Why would you want the state to stop poor people from earning a decent living just because they haven't completed the full set of requirements for a state sanctioned certification? The going rate to have your main sewer line snaked in my area is $250. If that's the only thing you know how to do, why can't you just sell that service?
Because clients are rarely capable of judging competency. You can crack pipes with a snake. Furthermore, certifications typically come with a registration requirement, meaning clients have a mechanism for formally filing complaints. Similarly, there are often bond requirements, meaning you know that if the technician screws up a job you'll have a decent chance at recovering damages. Getting a bond without securing the full face value is probably easier with a certification, too, because otherwise how would the underwriter know their risk?
Certifications are a public service. It's no different than for lawyers, doctors, or all the drivers on the road.
In some states the requirements for some types of certification are obviously intended to limit entrants into the market. But that's a different matter.
ALL certification requirements are intended to limit entrants into the market. Whether or not that's worthwhile is subjective.
If a client is uncertain of their ability to judge risk, then they can hire from a trusted industry provider/union and pay a premium. I'd still like the ability to legally hire a poor person who may not have received a good enough public education to fulfill all of the state requirements for certification if the job is low risk enough. And I suspect the poor person would generally like to feed themselves or their family, so it's a win-win except for the incumbent wealthy who don't want their prices under-cut.
I don't need the government to tell me the electronics I buy are safe to plug into an outlet, there's private UL certification for that. I generally don't need the government to tell me who I'm allowed to pay for anything, even medicine.
UL certification requirements are often incorporated by reference into law. Which is one reason why there's not a proliferation of private standards in that space, with the concomitant race to the bottom.
_You_ might not need the nanny state to protect yourself from yourself, but many people do. In fact, pretty much everybody does, at some point in their lives, in some circumstances. (You just don't know when or where.) And because their loses are invariably externalized one way or another, society has an interest in providing minimum safeguards.
It's like taxes: taxes wouldn't work if everybody got to pick and choose where their taxes went. These solutions are intended to solve collective action problems, which by definition cannot readily and consistently be solved by everybody acting independently.
If anyone wants protection from a nanny, state or otherwise, they can pay for it. Offer all the certifications at the state level you want, just don't interfere with my ability to do business with anyone I please whether they're certified or not.
>society has an interest in providing minimum safeguards.
Requiring you to work at below market rates for YEARS is not in the best interest of society. Harming the poor or immigrant workers by not allowing them to earn a decent living is not in the interest of society. All of these things are in the best interest of the incumbent wealth, not "society."
If you want some protection, then you can easily pay for it. Hire a contractor through Home Depot, Sears, or some other trusted industry name where you'll get lots of contractual protections and the benefit that a multi-billion dollar corporation wants to keep a good reputation if it wants people to keep doing business with it. This works much BETTER than taxes because everybody DOES get to pick and choose where their money goes.
>These solutions are intended to solve collective action problems, which by definition cannot readily and consistently be solved by everybody acting independently.
These solutions are intended to maintain incumbent wealth which harms the poor. You keep trying to sell me on you protecting me, which you obviously know I don't value, without addressing the fact that your ideology keeps the poor in their place. There's two wealthy groups you're protecting here. First, as the property owner, I'm almost certainly more wealthy than the laborer. And secondly, you're protecting the wealthy incumbent workers who don't want lower skilled workers undercutting them.
> Requiring you to work at below market rates for YEARS is not in the best interest of society.
But you are still in training. It's intended as something to do after middle school. Why should unskilled kids earn a full salary? They probably end up costing the company money during that time...
And also that's exactly where you need the regulation from the state! So it can ensure that you are actually properly training those people and not just using them as "human robots" to just do boring / unskilled manual labor.
You're still requiring a poor person to get the permission of a wealthy person to perform work they know how to do on the open market. Why would you cripple the poor in such a way?
How I'm I requering something from workers? A company can hire whoever they want. Where do you see that limited, by offering a special training for highschool kids?
1. You could still hire anyone you want. Certificated or not...
2. The certificate is not just some random piece of paper. It does (or at least should) actually prove that you had some training in that field and are skilled.
If some people are unable to get such a training and a certificate, then the problem lies somewhere else (i.e. the reasons why they can't...).
That shouldn't stop the companies from hiring untrained people to just work from them.
But it would be nice if there was an "official" apprenticeship for young people as a valid alternative to a college degree. And that shouldn't be some specific training for some random company, but lead to a comparable skill level so you can work everywhere in the country in that field.
Why do I need to go through your state approved apprenticeship program, which is going to be managed by wealthy incumbents, for the privilege of being able to perform work I already know how to perform on the open market? You're requiring the poor to get permission from the wealthy in order to work. Why?
16 year old kids already know how to be e.g. plumbers or electricians? Nice.
And also you dont NEED to. You can just learn it yourself and then somehow convince potential employers that you got the skills. What is stopping you from doing that?
Maybe you're not talking about the same thing Wahern is talking about.
Question: Let's say I know how to snake a sewer line. This is the kind of thing a handy home-owner would be able to rent the equipment for at Home Depot and do themselves if they were so inclined. That's literally the only plumbing skill I know. Can I offer that skill for sale on the open market to customers without first getting the permission of the state (certification on completion of apprenticeship) or an employer who offers me an apprenticeship?
Wahern is clearly saying that would not be possible. So that means that a poor person must get the permission of a wealthy plumbing business owner in order to sell their skills on the open market.
I'd say yes. But I guess you would have problems getting clients to trust you. After all if e.g. some "random guy" messes around with your eletrical cables your house could catch fire... Or water could leak into your walls...
