[Alberta's Child]

That would be OK, but I'm referring to cases where it's not the customer who needs to be protected as much as the general public. It sounds great if a homeowner has the right to use licensed or unlicensed contractors to do electrical work or installing gas lines on his house, but there's a major risk to his next-door neighbors that clashes with this libertarian approach.

[untenured]

That would be OK, but I'm referring to cases where it's not the customer who needs to be protected as much as the general public.

That's a reasonable position, but first, how often do you think that situation arises outside the context of building design, construction and maintenance?

Second, architects who design self-destructing buildings or contractors who do self-destructing building work will not be doing that for long, and people who want to go into these trades know that. (In addition, just on grounds of basic decency alone, most although not all businessmen don't want to kill people.) If someone can make a lot of money on a few collapsible buildings or exploding gas lines and then disappear, this problem becomes serious, but I don't think that characterizes any market. Competition is a very powerful regulator of any market where it is free to operate, IMHO. But I am not in construction, so I certainly will defer to this point to people who are.

[Ed_From_Ohio]

Building codes and inspections would prevent that more than licensing. If you want to make sure your house passes inspection the first time, maybe you choose to use a certified contractor. A government license doesn’t necessarily guarantee you anything. There are plenty of government licensed doctors getting sued for malpractice.