Using the government to limit your competitors

George Will writes about a trend in some states for interior designers to get the government to outlaw people from advertising themselves as interior designers unless they are licensed to do so.

In New Mexico, anyone can work as an interior designer. But it is a crime, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and up to a year in prison, to list yourself on the Internet or in the Yellow Pages as, or to otherwise call yourself, an "interior designer" without being certified as such. Those who favor this censoring of truthful commercial speech are a private group that controls, using an exam administered by a private national organization, access to that title.

This is done in the name of "professionalization," but it really amounts to cartelization. Persons in the business limit access by others -- competitors -- to full participation in the business.

Being able to control the number of one's competitors, and to dispense the pleasure of status, is nice work if you can get it, and you can get it if you have a legislature willing to enact "titling laws." They regulate -- meaning restrict -- the use of job descriptions. Such laws often are precursors of occupational licensing, which usually means a mandatory credentialing process to control entry into a profession with a particular title.

In Nevada, such regulation has arrived. So in Las Vegas, where almost nothing is illegal, it is illegal -- unless you are licensed, or employed by someone licensed -- to move, in the role of an interior designer, any piece of furniture, such as an armoire, that is more than 69 inches tall. A Nevada bureaucrat says that "placement of furniture" is an aspect of "space planning" and therefore is regulated -- restricted to a "registered interior designer."

Why the government should be involved in passing laws as to who is or isn't an interior designer is beyond me. The private organization, if they want, can issue their certificates and let those who are so certified use that in their advertising and it can be up to customers if they care that the person they're hiring to decorate their living room has such a certificate. But the government doesn't need to be in the business of deciding who is a qualified interior designer. As Will writes, there are some public interest needs where the government's licensing can be justified. Arranging furniture isn't one of them. They just want to restrict entry into their profession so that they don't have as much competition.

But government licenses professions to protect the public and ensure quality. It licenses engineers and doctors because if their testable skills are deficient, bridges collapse and patients die. The skills of interior designers are neither similarly measurable nor comparably disastrous when deficient. Perhaps designers could show potential clients a portfolio of their work, and government could trust the potential clients to judge. Just a thought.