5 ms·

> Calculating only the cost is useful information. I mean, kind of, but it's not remotely the only relevant piece of information. I could make you a car for $2

> Calculating only the cost is useful information. I mean, kind of, but it's not remotely the only relevant piece of information. I could make you a car for $2,000. Would you want to drive it at highway speeds in it? What do you think your chances of survival would be in an accident? The article makes a point to call out the music therapy case to conjure the specter of seemingly unnecessary regulation leading to regulatory capture, but the vast majority of licensed occupations are licensed because bad shit happened when they weren't. Doctors were quacks. Bridges fell down. Buildings caught fire. Planes fell from the sky. Millions of dollars in damages and countless lives were lost over and over because some greedy sumbitch decided to cut corners or defraud his customers or just didn't think about the consequences of his design or service decisions. These regulations exist because people ruined it. And I mean, is music therapy dangerous if it's misused? I don't know. I don't even know what music therapy is used to treat! What harm can unethical application music therapy cause? Physiotherapy can easily be unethical. So can psychotherapy and counseling. Why is music therapy harmless, especially if it's been shown to have measurable heath effects? And how can I tell the difference between an actual music therapist whose treatment is based on established practices, and some guy with a blindfold, some headphones, a nice couch, and an mp3 player? Rely on my for-profit insurance company to do that for me, when they have a conflict of interest as well? Yes, it's difficult to gauge the effectiveness of regulation, especially because you can't tell if what you got for $5,000 in regulation might have been just as effective as if it had cost $500. But arguing that the choice of whether or not to regulate comes down entirely to cost is kind of absurd.

mirashii 8y ago
> But arguing that the choice of whether or not to regulate comes down entirely to cost is kind of absurd. But this isn't what was argued. From the post you replied to > For example, if hairdressers are licensed due to questions of sanitation, perhaps the same benefit -- or more benefit -- could be achieved through periodic health inspections rather then licensing individual hairdressers. Regulation has many forms. Licensing is only one of them.
- mcguire 8y ago
  Most hairdressers are independent subcontractors. The license is the only handle the regulatory system has on them short of criminal proceedings.
  - CryptoPunk 8y ago
    Perhaps the 1400 hour instruction requirement could be cut down to 20 hours, and the licensing could remain to give health inspectors a registry of who to inspect? Something like that would be the approach if the goal were to use regulations to maintain good hygiene without imposing undue costs on young people hoping to get into the industry. If the intention of the license is to keep others out of the field of work though, 1400 hours of instruction would be the approach taken.
CryptoPunk 8y ago
>>but the vast majority of licensed occupations are licensed because bad shit happened when they weren't. Doctors were quacks. Bridges fell down. Buildings caught fire. Planes fell from the sky. You repeat this as an article of faith. Do you have any evidence that licensing increased safety? If yes, do you have any evidence that the increase in friction for those wanting to enter a field of work incurred less social costs than the risks alleviated from the occupational licensing? If you're going to massively intervene to restrict economic interactions between consenting adults, at the very least you need a comprehensive, well-sourced argument for the net utility of such restrictions. I've personally never seen such a case made for the centralization approach. It's all just repeating a narrative as if it's self-evident it's true, which is not giving things as complex and impactful as economics and the laws that govern us the respect they deserve.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> What harm can unethical application music therapy cause? For that matter, what about retail clerks? They could defraud their customers or steal from their employers. We could license them too. Farmers workers could contaminate food. So could restaurant workers. Janitors who fail to clean properly could allow disease to spread. Groundskeepers operate dangerous equipment. News reporters could misreport the news. Priests could give bad advice -- or worse. To say nothing of legislators. Just about anyone could screw up their job with severe consequences. So why do we license the people who cut your hair but not the people who make your food? It makes no sense. And before you conclude that the answer should be that we license people who make food, consider the consequences for people who would no longer be able to afford food. (Or a medical care, or legal services, or to have a working toilet.) The more important something is, the more important it is that we don't price people out of being able to afford it.

mirashii 8y ago

> But arguing that the choice of whether or not to regulate comes down entirely to cost is kind of absurd. But this isn't what was argued. From the post you replied to > For example, if hairdressers are licensed due to questions of sanitation, perhaps the same benefit -- or more benefit -- could be achieved through periodic health inspections rather then licensing individual hairdressers. Regulation has many forms. Licensing is only one of them.

mcguire 8y ago
Most hairdressers are independent subcontractors. The license is the only handle the regulatory system has on them short of criminal proceedings.
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  Perhaps the 1400 hour instruction requirement could be cut down to 20 hours, and the licensing could remain to give health inspectors a registry of who to inspect? Something like that would be the approach if the goal were to use regulations to maintain good hygiene without imposing undue costs on young people hoping to get into the industry. If the intention of the license is to keep others out of the field of work though, 1400 hours of instruction would be the approach taken.

CryptoPunk 8y ago

>>but the vast majority of licensed occupations are licensed because bad shit happened when they weren't. Doctors were quacks. Bridges fell down. Buildings caught fire. Planes fell from the sky. You repeat this as an article of faith. Do you have any evidence that licensing increased safety? If yes, do you have any evidence that the increase in friction for those wanting to enter a field of work incurred less social costs than the risks alleviated from the occupational licensing? If you're going to massively intervene to restrict economic interactions between consenting adults, at the very least you need a comprehensive, well-sourced argument for the net utility of such restrictions. I've personally never seen such a case made for the centralization approach. It's all just repeating a narrative as if it's self-evident it's true, which is not giving things as complex and impactful as economics and the laws that govern us the respect they deserve.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> What harm can unethical application music therapy cause? For that matter, what about retail clerks? They could defraud their customers or steal from their employers. We could license them too. Farmers workers could contaminate food. So could restaurant workers. Janitors who fail to clean properly could allow disease to spread. Groundskeepers operate dangerous equipment. News reporters could misreport the news. Priests could give bad advice -- or worse. To say nothing of legislators. Just about anyone could screw up their job with severe consequences. So why do we license the people who cut your hair but not the people who make your food? It makes no sense. And before you conclude that the answer should be that we license people who make food, consider the consequences for people who would no longer be able to afford food. (Or a medical care, or legal services, or to have a working toilet.) The more important something is, the more important it is that we don't price people out of being able to afford it.