[someguydave]

>probably not warranted in many cases.

Ah but physicians prove my point - the state typically requires many years of education and licensing to be a physician - whether you use the skills learned or not.

>but they will likely always earn more money than me.

Probably so. In the US I think this is because physicians have been very good at getting the state to drastically limit who can practice medicine. There are nearly zero limitations who who can practice programming, and barely any limitations on engineering.

Think about it - if you needed a to pass an examination, get a license, and spend years on post-undergrad schooling & forced unpaid internships programmers would have very high salaries.

[dikdik]

I absolutely agree, but if much of the "value" you provide is via protectionist legislation then all we are saying here is that blue collar workers should lobby for extremely high entry points and credentials for their jobs so they "have the right" to earn decent salaries.

I think that's just a terrible idea all around. You should be able to earn a great wage without suppressing the market to justify it. Or rather, people should not be rewarded for building/propagating high entry points to their careers. I get WHY it works out the way it does (bc capitalism), but it seems that in the end we all lose out.