[jacobolus]

> Labor unions (in alliance with wealthy parents) pushed for stricter child labor laws to reduce competition for jobs. Aristocratic progressives wanted an institution to indoctrinate immigrants in the American way of live [sic]. The rise of credentialing laws made college a necessity for earning a decent income.

Please provide citations of serious studies of these trends you talk about; this analysis seems facile and frankly misleading, even as a first-order approximation, but I’m not an expert so I’d be glad to be convinced otherwise. In particular, “indoctrination” of immigrants is going to be hard to establish as a primary goal of the education system, and the benefits of credential laws and the technical training institutions that go along with them in fields such as medicine, engineering, and so forth are hard to overstate.

[bokonist]

Unfortunately a lot of this came from books and articles I read years ago. "Indoctrination" is a bit of a loaded word, perhaps I should have said "assimilation" or "acculturation". But it was definitely a major factor. I remember reading a long paper about the movement establishing universal high school in New Haven in the early 1900's. It all revolved around dealing with the massive flows of immigrants who had no grounding in American civic culture.

As for credentialing laws, pretty much all professions rely on some level of book knowledge plus on the job training. The book knowledge can be provided for by reading books and passing an exam. You don't need to attend three years of law school in person to become a great lawyer. Nor do you need four years of university to be a great engineer. The architecture profession seems to have been much better off without any degree requirements. Just compare the architecture of the 1800's to that of the past few decades.

30% of jobs in the U.S. economy now have legal credentialing requirements. That includes everything from hair dresser to interior designer. Even jobs like parole officer now require a four year college degree. We're essentially recreating the old guild system, which stifles economic growth. I don't think it's any accident that the most dynamic sectors of the economy - software, consumer electronics, movies - have virtually no licensing requirements.

[jacobolus]

For some things (e.g. the hair dressing you mentioned), I concede that licensing requirements are unnecessary, and their use should be reexamined. For others (public defenders, surgeons, structural engineers, etc.) such licensing and formal training is in my opinion critically important. To construe it as purely anti-competitive is pretty misleading.

What proportion of top-level architects don't have architecture degrees?

Finally, do you think that teaching citizens about civic culture and American political institutions is a mis-use of public education?

[bokonist]

What proportion of top-level architects don't have architecture degrees?

Today all of them do because it is legally required. My girlfriend is currently attending architecture school and it is beyond useless. She's learned an awful lot about "aura" and "algorithmic design" and precious little about designing buildings for the real world. Architects end up learning everything on the job.

In the 19th century, it was not uncommon for architects to be high school drop outs. The New York Public library, some of the tunnel projects under London, the California Aqueduct, were all designed by drop outs.

The structural integrity of the buildings was very high, and the aesthetics far surpass the creations of modern architects.

To construe it as purely anti-competitive is pretty misleading.

I obviously would not want an untrained surgeon practicing on me. The trouble is that credentialing laws are a highly unstable equilibrium. It requires 8 years of post-secondary schooling to prescribe penicillin, read an x-ray, or set a broken bone. I could be convinced that 2 years of schooling might be necessary. But not 8. The reason it is so high is because of lobbying by the AMA. I'm sure they argue that the requirements are in the public interest. Perhaps they even believe their own PR. But if you talk to doctors about medical school, most of them will tell you that it had little relevance to their actual job.

Perhaps the most notorious example of credentialing is the orthodontist profession. The average orthodontist works 35 hour weeks and makes 350k ( about 40% more than dentists). The reason for this is that number of orthodontists allowed to graduate each year is actually capped at 280. The orthodontist association have even gone after inventors who devise new labor-saving (and thus income-reducing) braces, See the case of Viazis v. American Association of Orthodontists. This is blatantly anti-competitive, and it costs thousands of dollars from the pocket book of every American.

Finally, do you think that teaching citizens about civic culture and American political institutions is a mis-use of public education?

I once worked a bit on capitol hill. The civics class description of American democracy bears little resemblance to the reality. However, these the civics class lies are probably necessary to make a democratic system even marginally functional. My preferred solution then, would be to get rid of electoral democracy.

[rsheridan6]

>My preferred solution then, would be to get rid of electoral democracy.

To be replaced with...?

[bokonist]

One option: Abolish Congress and the presidency. I mean, what have they done for you lately? Can you name a single good deed they've done in the past 30 years? Use some sort of board of trustees to select the Supreme Court justices and the Joint Chiefs. Perhaps this board of trustees would be selected by existing trustees, or perhaps we could use something like the Venetian lottery system ( http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2008/03/unpredictable-elect... ).

Other options include something like Juristopia ( http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2007/05/juritopia.html ) or Formalism ( http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/formali... )

Or, if you want something a little more proven, there is always Monarchy.

Basically, anything that doesn't use a ritualized form of gang warfare would be better than democracy in my book.

[hugh]

I mean, what have they done for you lately? Can you name a single good deed they've done in the past 30 years?

Luckily, the job of the government isn't to do good deeds -- it's to hold onto power in order to stop even worse people from getting it.

The purpose of democracy isn't to get the best people into power, it's to stop the worst people from getting into power.

[rsheridan6]

You could do worse than emulate the Republic of Venice, which lasted about 1000 years and only went down because a big empire (Austria) took them down. I would bet money that the US won't last that long, except that I don't expect to live long enough to collect.

But you could also do a lot worse than US-style democracy. See any number of lunatic 20th century dictators - and lots of monarchs. The disaster of WWI, for example, can largely be blamed on the monarchs of Germany, Austria, and Russia.

[crabapple]

you are a fucking idiot

[cousin_it]

Wow. I just read some of your other comments, and you rock. Thanks!

[bokonist]

I found one of books: "Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform". You can read a full review here: http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/000948.html