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In many cases, these licencing schemes are put in place by incumbent trade groups, to prevent comeptition. For example, an association of funeral home owners w

by mjd 2y ago

In many cases, these licencing schemes are put in place by incumbent trade groups, to prevent comeptition. For example, an association of funeral home owners will lobby their state representative for a law forbidding the sale of coffins by anyone other than a licensed funeral director. Ostensibly this somehow protects the public from unscrupulous coffin-sellers. In actuality, its main effect is to protect the profits of the funeral home oligopoly. (Lest you think this is a fanciful example, see St. Joseph Abbey v. Castille.) The AMA education requirements are of essentially the same sort, put in place by a compliant legislature to protect the profits of an incumbent cartel, at great cost to the public. Advances in artificial intelligence will do nothing, absolutely nothing, to catalyze reform of what is essentially a problem of politics and greed. https://ij.org/case/saint-joseph-abbey-et-al-v-castille-et-al/ https://ij.org/case/saint-joseph-abbey-et-al-v-castille-et-a...

mjd 2y ago
I would add too that these laws often serve the same interests of white supremacy that they have since the Civil War. After the end of Reconstruction the Southern states instituted laws now called the “Black Codes”, forbidding blacks from being blacksmiths, or grocers, from owning property, or doing any sort of work other than, effectively, being sharecroppers - essentially slaves of the same white landowners as before. Consider who is hurt most by laws requiring expensive and onerous licensing for independent hair-braiders. Are a lot of white hair-braiders suffering from this, do you suppose? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ty6853 2y ago
  Same with minimum wage. Whites were tired of blacks underbidding them, so they just outlawed their jobs by making unskilled labor valued below X illegal.
  - eesmith 2y ago
    "Minimum wage legislation emerged at the end of the nineteenth century from the desire to end sweatshops which had developed in the wake of industrialization.[17] Sweatshops employed large numbers of women and young workers, paying them what were considered non-living wages that did not allow workers to afford the necessaries of life." ... "The earliest minimum wage laws in the United States were state laws focused on women and children.[25] These laws were struck down by the Supreme Court between 1923 and 1937.[25] The first federal minimum wage law, which exempted large parts of the workforce, was enacted in 1938 and set rates that became obsolete during World War II.[25]' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta... We know your scenario isn't true because there are plenty of white-owned businesses which knowing hire undocumented workers in order to pay them sub-market wages with poor working conditions.
    - ty6853 2y ago
      Go back further. Minimums were applied to the railroad in 1909, pulling them up to the prevailing white wage when the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen became enraged blacks were working for cheaper.
      - eesmith 2y ago
        Yes, a lot of those unions were racist and xenophobic. You are, I believe, referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1909_Georgia_Railroad_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1909_Georgia_Railroad_strike ? I don't see anything about a minimum wage. I do see 'the arbitrators did rule that the railroad would be required to pay African American and white firemen the same wage' but nothing about how that minimum was set by law. Minimums for a union job are not the same as minimum wage, which is the legal minimum set by law. Union minimums predate the Civil War. For example, the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker's Society had a minimum price per shoe made, back in the 1830s, leading to Commonwealth v. Hunt.
  - pessimizer 2y ago
    This is a strange theory. Since when did sub-minimum wage jobs become "their jobs?" And since when did poor whites get to create policy?
pessimizer 2y ago
> In many cases, these licencing schemes are put in place by incumbent trade groups, to prevent comeptition. The worst is NAR and Realtors®. There's absolutely no professional instruction involved, just a morality test taken every few years that until the late-1940s early-1950s required that realtors maintain the racial character of neighborhoods (under penalty of disciplinary action.) They managed to get themselves written into most state and local laws. Only the explosion of aspirational middlemen occasioned by the internet has recently managed to push back on that. Hopefully the recent antitrust case against them is catastrophic, but they spend $100M a year lobbying. Lobbying government is basically all the NAR actually does and all the real value that members are getting. edit: https://www.notus.org/money/national-realtors-lobbying-politics https://www.notus.org/money/national-realtors-lobbying-polit...

by mjd 2y ago

mjd 2y ago

I would add too that these laws often serve the same interests of white supremacy that they have since the Civil War. After the end of Reconstruction the Southern states instituted laws now called the “Black Codes”, forbidding blacks from being blacksmiths, or grocers, from owning property, or doing any sort of work other than, effectively, being sharecroppers - essentially slaves of the same white landowners as before. Consider who is hurt most by laws requiring expensive and onerous licensing for independent hair-braiders. Are a lot of white hair-braiders suffering from this, do you suppose? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Codes_(United_States)

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ty6853 2y ago
Same with minimum wage. Whites were tired of blacks underbidding them, so they just outlawed their jobs by making unskilled labor valued below X illegal.
- eesmith 2y ago
  "Minimum wage legislation emerged at the end of the nineteenth century from the desire to end sweatshops which had developed in the wake of industrialization.[17] Sweatshops employed large numbers of women and young workers, paying them what were considered non-living wages that did not allow workers to afford the necessaries of life." ... "The earliest minimum wage laws in the United States were state laws focused on women and children.[25] These laws were struck down by the Supreme Court between 1923 and 1937.[25] The first federal minimum wage law, which exempted large parts of the workforce, was enacted in 1938 and set rates that became obsolete during World War II.[25]' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta... We know your scenario isn't true because there are plenty of white-owned businesses which knowing hire undocumented workers in order to pay them sub-market wages with poor working conditions.
  - ty6853 2y ago
    Go back further. Minimums were applied to the railroad in 1909, pulling them up to the prevailing white wage when the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen became enraged blacks were working for cheaper.
    - eesmith 2y ago
      Yes, a lot of those unions were racist and xenophobic. You are, I believe, referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1909_Georgia_Railroad_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1909_Georgia_Railroad_strike ? I don't see anything about a minimum wage. I do see 'the arbitrators did rule that the railroad would be required to pay African American and white firemen the same wage' but nothing about how that minimum was set by law. Minimums for a union job are not the same as minimum wage, which is the legal minimum set by law. Union minimums predate the Civil War. For example, the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker's Society had a minimum price per shoe made, back in the 1830s, leading to Commonwealth v. Hunt.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  This is a strange theory. Since when did sub-minimum wage jobs become "their jobs?" And since when did poor whites get to create policy?

pessimizer 2y ago

> In many cases, these licencing schemes are put in place by incumbent trade groups, to prevent comeptition. The worst is NAR and Realtors®. There's absolutely no professional instruction involved, just a morality test taken every few years that until the late-1940s early-1950s required that realtors maintain the racial character of neighborhoods (under penalty of disciplinary action.) They managed to get themselves written into most state and local laws. Only the explosion of aspirational middlemen occasioned by the internet has recently managed to push back on that. Hopefully the recent antitrust case against them is catastrophic, but they spend $100M a year lobbying. Lobbying government is basically all the NAR actually does and all the real value that members are getting. edit: https://www.notus.org/money/national-realtors-lobbying-politics https://www.notus.org/money/national-realtors-lobbying-polit...