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Give autodidacts and independent learners a chance

Who would pay?
Not sure what this means.
That best practice end up being adobted by goverment?
That is what is being done now.
Think long and hard about that. It certainly is not the case in the United States.

My aunts upstairs bathroom shower leak into the kichen.
The guy installing it went bankrupt before fixing it.

That is with licencing, what do you think will happen without?

The shower wouldn't leak and you have a much better understanding of how skilled the guy is. Our present system of licensing often defends shoddy workmanship from licensed professionals.
 
Think long and hard about that. It certainly is not the case in the United States.
I am not familliar with US tradecraft practices, it sounds like you have far too little goverment involvment in licensing.

The shower wouldn't leak and you have a much better understanding of how skilled the guy is. Our present system of licensing often defends shoddy workmanship from licensed professionals

I see, under free market there would be no shoddy workmanship from amaturs with a licence from the cheapest diplomamill.

Who would pay?
You?
The "craftsman"?
The insurance company?
What happens if you sell the house and the buyer discover the "work" done, who will set the craftmanship standards for arbitration.
You missed this.
 
I am not familliar with US tradecraft practices, it sounds like you have far too little goverment involvment in licensing.
I see, under free market there would be no shoddy workmanship from amaturs with a licence from the cheapest diplomamill.


You missed this.




I see, under free market there would be no shoddy workmanship from amaturs with a licence from the cheapest diplomamill.


You missed this.
I think civil courts could handle lawsuits. It's hard to see otherwise. Murray Rothbard had solutions, but I could make do with some system of civil courts for lawsuits to protect property and rights only.

Your sarcasm is precisely correct. Under a free market system, diploma mills would have no legitimacy whatsoever and people would be judged by their ability and skill at their craft. They would not be judged by where they went to school.
 
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Your sarcasm is precisely correct. Under a free market system, diploma mills would have no legitimacy whatsoever and people would be judged by their ability and skill at their craft. They would not be judged by where they went to school.

And how would you jugde a craftmans ability and skill before hiring him to work on your house?
And while he works, do you know what is best practice in every trade?
 
And how would you jugde a craftmans ability and skill before hiring him to work on your house?
And while he works, do you know what is best practice in every trade?

Yes. That's why we have referral agencies. We'd also have endorsements and apprenticeships still! In fact, they'd be more important!
 
But, this is what I'm missing in your ideas.

You have the freedom to do many of these things already. For example, without any degree, you could start a company manufacturing household appliances. You could use the title "Chief Engineer". You could hire anyone you want to work for you. You could get these products approved by a notified body. You could comply with all the FTC requirements.

You would have a heck of a time getting anybody in the free market insurance world to cover you. You would have some difficulty finding any VCs to back you in the free market.

Are you arguing that you want to accepted as an employee based on passing a qualifying test? If so, again you need no degree in order for someone to hire you as an engineer. All you have to do is convince the employer to do so.

So, I'm puzzled about where you want to go. I'm not being "in your face"; I'm trying to understand what you're looking for.
 
But, this is what I'm missing in your ideas.

You have the freedom to do many of these things already. For example, without any degree, you could start a company manufacturing household appliances. You could use the title "Chief Engineer". You could hire anyone you want to work for you. You could get these products approved by a notified body. You could comply with all the FTC requirements.

You would have a heck of a time getting anybody in the free market insurance world to cover you. You would have some difficulty finding any VCs to back you in the free market.

Are you arguing that you want to accepted as an employee based on passing a qualifying test? If so, again you need no degree in order for someone to hire you as an engineer. All you have to do is convince the employer to do so.

So, I'm puzzled about where you want to go. I'm not being "in your face"; I'm trying to understand what you're looking for.

Very good question. The answer is that there's increasing legislation mounting to outlaw this. As for insurance, that's not entirely true. Even with the quasi-nationalized insurance system today, there are insurance companies that would cover you.
 
Very good question. The answer is that there's increasing legislation mounting to outlaw this. As for insurance, that's not entirely true. Even with the quasi-nationalized insurance system today, there are insurance companies that would cover you.

??? Product liability companies are quasi-nationalized? Please provide some evidence.
 
Under a free market system, diploma mills would have no legitimacy whatsoever and people would be judged by their ability and skill at their craft.

And how would you jugde a craftmans ability and skill before hiring him to work on your house?

Yes. That's why we have referral agencies. We'd also have endorsements and apprenticeships still! In fact, they'd be more important!

I get it, the people currently running diploma mills would be out of job, and have to start referential agencies instead.;)
 
They'd have a hard time running referential agencies without any customers.

Since you can´t tell a good craftsman from a bad, how would you know what referential agency is good or bad?

Find a referential agency for referential agencies?:D
 
Results Toke. If the buildings never blowup and the guy, or woman, has always done a good job then he's good. If he says his apprentice is good then it's a safe bet that he is also good.
 
And how again would you know the results of a craftsman, and tell which one to hire?:D

And how would you jugde a craftmans ability and skill before hiring him to work on your house?
Find a referential agency for referential agencies?:D
 
And of course it comes down to a simplification of the free market that only works when consumers have perfect knowledge.

Take for example car mechanics. It's a service that everyone with a car needs, so it should be an ideal market test. Since I can ask all my friends about the mechanics they visit now and in the past, we should be able to weed out the bad mechanics and hold all of the remaining ones to a high standard, right? Except I don't know much about cars, my friends don't know much either. In fact most of the consumer market doesn't know much about the inner workings of the technical goods and services they consume.

So let's say my mechanic does a crappy job repairing part A and damages part B. How do I know it wasn't bound to break from my years of wear on the car? If the mechanic is friendly, and seems to give a good price, I'm still patronizing him, and recommending him to my friends. The market system is supporting a bad mechanic.

Even when everyone knows better, for instance, everyone knows that dealer shops overcharge for everything, yet people still go, they're still in business, just from those folks that don't know any better.

Now extrapolate to those things that an average person has less of a chance to know the details of, homebuilding, refrigerator repair, credit repair services etc. Things that we don't do as often, that our friends are less likely to have experience with.

The market is only efficient on paper. In reality, the market is dumb people like me, and the only time I or anyone I knew have felt secure we weren't getting ripped off by a mechanic was when that mechanic was a personal friend.
 
If the car wasn't working before and it's working now, I'd say he's done a good job.

Well, no.

But that's the point. The rest of the details are too much for the average consumer to gauge.

He could.
1) Use a wrong part or a used part that will wear out months down the line.
2) Damage other parts, or reassemble improperly causing parts to break moths down the line.
3) Over charge by a massive amount.
4) Rack up the bill by replacing things that don't need it.
5) And so on..

I could leave the shop with my car running and any or all of the above things could be true. And I'd say that if they are, than it isn't a good job.

As an example, the flexible part of my exhaust recently ripped clean, making my car sound like a T-Rex and endangering my life from carbon monoxide poisoning. This happened because either a mechanic I went to, or one the previous owner did forgot to replace a bracket that kept pressure off that part. It took at least a year for the shoddy work to result in the broken part, so I have no way of knowing (meaning, the market has no way of weeding out the incompetent mechanic).

Just like many manufacturers could have poisonous products, and without government oversight, no one makes the connection. The market can only perfect those things that are obvious to consumers. For things that make you sick, cost you money, or kill you farther down the line, the consumer's imperfect knowledge means that companies can do a terrible job and remain successful, as long as that terrible job isn't immediately apparent.
 
Yea, Yea, Yea, Cavemonster, you get to the point instead of letting me see how many levels of referential agencies for referential agencies I can get lightfire out in.:D
 
A lot of university education, at least at my university in the program I'm in, is about knowledge to a point (in terms of a general understanding of criminological theory and application), however a lot of it as well is the training and refinement of the ability to find and evaluate needed information easily. "A man who knows his way may walk fast" and what have you.

I don't mean to insinuate that the ability to search article databases or evaluate journal articles is a skill unique to academics (the science forum in particular is full of a good many people without advanced degrees who do this routinely and very well, better than most people with advanced degrees for that matter), but rather to point out that in the academic world one gains a great deal of knowledge about the totality of the literature as an immediate consequence of being in such close proximity to a great deal of people actively engaged in differing avenues of research.

For example, as I look down the corridor, I see offices of professors directly involved in research in the following areas:

  • criminogenic media
  • criminal profiling
  • corrections theory and victims' rights history
  • gangs
  • police/community relations
  • state criminal law
  • federal criminal law (particularly drug trafficking law)
  • death penalty (a very interesting subject)
  • police patrol theory, AIDS/HIV effects on inmates
  • human trafficking
  • building security, police/military relations
  • police theory, crime rates under varying circumstances

This makes it extraordinarily easy for myself or someone in academia to verify and acquire needed bits of information simply due to the environment we find ourselves in. In no way do I mean to suggest that someone outside these "hallowed halls" (ours is fairly dusty really) couldn't develop these connections, merely that the academic community is a major strength for those of us involved in it.

~ Matt
 
Well, no.

But that's the point. The rest of the details are too much for the average consumer to gauge.

He could.
1) Use a wrong part or a used part that will wear out months down the line.
2) Damage other parts, or reassemble improperly causing parts to break moths down the line.
3) Over charge by a massive amount.
4) Rack up the bill by replacing things that don't need it.
5) And so on..

I could leave the shop with my car running and any or all of the above things could be true. And I'd say that if they are, than it isn't a good job.

As an example, the flexible part of my exhaust recently ripped clean, making my car sound like a T-Rex and endangering my life from carbon monoxide poisoning. This happened because either a mechanic I went to, or one the previous owner did forgot to replace a bracket that kept pressure off that part. It took at least a year for the shoddy work to result in the broken part, so I have no way of knowing (meaning, the market has no way of weeding out the incompetent mechanic).

Just like many manufacturers could have poisonous products, and without government oversight, no one makes the connection. The market can only perfect those things that are obvious to consumers. For things that make you sick, cost you money, or kill you farther down the line, the consumer's imperfect knowledge means that companies can do a terrible job and remain successful, as long as that terrible job isn't immediately apparent.

All of those things happen because of government oversight if anything. Proven referral agencies over the years would do a much better job of evaluating such things. Whenever there was a car problem, it would be recorded and the cause would be traced to a mechanic's error if that indeed were the cause. Today, it's not the case. The government is not that thorough. Consumers should try to learn everything that professionals know and are not sheep.
 
All of those things happen because of government oversight if anything. Proven referral agencies over the years would do a much better job of evaluating such things. Whenever there was a car problem, it would be recorded and the cause would be traced to a mechanic's error if that indeed were the cause. Today, it's not the case. The government is not that thorough. Consumers should try to learn everything that professionals know and are not sheep.

How are those problems the result of government oversight of mechanics?

Since most people I know still have problems finding a mechanic they can trust, what is stopping those referral agencies from existing right now?
Why are car problems not "recorded and traced" right now?
 

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