On Wed, 25 Jan 1995, James A. Donald wrote:
On Tue, 24 Jan 1995, Don Doumakes wrote:
But I don't buy your other implication, that it is a Good Thing to unleash the unlicensed. Licensing serves, or should serve, a public good under the following conditions: (a) consumers don't have the information necessary to make an informed choice between professionals, and ....
This assumes that governments have the necessary wisdom to tell a bad architect from a good architect. This does not seem very plausible.
What most people would do is look at the certificate issued by various certifying organizations -- for example the doctores university.
While universities often issue or refrain from issuing certificates for corrupt and improper reasons, government supervision on this matter is unlikely to keep them honest --- indeed it is more likely to force them to be dishonest, or to force them to deny their own sound judgment in favor of arbitrary and foolish criteria imposed by some ignorant and arrogant bureaucrat.
So....once we get past what seems to be your utter refusal to consider the possibility that government could ever do anything right ....how do we ensure that those skyscrapers don't fall down on us? That the surgeon who is going to open me up knows something about surgery? That my money is at least somewhat safe in the bank? If you are willing to trust your life to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', then good luck to you. I prefer to see the hand out on the table. Charles Bell