If You Want to Fight Monopolies, Fight Occupational Licensing

This seems eerily related to this[0]:

>According to proponents of the new model, it’s not the management-by-stress techniques employed by profit-focused hospital executives that are driving the labor exodus from health care. The problem is the lack of “flexibility.” It’s not understaffed and under-resourced hospital floors, according to Ahrens, but the “red tape (of) regulatory and licensing hurdles to practice” and the “onerous onboarding and credentialing processes that keep professionals in orientations instead of actually providing care” that are making people leave the profession they once cared deeply about. CareRev advertises higher wages to nurses than standard full-time employment, but in pitching the gig model to hospital administrators, Ahrens advises that “engaging professionals beyond money by focusing on flexibility is key.”

[0] "Big Tech is About to Make Our Terrible Health Care System Even Worse", https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/01/nurses-travel-apps-uber-f...

There are reasons that favor occupational licensing. Consider, for instance, Electricians. There are standards which exist based on past failures, a sort-of institutional learning.

I'll admit that it can be annoying when the inspector fails your self-installation because "it is not up to code". It feels like a sneaky way to enforce hiring an electrician. It is also annoying that a vet can't practice on humans. I doubt that I'm much more complex than my cat.

On the other hand, licensing keeps me from performing brain surgery on you during the weekend. Unlicensed people don't know the "institutional learning", so they are likely to repeat potentially fatal mistakes. Medicine is sufficiently complex that one person can't know it all, or even other specialties.