[bastawhiz]

Acupuncture is snake oil, but I would very much prefer knowing that my acupuncturist has been checked out by someone qualified to check their skills. Just because it's snake oil doesn't mean that there are not expectations around its safety and application.

[Gibbon1]

That economists and libertarians hate that cosmetologists have to be licensed is what convinced me they aren't serious thinkers.

Because hepatitis is real.

Same deal with an acupuncturist.

[faster]

Food poisoning is real too, and I got a food handling certificate online in 20 minutes for about $20. Is cosmetology that much more complicated (safety-wise; incompetence has its own consequences, same as in the restaurant industry) than food handling? I really have no idea.

It does seem like quite a few of the things that require licenses in Texas would be just as safe with a certificate and random inspections (like they do with food handlers).

[ClumsyPilot]

Most people cook daily, but have you ever used an autoclave?

[trentnix]

> checked out by someone qualified to check their skills

Well sure, we'd all like that. But those of us who have experience dealing with government regulatory bodies (even justifiable ones like building inspectors, fire inspectors, etc.) are skeptical for good reason. The competence of your licensing overlords will vary greatly.

[bastawhiz]

The alternative is private bodies that answer to nobody, or no regulators at all. The remedy to bad government should not be no government, it should be reform and oversight.

[Aerroon]

Then go to one that has some kind of recommendation or badge of acupuncture quality. Why should the government do that?

[_Nat_]

> Why should the government do that?

Free-market dynamics require a lot of intellectual overhead.

For example, in a theoretical world with unbound computation and information-sharing, all stocks on the stock-market should be perfectly priced, and all doctors should be of known qualities. And all of those supplements in the pharmacy should be of known effect, and priced perfectly given that knowledge.

But in more limited contexts, where folks don't have infinite free information and computation, centralized authorities can help provide standards. For example, if you go to a licensed medical-doctor, then you may not know their exact quality, but at least you can generally infer that they're competent enough that the state hasn't yanked their license. Ditto for most other licensed professions.

Anyway, to answer your question: the government does it because it's too costly for everyone to do it themselves. When that changes -- this is, when consumers start to acquire a level of knowledge where they can make informed decisions and find government regulation stifling rather than helpful -- then they petition the government to change in response to such new circumstances.

[specialist]

Yes and:

> intellectual overhead

aka transaction costs.

Licensing, credentials, certification are just the cost of doing business. Open markets are built on transparency, accountability, fair rules, impartial referees, etc.

Sure, it all sucks. The alternative is worse.

[bastawhiz]

Because a private individual or organization has no incentive to create a certification that ensures my safety. Their incentive is profit. The whole point of a government is to have a group unmotivated by profit, whose interests are its citizens.

You cannot hold someone accountable without a government, because otherwise there's no way to create consequences. Having a private certification authority only adds a layer of indirection.

[handrous]

Because then you need an acupuncture badge quality quality badge, and so on.

[thaumasiotes]

That implies that we currently need QA organizations who rate government licensure schemes on their accuracy and informativeness. How often have you checked for those?

You've completely failed to distinguish a legal licensure scheme from an independent endorsement scheme.

[handrous]

> You've completely failed to distinguish a legal licensure scheme from an independent endorsement scheme.

I mean, the key difference is that with a market solution you're policing one market with another that's even harder for consumers to evaluate than the first one, and consumer choice is what (supposedly) keeps markets in check, so all you've accomplished is making the situation worse. At least using government changes the mechanism by which we apply pressure to the regulators, and their incentives, rather than presenting a worse version of the same thing, so it has the potential to be an improvement.

[ClumsyPilot]

I dunno, why does government do fire safety?