Skip to main content

Same Ol’ Story: Blocking Opportunity, Freedom, Prosperity


I know. Sometimes we sound like a broken record. ANOTHER blog about licensing? Long-term care administration licensing? Seriously? Does this theme not get old?


Well, yeah, it’s old. We wish we could stop writing about what may very well be the stupidest, most onerous, and most disgusting type of regulation on the books. Frankly, until something is done about it, we don’t believe we have a choice. And more should be getting done. This is not a partisan issue, after all. The Obama administration put out a white paper on the over-abundance of licensing in the United States and its deleterious effects.


Nevertheless, Oklahoma has a do-nothing Occupational Licensing Advisory Commission headed by Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn who clearly couldn’t care less. They rarely meet and almost never recommend that the legislature repeal a license.


Nonetheless, NOTHING is more fundamental to freedom than the ownership of oneself. Therefore, the most basic freedom we have is the right to sell our time – our skills and God-given talents – as we see fit. This ability is a pre-requisite, indeed what it truly means, to have freedom of opportunity – the opportunity to develop talent, to grow income, to obtain property, and to attain prosperity.


Licensing takes this fundamental freedom away. Licensing artificially constructs obstacles to selling skills and talents. Licensing denies opportunity. Licensing denies the ability for many to earn more income and gain greater prosperity for themselves, their families, and their communities. Licensing requires individuals to get permission from government to work in a chosen area, usually with that permission begged from a board with every interest in keeping people from joining their occupation.


Some might say, “Hey, wait a minute, when I got my license, all kinds of opportunity opened up for me!”


Yeah, and the same licensees, no doubt, resent the suggestion that their license be rendered worthless by having the law repealed, especially after the work and money they had to put in to get licensed. But if all that work and effort is rendered worthless by the mere repeal of the law, what does that say about the worth of the education, training, and other hoops required to get a license?


That work and money getting a license is partly the point. Most who have licenses will admit that much of what was required to obtain the license (not the skills, but the license itself) added nothing in value either to the licensee or to future customers. Licensing exams often bear little resemblance or applicability to the real world. Many of the courses required have nothing to do with actual practice.


Why does an electrologist (hair remover) need a 4-year college degree in science (Oklahoma being the only state with that requirement)? Most states don’t even license perfusionists but we do, and we require them to have a college degree! Why? Why do we license athletic trainers when California doesn’t? Why do we make it prohibitively expensive for out-of-state funeral directors and embalmers to move to Oklahoma? Last I checked, the skills needed don’t vary by geography.


Licensing is a mechanism for some who have been fortunate to climb the ladder of opportunity to pull it up behind them. Plumbers and barbers in Britain aren’t licensed. Nor are most lawyers. Meanwhile, we license massage therapists on the pretext that it’s a blow to human trafficking, no doubt a pretext promoted by massage therapists.


So, why are we licensing long-term care facilities administrators? Well, it’s not to make sure the best, most experienced managers in the state get into managing nursing homes. Nope, it’s just to block people from jobs currently occupied by people who’ve leapt the tall and expensive hurdle of getting a college degree in – oh, we don’t care – literally, anything.


Byron Schlomach is 1889 Institute Director; bschlomach@1889institute.org

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of 1889 Institute.

Popular posts from this blog

A Reminder of the Ineffectiveness of Covid-19 Lockdowns

Since the beginning of this pandemic, the 1889 Institute has argued against lockdowns even as “experts” advocated for them. Now, months after the weeks-long lockdowns were supposed to end, there are still states in various levels of lockdown. State and local governments have devastated their economies with shutdowns in the name of public health. Yet some politicians, including presidential candidate Joe Biden, have stated a willingness to lockdown the economy again on a national scale to eliminate COVID-19, in a "virus first, economy later" approach. Even as some lawmakers in Oklahoma urge governor Stitt to take more extreme action, it is essential to remember that lockdowns are not very effective. A group of epidemiologists have released a declaration denoting the harmful effects of lockdowns. These include; lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings, and deteriorating mental health. These consequences are more ...
Read more

The Legislators in Black Robes Strike Again

Once again, the Oklahoma Supreme Court has usurped the Legislature’s constitutional authority. This time, it has legislated new election rules, behind closed doors, on a compressed timetable, and without public input. All with an election looming in which the new rules will apply. On Monday, the Court eliminated the requirement that citizens voting by absentee ballot have their identity verified by a notary. If left unaddressed by the Legislature, absentee voters will be permitted to vote with little more than a pinky-swear promise that they are who they say they are, while in-person voters will still be required to show ID at the polling place. The Court’s decision not only harms the integrity of our election process, but was arrived at through a highly unusual process. The legal challenge to the notarization requirement was launched by a coalition of progressive organizations calling themselves “Let the People Vote.” Their stated reasoning for allowing unverified voting is...
Read more

Destroying Others’ Property Is Violence, No Matter How It’s Done

With characterizations of protests and riots that have occurred over the last several months as “mostly peaceful” and headlines that include “peaceful demonstration intensified,” and “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests,” it’s clear many in the press do not consider property destruction to be violent. Most likely, they mean most of the protesters haven’t physically harmed anyone. Still, during the very same protests, a large proportion of the “peaceful” participants , in obvious acts of aggression and hostility, have vandalized and stolen property. In fact, property destruction and theft are acts of violence, and are therefore legitimately defended against, not because these acts feel threatening, but because they are, in and of themselves, violent.   Nevertheless, it’s common to hear many condemn individuals who use or threaten force in defense of their property. After all, if no one is physically harmed, or even actually threatened, how can damaging inanimate objects possibl...
Read more

OKC Public Schools Elevating a Privileged Elite over Oklahoma Taxpayers

The hypocrisy of the Soviet Union’s pretense of egalitarianism was well known enough to be the subject of mockery and parody. Ronald Reagan never tired of the jokes . Soviet communism espoused equality, but the reality is that party apparatchiks and government officials enjoyed special perks that no one else had access to. This special class wasn’t officially paid much more than the average skilled worker, but enjoyed privileges like dachas on the coast or countryside, special stores with imported goods and without the endless lines that were commonplace everywhere else, and more advanced medical treatment. For all their talk about eliminating class distinctions, the Soviet nomenklatura —those “doing the people’s work”—could feather their nest with the best of ‘em. Apparently, a similar attitude reigns in our government schools. Our friends at OCPA report that Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS) will not offer in-person instruction to students for the first nine weeks of school this ...
Read more