Dear Ed:

Thanks for your kind words.

Accountants are certified, not licensed. That’s what CPA stands for. Your daughter’s fears do not exist in that sector of the economy. Get her to read chapter 9 of this book: Friedman, Milton. 1962. Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Here is a wealth of information on this topic.

Best regards,

Walter

From: Goldbug

To: Walter Block <[email protected]>

Subject: question on certification

Dear Walter,

I hope you are well and this email finds you.

I’m enjoying reading your substack articles. I hope you make money at it. Let me know if there are any ways I can help you build a business model. I have built my own newsletter, worked for other newsletter promoters, and co founded the dollar vigilante newsletter.

Off topic question. I’m trying to teach my relatively unskooled daughter about economics and business. She recently got a certification for her nail business. She’s an 18 year old entrepreneur so that’s positive. But I took the opportunity to try and teach her the difference between certification and licensing. I failed miserably, lol. We got hung up in arguing about whether the certification is accredited and by whom. It was hard to explain how accreditation would work on an open market. She would argue that by the time any non government accreditor was well known by the consumer, much damage could already be done, as she sees in her nail business consumers who make rash decisions about even their fingers.

So she believes that in the case of doctors if there wasn’t a licensing authority that everyone could trust the system would produce bunk surgeries and have people walking around with defects. I mean, I know why that wouldn’t be true ultimately, but I couldn’t think of a good way to explain why there are no short cuts that don’t come with higher long term costs.

I think it’s the trade off between short and long term that I am having trouble elucidating!

Anyway, I know you’re busy, not expecting a reply at all, although if you have written more about this somewhere I’d love to find it for when I get another chance at being teacher.

Cheers,

Ed

“The State always means coercion” Ludwig von Mises

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