4818

So are we only taking about this one very narrow example of occupational licensing, or the idea in general? Because California has passed additional occupational licensing laws increasing the regulations, as recently as last year, I believe.

4819

I don’t object to the idea in general. I think it’s a good idea to require doctors and lawyers to obtain a license, for example.

That said, I’m not sure what new California laws you are referring to. AFAIK the last major law was in 2018, which loosened license requirements across the board (basically making it easier for applicants to get a license if they had a criminal record).

If you have something else in mind, you’ll have to be more specific.

4820

Here’s an example, started in 1992.
https://www.barbercosmo.ca.gov/

Barbering is not some kind of critical service that merits a need for regulation. Cutting hair is not rocket surgery.

4821

I favor some sort of minimum standards because getting my hair cut and ending up with a louse infestation or worse would suck.

I take no stand on whether the existing regulatory regime is too harsh, as I sadly no longer live in the Liberal Hellhole of California.

4822

The Board of Barber Examiners and the Board of Cosmetology were both established in 1927.

The only thing that happened in 1992 is that they merged.

4823

Barbers and hair dressers are licenced in all states, even ours ¶. I’m pretty sure hygiene is important.

4824

Is anyone really arguing that occupational licensing is a bad thing?

Licensing and regulating are two different things. I think you can make an argument that some things are over regulated.

4825

Not just that they are bad, but that they are liberal and bad.

4826

Unnecessary licensing is definitely a bad thing.

Dude, you don’t need the government to mandate licensing for businesses to not give you lice.

Because of they did, they would go out of business.

This is the whole thing… Some folks act as though, without the government micromanaging everything, that the world would descend into anarchy. As though businesses don’t survive on actually doing good business.

Besides, in the case of things like barber licenses, you are talking about requiring individual barbers to pay fees for specific training and certification. That doesn’t affect things like the cleanliness of a shop. It’s just a nuisance, forcing people to pay fees before they can work… At a job which is not at all life critical. If a barber gives you a bad haircut (which he could totally do even after certification) you aren’t gonna die. You can just not go back there.

Here, look at these requirements that folks need to go through.

The government doesn’t need to be involved in everything.

4827

It’s no coincidence that licensing in California started in the 1920s, not long after The Jungle was published. Companies have a financial incentive to take calculated risks with their public image. This is not just theoretical, we’ve seen time and again that businesses can do pretty awful things to some of their customers / community, yet still prosper.

Potential customer backlash is simply not a strong enough deterrent, that’s why regulation is often necessary.

4828

I really don’t know why some people pretend that markets are self-regulating, that market forces will always constrain the worst impulses of players in the market, when we’ve seen throughout history that this just isn’t so.

4829

Capitalism clearly works because there aren’t oil spills or explosions at factories that kill dozens/hundreds, because if that happened those companies would go out of business.

And airlines don’t take risks that would lead to, say, several crashes and hundreds of deaths, because if they did that they’d go out of business.

And banks don’t falsely sign up millions of their customers to fake accounts to cook their books, while overcharging them, because if they did that they’d go out of business.

4830

No one would ever make the rear end of the car function as the gas tank.

4831

If a car company intentionally altered their software to recognize that it was being used to measure pollutants to reduce performance enough to pass the test, then lied about it to investigators, they’d just go out of business.

4832

No one would deliberately addict millions of people to opioids in order to sell more pills. People would quickly stop doing business with any company that tried that shit. Then where would that company be?

4833

With no licensing body what’s to stop the guy with unsanitary practices just opening up shop under a different name? “They’ll just go out of business” even if it were true, so? A business is a temporary thing. If there’s no organization keeping track of which individuals had multiple businesses at the center of lice outbreaks what’s going to stop them from just doing the same thing over and over?

4834

Dude, we aren’t talking about life critical services like the medical industry, or construction. We aren’t talking about things like the food supply.

It’s cutting hair.

And again, things like licensing individual barbers and hair stylists isn’t the same as guaranteeing safety in a business.

Now, the funny thing is that being a cosmetologist is, hilariously, one of the most onerously regulated professions, so you could argue that its not limited to California (although regulations on California appear to be higher than most other states).

What’s funny though, is that like almost every topic in this thread, where at some point it’s, “that’s not a liberal thing, actual liberals don’t think that”, we always come to the point where liberals in the thread itself start to argue how it’s actually a good thing.

4835

You could argue this because it is true. In which case, the logical chain that goes:

There is a stupid thing in California
California is liberal
Thus that stupid thing is a stupid liberal thing

…breaks down, which was pretty much the first response to the OP.

Maybe I missed it, so please point to that argument being made about this OP.

4836

I was gonna come in here and dunk on some libertarian nonsense, but I see the situation is well in hand. Carry on, carry on.

4837

Yes, sometimes.

Doctors. Pharmacists. Engineers. Architects. Gas fitters. People responsible for constructing or modifying load bearing elements. If they do something wrong, people die or at the very least serious and lasting dmaage occurs. Occupational licensing makes sense.

But barbers? Sanitary requirements can be controlled by licensing premises. No need to license individuals. If someone doesn’t know what they are doing? They’ll go out of business soon enough. Similarly with painters and decorators.

Also I love all the @Menzo and @scottagibson examples of heavily regulated industries with extensive occupational licensing requirements and other regulation - I think they are proving the opposite point to the one they think.