Occupational licensing laws mainly served organized trades’ economic self-interest.

Evidence

Groups and organizations made a conscious effort to use the law, to turn it to their own advantage. Each session of an American legislature was a cockpit of contention between interests. In the Midwest, in the early 1870s, the organized farmers had their day. Their legislation (the Granger laws) tried to restore a balance, to take back power that railroads and grain elevators had taken away. Less dramatically, in the 1890s, there was a great rush to pass occupational licensing laws: for plumbers, barbers, horseshoers, lawyers, pharmacists, midwives, and nurses. These laws cemented (or tried to cement) the economic position of organized occupations. It would be naïve to think that legislators passed these laws out of devotion to the public interest. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2004

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the modern debate on occupational licensing as rent-seeking vs. public protection (Kleiner); connects to the reader’s interest in institutions and interest-group struggle. — connects to: Occupational licensing originated as workers’ substitute for union power — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 581