A consumer's challenge to occupational regulation has been filed with a court seeking permission to hire an unlicensed service provider

I have written a lot on this blog about occupational regulation (which includes attorney licensing), an elaborate sham by which professions protect their markets from competitors, raise prices and restrict services to consumers - all under the guise of consumer protection.

Even a law professor recently recognized that the so-called regulation of lawyers by the government is a sham that lawyers pulled at the behest of the American Bar Association, in order to avoid "real" regulation by the "watchful and intrusive eye of the state" (meaning - by a neutral state agency, which is exactly what federal antitrust laws require for regulation of markets regulated by market players - attorneys by attorneys, plumbers by plumbers, taxi drivers by taxi drivers, doctors by doctors).

Yet, litigation so far, as far as I know, only concerned clashes between disciplined professionals and professional boards (infested and overpowered by the disciplined professionals' competitors), or between competitors in the same profession.

Now I have information that, in a historical move, a consumer of services that are regulated (it is a crime to practice that particular profession without a license, and the profession is regulated by market players without proper supervision by a neutral governmental agency) filed a challenge in court asking the court to allow the consumer to waive protections extended to him by the government in the form of professional regulation/licensing.

The consumer, reportedly, claimed to the court that, as a competent adult, he has a standing to decide whether to accept or reject help offered by anybody, including the government, and, as a competent adult, he chooses to reject consumer protection given him through occupational regulation.

He has chosen a certain unlicensed provider, and insisted to the court he wants to use that particular provider to provide services for him.  

He insisted that he knows the provider's educational background and skills, and is happy to use that provider. 

He asks the court to issue a decision declaring that he is allowed to opt-out of occupational regulation, for himself only, and to hire an unlicensed service provider.

He also asked the court to issue a decision absolving the provider from any kind of punishment on behalf of the government for providing services to the consumer without a license, in the consumer's particular case.

I have no doubt somehow that the challenge will be denied by the court, and I will not disclose the name of the case, the name of the consumer, the name of the service provider or the type of services sought to be provided by an unlicensed provider - until a decision on that challenge is issued by the court.

But,  I am truly interested to see the answer to this litmus-test challenge.

I am truly interested to see how the court will be twisting around the underlying declared purpose of occupational licensing - protection of consumers, and how the court will justify forcing the government's unwanted help and "protection" (through occupational licensing) upon an unwilling competent consumer.

The challenge may show the way for other consumers to follow the path to under occupational regulation that is taking close to 40% of the American work force, and is responsible for unemployment, raising prices and restricting the range of services, stifling innovation and preventing people's travel across state lines because of lack of reciprocity in occupational licensing between states and smaller localities.

Since all of that is done for the benefit of consumers, a consumer must surely have a right to say "no" to occupational regulation, opt out of it, and choose unlicensed service providers of the consumer's choice.

The court will decide whether consumers in this country, while declared to be beneficiaries of governmental "protection" through occupational licensing, are, in fact, captive cash cows for well-lobbied efforts of professions with the government who have no right of choice at all of their own providers of services in private matters.