I understand both your points - but
1) T-bird’s “written in blood” can be handled through industry regs vs licensing just like they do for non-trades. It amazes me the reg requirements and govt inspections that med device manaufacturers have - but then the actual users have minimal govt oversight because they “self police” through hospital and doctor board oversight - yeah right. So the licenses should be replaced with inspections - like they do with restaurants to ensure the minimal accepted safety studs are met - and they should ONLY be safety stds - not documentation and other stuff. And plenty of those with the paper are still incompetent so is it really only allowing those already in to be lax or driving improvements?
2) Apoliticalone - I have seen my fair share of certified, licensed, and otherwise ‘qualified’ personnel in union/non-union; hourly/non-hourly roles that couldn’t competently do their job and when called out pulled their cert as a - you can’t tell me what i’m doing is wrong so it must be something you did card. Everything from doctors - engineers - electricians - plumbers - barbers - mechanics - auditors - accountants to lawyers. A piece of paper just says you finished some classes, were shadowed/reviewed or acted as a slave for someone that already had a piece of paper, and filled out some paperwork - not that they are competent.
The real reasons for it are A) barriers to entry for those already in and coating the politicians palms and B) another source of $ for the govt to control and prevent from going someplace else.
My personal preference would be industry run certs - like a seal of approval - that are not required for biz, but provide the necessary basics to address the most common failings. With clear requirements that aren’t modified - new tech, new certs, old tech - old certs are ok. Then it’s the consumers responsibility for due diligence. MAYBE - depending on risk - liability insurance to be mandated by law, but limited to safety failures - otherwise go to small claims.
Dad could sweat a pipe, wire a breaker panel, and maintain coolants with the best of them, but because of a piece of paper he could only take certain jobs - that he often went in to fix later. That’s bunk.
The most current point to licensing is the great number of immigrant trades workers who are not trained correctly and never practiced good trade skills in Mexico, or wherever they arrived from.
The “industries” have profits to consider and immigrant trades people are cheaper.
Let’s take real estate, for instance, before all parties from realtors to appraisers were State licensed it was Customer Beware. Yeah, I don’t like having to spend hundreds every year on Continuing Education (which is often a partial waste of time) and State licensing, but otherwise if there was no regulation there are many who would never consider honesty or ethics in any deal. Because of the regulation and licensing, now both me and customers have some protection from shoddy crooks.
One of the primary functions of government is to protect its citizens, not just from foreign invaders, but from “snake oil” patent medicine peddlers and people that would cut every corner and build you a house or repair your car like in some 3rd world country.