OT: Degrees as barriers to entry [was Re: - E04 - Leadership! Google, Guido van Rossum, PSF]

[David T]

On Jan 3, 2006, at 9:54 PM, Brian van den Broek wrote:

> Steven D'Aprano said unto the world upon 03/01/06 07:33 PM:
>> On Tue, 03 Jan 2006 08:27:39 -0800, Alex Martelli wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Or some even more stringent qualification, such as the state's  
>>> Bar exam
>>> for lawyers -- you may not be able to sit for that exam w/o the
>>> appropriate degree, but the degree by itself is not enough, you  
>>> still
>>> have to pass the exam.  It is that way for Engineers in Italy (I  
>>> passed
>>> my State Exam in the early '80s), although you only need the  
>>> certificate
>>> for some specific professional undertakings (e.g. design a ship,  
>>> or a
>>> large building, or technically supervise building operations  
>>> beyond a
>>> certain size -- not to write software or to design chips).
>>>
>>> Personally, I agree with the theory, first expressed by Adam  
>>> Smith, that
>>> such barriers to entry are mostly useful to grant practitioners of a
>>> certain profession the "scarcity value" that lets them charge higher
>>> prices, although of course they're always presented as "good for
>>> society".  Note that in Europe in the Middle Ages you needed strict
>>> qualifications of that kind for just about anything -- you could not
>>> make hats unless you belonged to the Hatters' Guild, etc; most of  
>>> those
>>> restrictions have since been lifted, but a few groups (doctors,  
>>> lawyers,
>>> accountants, ...) have managed to keep them in place.
>>
>>
>> Let's not confuse the medieval guild system with today's system.  
>> Guilds
>> were more like clubs than professional bodies: it was who you  
>> knew, rather
>> than what you knew, that decided whether you got in. You were  
>> forbidden
>> from becoming (say) a hat maker unless the other hat makers  
>> allowed you to
>> join the guild. There was no independent, or even semi- 
>> independent, body
>> who decided what qualifications were needed to make hats. It was  
>> all about
>> who you knew -- if your uncle's best friend was a hat maker, you  
>> could be
>> apprenticed to a hat maker and join the guild, otherwise there was  
>> no exam
>> to sit that got you in, no matter how talented you were.
>
> <snip>
>
>> By contrast, today's professional bodies like law, medicine etc. have
>> independent standards of skill that must be met. I don't wish to deny
>> that knowing the right people can help smooth the procedure of  
>> becoming
>> a doctor, lawyer, etc., but failing to have an uncle who is a  
>> lawyer is no
>> barrier to becoming a lawyer, provided you can pass the bar exam.  
>> That is
>> very different from the guild system.
>
> <snip>
>
>> Another major difference between today's professional bodies and  
>> medieval
>> guilds is that the scarcity is not entirely (or even mostly)  
>> caused by
>> the professional body. It is the universities controlling  
>> prerequisite
>> degrees that gain more from the scarcity: within reason, the fewer  
>> places
>> they offer for (say) law degrees, the higher fees they can charge for
>> them. In my inexpert opinion, the cause of shortages of experts is  
>> more
>> the fault of the universities than of the professional bodies.
>
> So, just shy of 1 out of every 200 working-aged people in the USA were
>   lawyers in 2000.
>
> I'm inclined to agree with the claim that law schools don't have the
> correct number of seats, but I think we might just differ on which way
> the adjustment should go :-)

<snip>

My professional body (The American Chemical Society, no, I'm not a  
professional programmer), takes the opinion that the more chemists  
there are in the world the better. It keeps labor costs down.

That's what happens when the professional bodies are controlled by  
large corporate interests. So, meanwhile, I sit at home and wait for  
the "undersupply" of scientists to correct itself. I have visions of  
starting my own manufacturing company, but it's hard to find capital.  
There are way too many dead and dying small companies around Michigan  
and way too many unemployed scientists and engineers, and lots of us  
have great ideas for companies.

Fortunately, this gives me plenty of time to learn Python and write  
code to simulate and optimize my manufacturing process!

:--David