THE ‘LICENSING’ QUESTION The problem with licensing etc is that it’s a poor subs

THE ‘LICENSING’ QUESTION

The problem with licensing etc is that it’s a poor substitute for an Insurer. In other words, you regulate the market going in, rather than regulate the risk of harm. SImilar to the problem of Chinese Bureaucracy – or bureaucracy in general. There is absolutely value to demanding insurance that limits one’s actions to that for which restitution is possible. And there is absolutely value in institutional enforcement of the requirement that men can take no action that they may not pay restitution for. This is a simple test of reciprocity.

in most of history, the government is the insurer of last resort. So licensing is a cheap (discounted) means of limiting insurance claims (harms).

And no, we cannot claim rights to engage in any transaction the consequences of which we cannot pay restitution for, any more than we can claim rights to any action that we cannot pay restitution for.

A license is a government-as-insurer-of-last-resort method of limiting the fraud, consequence, and externalities of actions that those who would seek to ‘learn’ or ‘profit’ by the externalization of risk of their failure. And the very high cost of dispute resolution and restitution.

An requirement that one is covered by insurance and exposed to the courts, means that the government is no longer responsible for insurer of last resort (regulation), but that professions self regulate or risk prosecution in the courts, and regulation if they fail. This technique seems to work as long as the golden fleece of western civilization prevails: the courts as a priesthood of truth and reciprocity does not fail.