The best example in the book is how interior designers need a required 4 yr bachelor diploma, pass a difficult test, and buy a licence, in order to choose what

The best example in the book is how interior designers need a required 4 yr bachelor diploma, pass a difficult test, and buy a licence, in order to choose what furniture and paint colors will look best in a persons living in Florida. Similar regulations exist for cutting/styling hair. Or cutting nails professionally. So, would you like to compare to how long an apprenticeship you'd have to serve, or what hoops you'd have to jump through and payments you'd have to make, to get into a skilled-trade guild in the golden old days? Or look at the 'Burkini' ban happening in France right now. Sumptuary laws and other regulations on clothing are millennia old. 21 million people are working for the US government alone. That's 16% of employed people and not counting the massive amount of private industry that works directly off of gov contracts (particularily significant in the defense industry). So it's probably closer to ~20%. More than all Fortune 500 companies combined. In a feudal society 100% of people worked for either the government or the church. 16% is a nice downsize from that.