Occupational licensing laws require a person to obtain government permission before working in a trade. Across six episodes of The Bob Zadek Show, the topic appears as a recurring example of what the program’s guests and host describe as unnecessary barriers to earning a living. The treatments range from a brief mention in a discussion of poverty to a dedicated segment, a historical account of the Black Codes, and an argument that licensing is a hidden form of systemic racism.
Licensing as a barrier to the poor
Matt Zwolinski placed occupational licensing among the modern policies that libertarians point to when discussing poverty, alongside agricultural price supports and rent control. He contrasted these with the 19th-century focus on banking and government restrictions on credit to the poor, such as caps on interest rates, which he said blocked people without capital or collateral out of the credit market Matt Zwolinski on Bleeding Heart Libertarianism (2014).
Bob Zadek devoted a segment of a later episode to the subject. He described Juan Carlos Montes de Oca, who he said thought he was engaged in an act of charity by giving homeless people free haircuts, but who according to Arizona’s State Board of Cosmetology was breaking the law by cutting hair without a license. Zadek said occupational licensing laws are out of control and that no one should need permission to earn an honest living, adding that in some states governmental permission is needed to braid someone else’s hair and that until recently Arizona required a license for horse masseurs. He argued that none of these laws even remotely protect the public and that they only protect practitioners from honest competition How to Stay Sane in a Statist World (2017).
Zadek attributed to Frederic Bastiat, whom he called the great 19th-century libertarian thinker, the explanation of occupational licensing as a form of “legalized plunder,” in which particular industries petition the government for special privileges that prevent competition. He also noted that organizations like the Institute for Justice are fighting for economic liberties in court, and said the IJ recently won a landmark case against the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, which had been requiring Texans to obtain a cosmetology license to practice eyebrow threading. Zadek described eyebrow threading as a harmless technique for removing eyebrows with two pieces of thread, and said cosmetology schools spend zero hours teaching it How to Stay Sane in a Statist World (2017).
The Black Codes and economic rights
Clint Bolick described the rights at issue as economic rights tracing back to the time before the United States was a nation, brought from England. He defined them as two: the right to free labor, meaning the right to contract with another person to perform work at an agreed-upon salary without the government intruding into that relationship, and freedom of enterprise, the right to establish a non-harmful business without extensive government interference. He said these are bedrock American rights that do not explicitly appear in the United States Constitution, because they were so widely accepted and taken for granted that no one thought it necessary to enumerate them Local Leviathan: Clint Bolick on Grassroots Tyranny (2018).
Bolick said states over time became great violators of these rights, particularly after the Civil War when blacks were emancipated and began using their labor and the skills they had acquired. He said they went into businesses for themselves and offered their labor at competitive wages, which was very annoying to the white gentry in the southern states who no longer had a servile labor supply. According to Bolick, the southern states then enacted Black Codes aimed at suppressing black labor by suppressing freedom of contract to negotiate wages; they imposed occupational licensing laws and other restrictions and restricted private property rights. He said these laws were outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and then incorporated into the 14th Amendment through the Privileges or Immunities Clause, and that the clause was erased from the Constitution within a short time in a case called the Slaughter-House Cases in Louisiana. Since then, he said, the courts have given virtually no protection to freedom of enterprise and economic liberty, and these laws are particularly harmful to people with little education and little capital, often preventing them from creating enterprises or working in occupations where they could earn an honest living Local Leviathan: Clint Bolick on Grassroots Tyranny (2018).
Licensing during a public health emergency
In an episode on the COVID-19 pandemic, the guest said that as libertarians they believe there is a legitimate function for government in certain situations, and that dealing with a public health emergency is a legitimate function, before arguing that government failed on virtually every level. On the state level, the guest said state licensed medical healthcare licensing laws, and actually all occupational licensing laws, made it difficult for healthcare personnel to move to other states to provide their services when they were needed. Many governors, the guest said, gave temporary recognition to licenses held by healthcare practitioners in other states because they needed help, telling a nurse or doctor licensed in Texas that their license was okay in Massachusetts, but that this was temporary. Licensing laws, the guest concluded, obstructed the movement of people to areas where they were needed Here comes “the spike…” (2020).
The same guest described Certificate of Need laws, which he said more than 35 states have, requiring permission from a government committee usually made up mostly of competitors before adding beds to a hospital or building a hospital or surgery center. He compared this to requiring a restaurant to go through a board staffed by other restaurants, which would say there are plenty of that type and none is needed. He said these laws made it difficult in some states for hospitals to adjust to the anticipated surge in patients, and that some governors temporarily suspended them while others had not. In his own state of Arizona, he said, there is no Certificate of Need law for that, so hospitals immediately began converting sections of the hospital and adding ICU beds Here comes “the spike…” (2020).
The guest also described scope of practice laws, under which states determine licensed healthcare practitioners and decide the scope of practice of each profession. He said some states allow nurse practitioners to practice without supervision from a physician to the extent they are trained, while others do not, and that in some states nurse anesthetists cannot provide anesthesia without an anesthesiologist present while in other states they can. He said governors were waiving all of these restrictions as the problems were encountered, and asked whether the restrictions should be put back in place after the crisis or whether they are really needed Here comes “the spike…” (2020).
Licensing and systemic racism
Michael Tanner said minimum wage laws were historically in many cases intended to block African American participation in labor fields, and that the people who sponsored the legislation were in many cases explicit about worrying that African American laborers would undercut white wages, in many ways the same way people now worry about immigrants undercutting wages. He said they created occupational licensing laws, union shops where African Americans could not belong, and minimum wage laws that priced many African Americans out of the labor market. Today, he said, advocates of minimum wage are certainly not racist, but the impact is the same, particularly for young African American men with little attachment to the labor force or a big skill set Towards a Libertarian Theory of Anti-Racism (2020).
In the same episode, Zadek said occupational licensing is, in his opinion, besides minimum wage laws, probably one of the best examples of how systemic racism exists in society but is hidden. He said licensing laws seem on their surface to make sense, with the goal of making sure people are competent to offer their services, but that this is the wrong goal and the wrong solution, and he asked Tanner to speak to the “good moral character” issue Towards a Libertarian Theory of Anti-Racism (2020).
Tanner said occupational licensing laws often make very little sense in terms of protecting health and safety, and that while one can argue about whether a doctor should have a medical license, it takes longer to become a beautician than to become an EMT, which he attributed to a very strong beautician lobby in Sacramento. He said that historically, in addition to passing tests and completing coursework, applicants had to have a “good moral character,” which allowed the board to kick out anybody they did not want, and that these requirements were never applied in a race-neutral way and still block entry-level into business and the labor force, tending to hurt people with higher levels of unemployment. In the wake of COVID, which he said would disrupt a lot of low-income, low-skilled jobs, he said the laws should be re-examined Towards a Libertarian Theory of Anti-Racism (2020).
Zadek offered an anecdote he said he had read recently, about a prisoner in a state prison trying to turn his life around by acquiring the skill of hair cutting. He said the man was a barber in the prison barbershop and was great at it, and after release applied for a barber’s license but was denied because of “good moral character” due to a felony conviction. Zadek called this a perfect example of how licensing laws are racist and systemically racist Towards a Libertarian Theory of Anti-Racism (2020).
Across episodes: from poverty to pandemic
The excerpts show the same question argued in more than one episode, with the emphasis shifting. Zwolinski in 2014 treats licensing as one item in a list of modern policies affecting the poor, alongside rent control and agricultural price supports. Zadek in 2017 gives the topic its own segment, naming specific cases and trades and invoking Bastiat. Bolick in 2018 supplies the historical origin in the Black Codes and the constitutional story of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. The 2020 pandemic episode turns to the practical effects of licensing and Certificate of Need laws on the movement of healthcare workers and hospital capacity. Tanner and Zadek in December 2020 recast licensing as a hidden form of systemic racism, with Tanner adding the “good moral character” requirement and the comparison between beautician and EMT training times. No single episode responds directly to another; the development is in the range of arguments rather than in a running exchange.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the text or holding of any licensing statute, nor the outcome or reasoning of the eyebrow-threading case beyond Zadek’s description of it as a landmark win against the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. They do not give the current licensing requirements of any state, the number of occupations licensed nationally, or the size of any licensing board. The Black Codes discussion names the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Slaughter-House Cases but does not quote either, and the excerpts do not say what the Privileges or Immunities Clause provides beyond Bolick’s account.