Occupational licensing requires practitioners of certain professions to first obtain government approval in the form of a state license. An individual who deems himself competent to offer a service cannot do so unless has the government’s permission. Equally important, licensing prohibits individuals from hiring unlicensed individuals, even if they judge them to be competent. In short, licensing prevents both producers and consumers from acting on their own judgment, from practicing the virtue of independence.
Consider the story told by Steven Rhoads. Rhoads had endured two major back surgeries and suffered from osteoarthritis elsewhere. After a knee replacement, physical therapy was unable to restore the joint to adequate function. While working out at a local gym, he noticed one trainer—”Joy”—was giving massages to some of the clients. After a few massage sessions with Joy, Rhoads’ knee function improved dramatically. The trainer then turned her attention to his back, and Rhoads experienced similar improvement.
But then Joy was told that she could no longer offer massage therapy for the gym’s clients because she did not have a state issued massage license. Even though there had been no complaints from clients, she was forced to quit offering a beneficial service.
For Joy to continue offering myofascial release—a deep-tissue massage technique in which the practitioner applies firm pressure to the client’s body with hands and even elbows to reach deeper layers of muscles and fascia—she needed to get a state license. To do so, she would have to take 750 hours of courses at a cost of $12,000. And only twelve of those 750 hours were devoted to myofascial release.
After twenty years of experience with the technique and a master’s degree in exercise physiology, Joy knew far more about myofascial release than those who would be teaching her. But she was denied the freedom to act on her knowledge without first obtaining the government’s approval. She was denied the freedom to act on her judgment that she was competent to offer the service. And her clients were denied the freedom to act on their judgment that her therapy was beneficial to them. As Rhoads puts it, “We consumers can tell who makes the pain go away. And through word of mouth, those practitioners who make the pain go away will eventually prosper. Joy can make my pain go away. The government won’t let her do it.”
The very nature of occupational licensing prevents both producers and consumers from acting on their own independent judgment. It forces individuals to rely on the standards and judgment of others rather than their own observations and evaluation of the facts.