Talking about utter nonsense, here is another one. Why do doctors, pilots, lawyers, and a great many of other people need licenses in order to be allowed offering their work?
You might argue that they have important jobs and someone ought to check their qualifications before they start working. Well, you are pretty much fooled.
The simple reason why so many occupations require having a license is that licensing reduces competition and thus raises insiders’ salaries. That is why nowadays you find licensing for pretty much everything, from hair dressing to flower arranging. A couple of moths ago, The Economist presented the insane scope of licensing these days in the United States.
From my point of view, Milton Friedman was best to explain both the underlying idea of licensing (how it reduces competition) as well as why licenses -even for doctors and airplane pilots- are completely unnecessary. Read ‘Free to Choose‘ for that matter.
Swiss Economist 