Burying the competition
On an occasional basis I get the Liberty & Law newsletter from the Institute for Justice, which is a parent orgnization to a group called the Castle Coalition. I became interested in them last summer during the fallout from the Kelo decision.
The Institute for Justice generally takes the side of individual interests vs. government interference in free markets. In addition to their fight against eminent domain benefitting private interests at the expense of other private interests who create less government revenue, they advocated for school choice in Milwaukee, and in several states have fought against onerous campaign finance laws.
The latest issue has an article that hits close to home. The title, “Burying the Competition“, is a statement aimed at the Maryland funeral home cartel. It’s claimed that a funeral in the so-called Free State costs an average of $800 more than a funeral in another state (and funeral homes make 30% more income than the average US funeral home) because of laws restricting funeral home ownership to those who are licensed funeral directors (or those who acquire a state license to the tune of $250,000.) The court case that the IJ took up involves a man who owns a cemetery and built a funeral home intending to have his son, who is a licensed director, operate it. However, state laws prevented him from actually owning the funeral home, which would make him (in the state’s eyes) an unlicensed funeral director.
IJ points out that several attempts to overturn this oppressive legislation have been attempted in the General Assembly, but cannot make it out of committee because of the chair, Del. Hattie Harrison. Harrison is a longtime Democrat delegate (since 1973) representing District 45 in the Baltimore area.
I went to the campaign site Follow The Money (operated by a group called The Institute on Money in State Politics) and found out that in the last two election cycles that Maryland has records for (2002 and 2004) Delegate Harrison collected a total of $48,470. A good share of that did come from the funeral industry, just under $5,000. In the 2004 cycle (non-election) over half the money donated from the Maryland Funeral Directors PAC went to her, as well as the largest donation made by the Maryland State Funeral Directors Association. The 2002 money enabled her to be second out of the 10 candidates who ran for the District 45 seats in terms of money raised and easily win reelection.
It will be interesting to see how this goes. On the one hand, the funeral directors are expressing their free speech rights by donating to Delegate Harrison, who in turn, just so happens to scratch their back too. But on the other hand, the regulations are allowing a powerful group to block any efforts at competition.
The other interesting article in Liberty & Law was the first of a three part series on “Thinkers of Freedom.” The first part salutes economist Milton Friedman. I found it insightful as they focused on a little-discussed area of Friedman’s work, occupational licensing. Because I work in a occupation that is a licensed profession, that hit me close to home. Here’s why.
I graduated from college in 1986 with a four year bachelors’ degree in environmental design. Now that degree is what would be considered a “non-professional” architecture degree. The biggest difference between the degree I have and a five year Bachelor of Architecture degree comes down to 12 fewer credit hours of Studio time (two semesters’ worth) and maybe taking a handful of other electives. At my college, the BED degree actually took 8 more credit hours (136 vs. 128) to attain than a bachelors’ degree in any other field. But under the rules in force at the time, I was allowed to substitute an extra year of work experience for the year in academia to be eligible to sit for the architectural exam. Frankly, while I think Miami University is among the best of academic institutions and I learned a lot there, that year in the “real world” was a LOT more valuable.
So after a time of working and deciding that I did want to pursue professional registration, I did take and pass the Architectural Registration Examination in Ohio back in 1993 and finished the process in 1994. This test is given nationally (I believe California may be the lone exception, at least it was at one time), there is no “state” test. An architect in Hawaii has passed the same test that I did in Ohio.
But what kills me is that, even though I did pass the test, it’s a big hoop to jump through to be registered in another state. For this I blame an organization (or cartel if you will) called NCARB, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. What they have been able to get the various state legislatures to do is make an NCARB certificate mandatory to apply for reciprocal registration. One NCARB regulation is having the five-year B. Arch. degree.
Now I’m 41 years old and I’ve had a job in the architectural field for almost 20 years. Currently I’m a project manager for several active projects in various states of design and construction. As far as I’m concerned, all that year of “education” would do is line the pockets of some graduate school. Of course, NCARB will allow you to apply to get the equilvalent of the education standard as a BEA, or “broadly experienced architect.” The BEA process involves establishing an NCARB record (for a fee); paying another fee to NCARB to evaluate the degree you have; and finally, at my expense, submitting to a personal interview. All this is to get a certificate so I can simply apply for reciprocal registration in another state. Never mind that I passed the same exam the other architects in the state did.
I used to work for a man who got his architectural registration fairly late in life, in his 40′s. While he did take some college, the reason he was able to take the registration exam and pass it was through the many years of experience he had gained by working in the field. But in the 1990′s NCARB practically shut down that avenue of sitting for the exam and implemented what they call the Intern Development Program. Now an intern architect has to go through NCARB to sit for the exam, and those fees just keep adding up.
In my view, while it’s obvious that the practice of architecture does need a set of guidelines and qualifications, the regulations put in place by NCARB limit the opportunity for qualified people to enter the field. A prospective architect may well say to heck with all these fees and choose another profession.
Friedman shared many of my same views, noting that, “The overthrow of the medieval guild system was an indispensible step to the rise of freedom in the Western world…men could pursue whatever trade or occupation they wished without the by-your-leave of any governmental or quasi-governmental authority.” At one time, architects were granted the freedom to practice in their state and generally what was good for one state was just fine for another. It’s only through the interference of NCARB in this free market that competition has been curtailed.
I’m looking forward to the next two issues of Liberty & Law as they’ll profile their other two “thinkers of freedom”, Friedrich Hayek and Ayn Rand. They should be good reading.
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[...] Another example that I posted about back in May is Maryland’s funeral home industry. Firey also noted the Institute for Justice’s involvement in attempting to overturn these laws in court (as I sat there nodding because I knew all about that), but I found out that the pretrial hearings had started that very week (which was late last month.) So hopefully the next issue of Liberty & Law will have more on this. [...]