🚀 go-pugleaf

"Occupational regulation has served to limit consumer choice, raise
 consumer costs, increase practitioner income, limit practitioner
 mobility, deprive the poor of adequate service, and restrict job
 opportunities for minorities -- all without a demonstrated improvement
 in quality or safety." ...

"Critics of this hypothesis believe to the contrary, however, that
 regulators' and professional groups' self-interest has been and still
 is the primary motivator of regulatory legislation.  And indeed the
 evidence shows that consumers rarely engage in campaigns to license
 occupations.  If the purpose of licensing were to improve the quality
 of service, one would expect consumers, who might be the prime beneficiaries,
 to promote licensure, but licensing is systematically promoted by
 practitioners ..."

-- The Rule of Experts - Occupational Licensing in America.  By S. David
    Young.  Cato Institute, 1987.  ISBN 0-932790-62-3 (paper).  99 pages.
    (Quoted by Tony Harminc <TONY@vm1.mcgill.ca> in comp.risks)

-- 
Enjoy,

Joe Wells <jbw@uswest.com>