it for honey. Another neighbor trades molasses for the cookies my friend's wife makes with it. And they trade everything from hay to mechanical work on the tractors. No licensing or taxation required.

To get around the need for licensing, you can get voluntary certification through professional associations which can gain wide acceptance and respect among consumers. An oft-cited example is ASE certification for auto mechanics through the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence. It's non-governmental, but prestigious and desired among mechanics and employers.

There are also consumer organizations like the Better Business Bureau, and crowd-sourced or web-based recommendation lists where the consumers hold producers of goods and services accountable for the quality of their output.

My prescription for throwing off government serfdom and escaping the endless-taxation system is always to read, read, read. Be curious. The greatest enemy of government is the knowledgeable individual. In order to defeat government control, the answer is to be an individualist. Ignore the party line. Parties are only interested in building their power base and collecting your money.

Understand that what the government wants from you under the guise of "consumer protection," you often don't need. Search out alternative sources of information. Read books and publications like The Bob Livingston Letter™ that enlighten and challenge government conformity and conventional wisdom.

My findings have stood my family and me quite well. I only wish that I could tap every one of you to join my success and my wonderful life derived from consistent and obsessive inquiry. Well, anyway, you benefit from these letters if you are getting the meaning and spirit of them.

Yours for the truth,

Bob Livingston
Editor, The Bob Livingston Letter™