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Comment by rdr | Hacker News Reader

what do you mean by "thanks to state support"? please clarify, thanks.

The state confers special privileges on degree holders that are denied to everyone else. It also regulates, funds, and grants degrees itself.

Examples include credential requirements for many different occupations, licensing laws, and job eligibility.

Of course, there are also the more "unofficial" effects of these policies. Credentialism is widespread in society thanks in no small part to the massive, state-funded school system.

That doesn't make it a title of nobility, especially since the government also grants things like military commissions, presidential medals of freedom, and appointments to high positions all the time, all of which are more similar to titles of nobility than university degrees.

Either you're speaking metaphorically or you're pushing some crank theory, I can't tell which.

Instead of trying to define by example, let's use an actual definition:

"A title of nobility grants special legal privileges to an individual at the expense of the rest of the people."

If you have a different definition, that's fine, of course. Then we're just down to semantics, and I guess you could say I'm speaking metaphorically. But I hope you're not just excluding certain titles because they don't fit the preconceived idea of a title of nobility in most people's minds.

Did you just make up that definition or do you have a citation? Because that definition isn't particularly useful: for instance, any elected or appointed office would then qualify as a "title of nobility"--a police officer has the legal privilege to execute warrants, detain people, and carry arms at the expense of the rest of the people (who must subsidize his training, equipment, operating expenses, and salary). That's not the constitutional definition by any means.

Inventing a deliberately weak definition and declaring victory isn't an especially effective or honest debating tactic.

You don't have to accuse me of lying or being dishonest. I admit the majority is on your side, but I'm more interested in accuracy than how useful something is for you.

I'm not the first person to use such a definition. Here is one from over a century ago, from an opinion in a court case from Alabama:

"To "confer a title of nobility" is to nominate to an order of persons to whom privileges are granted at the expense of the rest of the people. It is not necessarily hereditary, and the objection to it arises more from the privileges supposed to be attached than to the otherwise empty title or order. Horst v. Moses, 48 Ala. 129, 142."

Again, if you have a different definition, fine. But don't accuse me of being dishonest when it's quite clear mine is at least as valid.

The words may be the same, but the meaning is significantly different, and I have little interest in whatever sophistry you intend to pursue in order to support your crankish opinion that university degrees are unconstitutional.

Incidentally, "nominate to an order of persons" is probably the operative text there, and is something that you probably neglected to include in your earlier definition. I do not think that Alabama court of a century ago, or indeed the drafters of the Constitution, intended university degrees to count as a title of nobility. Especially since many of them founded universities themselves.

I never even mentioned the Constitution, so that's not my argument. You probably assumed I was talking about the Constitution when I said titles of nobility were supposed to have been abolished. In fact, I was referring to the idea that our society is supposed to be an egalitarian one (in a legal sense).

As for the rest of your post, it no longer seems relevant.

http://xkcd.com/169/

Communicating badly and then acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness.

Or, in other words (since you are no doubt preparing to quibble that you weren't acting particularly smug), the onus is on you to clearly communicate your argument, and using phrases like "titles of nobility were supposed to be abolished" and then not answering my objections about the Constitutional text that did, in fact, abolish titles of nobility impeded getting your point across, rather than helping. You give the distinct impression that you're blaming me for misunderstanding what you so poorly communicated in the first place.

If your argument is simply that college degrees are anti-egalitarian, I will happily agree with you. But our society wasn't meant to be legally egalitarian in the first place. It had slavery. I'm also happy to point out that it's not possible to even have pure egalitarianism, which is one reason why meritocracy is so much better. (You will undoubtedly counter that reliance upon college degrees is not efficiently meritocratic, but see? Now we've got ourselves a truly interesting and worthwhile discussion.)

There is also the alternate hypothesis that whenever I debunk your argument, you start pretending you meant something entirely different from the outset. But I am choosing to be charitable and assuming you simply miscommunicated what you meant in the first place.

philwelch, I tried to talk with you here but it seems like you insult me at every turn, and now you're trying to blame me for your invalid, US-centric assumptions.

This seems to be a habit of yours, because even in this post, twice you claim that I'm "undoubtedly" about to respond in a certain way. Perhaps if you read what I write without jumping to conclusions about what must be in my head, this would be more productive.

"our society wasn't meant to be legally egalitarian in the first place. It had slavery."

You appear to continue with your US-centric perspective here. And even with that perspective, so what? The fact that it had slavery sounds like a good reason not to take what was "meant" as gospel.

As for legal egalitarianism being impossible, that's certainly not true. I'm not sure why you believe that.

I tried to talk to you, but it turns out you consistently mean something different from what you say. For once, I'd like you to clearly and literally state, just once, what you're on about instead of going in circles.

In particular, the onus is on you to clearly define what "legal egalitarianism" means, why college degrees violate that principle, and why we should care. That's an honest discussion. Trying to cleverly redefine terms like "nobility" isn't.

The police officer definition rather sounds like the definition of a knight(knights were required to keep the peace in their territories), except a knight got land instead of a pay check. And yeah minor elected officials carry out the same duties that minor lords carried out in their day. The primary difference between nobility and modern authority is duration, legal status and lineage.

> Examples include [degree] credential requirements for many different occupations, licensing laws, and job eligibility.

Many? I can come up with law, medicine, professional engineer, architect, and CPA. What else do you have in mind?

Teachers have degree requirements for licensing. I am sure there are others.

How about some more? Adding "teacher" to my list leaves us closer to "few" than "many".

Note that the vast majority of engineers aren't licensed....

going back to the original statement of "Examples include credential requirements for many different occupations, licensing laws, and job eligibility."

Licensing laws cover plumbers, electricians, massage therapists,barbers, air conditioning contractors, auctioneers, boxing (judges, promoter, referees, boxers themselves, managers), cosmetologist(and their schools), tow truck drivers, moving companies, temp agencies, elevator contractors and inspectors.

>> going back to the original statement of "Examples include credential requirements for many different occupations, licensing laws, and job eligibility."

Yes, let's. One of the claims was that there were credential requirements for many different occupations. (Licensing for other things is a separate claim.) I've listed a couple of examples and we're nowhere near many.

I'm perfectly willing to agree that state imposed licensing is widespread, but that's a separate claim. I note that licensing is largely independent of public supported schools.

This is an interesting argument. Do you have an alternative method in mind for aiding people to figure out who might be qualified to perform certain types of skilled labor?

For example, imagine that universities can no longer confer the noble title of medical doctor. How shall I determine who to select to remove my gallbladder?

Yes, and I'm sure others will, too. For example, perhaps, after the barriers have been removed, a new school has popped up which has a better way of training doctors. They are allowed to teach in ways that were not allowed before. Doctors from this school go on to perform exceptionally well and have a proven track record. You hear about them from satisfied patients and ratings organizations (like Consumer Reports). Their medical procedures are insured by a company that also highly recommends them. You select one of them.

Or, perhaps you prefer some sort of alternative medicine. Using whatever criteria you choose, you are allowed to have a procedure done regardless of whether or not your doctor has a title. After all, the majority is wrong sometimes.

It seems that all that this does is shift the effective grant of title of nobility from the university to Consumer Reports or to the insurance company or to Yelp-for-doctors.

No, there are some very significant differences. First, there isn't any reason there would only be one ratings organization, one insurance company, and one Yelp-for-doctors. You would be able to reject or accept the rating of any person or organization, and so would everyone else.

Second (but related to the first difference), the main problem with a title of nobility is that it grants legal privileges, thereby erecting legal barriers for others. That doesn't happen in this scenario.

  > First, there isn't any reason there would only be one
  > ratings organization, one insurance company, and one Yelp
  > for-doctors. You would be able to reject or accept the
  > rating of any person or organization, and so would  
  > everyone else.

This is true--at least at first. I suspect that whatever ratings mechanisms develop to fill the void, they would eventually coalesce into a single entity (or maybe a couple of entities with geographic specialties) that would, with time, come to enjoy de facto government sanction. This is one instance where I think most people don't actually want variety and choice. 100+ ratings organizations are useless if none of them have any data on the doctor in question (to continue with the physician example). So whichever ratings systems get an early lead would quickly dominate. And once they have achieved monopoly status they can shut out anyone who doesn't want to play ball with them. The general public can of course ignore these ratings, but they would do so at their own peril. (It's worth noting that you can already ignore the "ratings" of physicians and go see unlicensed doctors right now).

Now, as for your point about eliminating the legal barriers to practice-- ie anyone can practice medicine-- while removing licensing would eliminate direct legal action (ie no going to jail for practicing medicine without a license) I think it would instead lead to increased civil suits. Consider: right now if a licensed physician is prone to malpractice or has other deficiencies they are forbidden from practicing. This can happen without anyone being actually harmed. On the other hand, if a physician gets bad ratings from yelp-for-doctors then they just need to find uninformed consumers or at least people who chose to disregard those ratings. When members of the public are inevitably harmed by poor doctoring they will have no legal recourse but to sue the doctor. True, they could avoid going to that particular doctor again, but the damage is already done. I'm not sure if we actually want more lawsuits to be brought against professionals-- it may end up making the cost of their services even more expensive than they are now, wiping out any cost savings from them not having to go to school and become licensed.

I guess my point is that there is no free lunch: guilds and professional societies are ancient institutions and they enjoy legal status in recognition for the useful role that they have in serving society. It may be fun to speculate what would happen if they vanished but don't be surprised if the institutions that arise to replace them necessarily gain the properties of the original institutions.

"I suspect that whatever ratings mechanisms develop to fill the void, they would eventually coalesce into a single entity"

I know you're speculating, but I don't think that's realistic. For that to happen, people would have to unanimously agree on a single rating mechanism.

As for doctors, their guild gives us a great example of what actually happens when guilds enjoy special legal status. Guilds and professional societies work to restrict entry into their fields, in order to prop up their own salaries. When they do this, they usually claim they are simply ensuring high quality.

all of these name-brand colleges are private, so if the state has a role in all of this, it's quite indirect, right? of course the government has a role in accredidation, grants, laws, etc., but it's hard to imagine eliminating those ... sorry, i don't want to get into a debate on libertarianism ;)

Well, they are private in name only. They are massively funded by the state, both directly and indirectly through exclusive student funding grants. The degrees they grant have the same special status as those granted by "public" schools, and they are regulated the same way.

I don't think this is an exclusively libertarian issue. Your original question could be generalized to include all titles of nobility, and that seems relevant because one of the purposes of such titles is to make titleholders feel superior, thereby making others feel inferior. In other words, you don't have to be a libertarian to oppose titles of nobility.

Except for hillsdale college in Michigan which makes a point of taking zero government dollars for anything, including scholarships. Not huge, but truly private. http://www.hillsdale.edu/support/default.asp

That's laudable, but it looks like the college still has state-approved accreditation, so what I said still applies.

I took 'brand name' to mean any college with an excellent reputation in its field, not just the private Ivy League colleges. A degree in physics from UC Berkeley (semi-public) is nothing to sneeze at, for example.

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