Did you know
that you have to own a license to braid hair? African immigrant, Jestina
Clayton, moved from Sierra Leone to Utah and began to braid hair for a living.
She was a professional at the braiding, and earned her living from this task.
She had years of experience from her life in Sierra Leone and was
well-qualified to braid hair for a living. Her customers proved this, as they returned
again and again to Jestina Clayton’s services for four years. Then, in 2005, the
government received word that she was braiding hair without a cosmetology license,
and shut her business down. Jestina Clayton immediately looked into obtaining
this license, and was dismayed to learn that it would require 2,000 hours of learning
over a 50 week time period to obtain this license in order to learn a skill
that she was already professional at. In order to restrict competition, a board
of cosmetologists create the expensive price and time commitment of this licensing
process, and control the issuing of this particular license.
This
government regulation hinders the growth of vital competition. Competition is
vital to any free market economy which utilizes competition to make society
more efficient and reduce the price of goods and services for the consumer. With
this licensing regulation that extends past hair braiding into virtually every
part of our free market economy, it is more difficult for any American to start
his own business. Licensing is a large time commitment and expense for brand
new business to pay; and therefore is a way for the government to control
competition (Stossel, John).
In this
case, the ideology of Adam Smith is appropriate to respond to this movement. The
laissez faire approach to government advocated
by Smith is necessary to provide a gateway for Americans out of poverty. These restrictions
on startup businesses are detrimental to the economy and reduce the freedom to begin
or change careers. Smith’s ideas of the invisible hand guiding people to
advance the common good by pursuing their own self-interest are present in the
deregulation of licensing.
Bibliography
Stossel, John. "The
Cancer of Regulation." Creators.com. JJCO, 20 June 2011. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.
This is exactly the type of regulation that Smith had in mind, and it's important to remember the specifics of his critique: it was primarily aimed at those who attempted to limit the competition by restricting foreign imports or new practitioners from entering the field. Licensing laws are really the best example of a modern version of the guild system or corporation system he directed the majority of his critique against.
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