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William Hunter Duncan's avatar

I helped a guy remodel his entire house in the city for 2 years. I did a few side jobs during that time. I had been working in remodeling for many years, but I did not have a license. Then I got a call from an investigator with the MN dept of labor. They fined me $4000, reduced to $1000, but I had to get a license and if I didn't and continued to remodel, I would have to pay the whole fine, and then be exiled from the licensing regime for 5 years. Even with the license I am not legally allowed to do elec, plumbing or HVAC, much of which I am perfectly, professionally capable of.

So the Dept of Labor won't let me use my full expertise to make a living, and extorted $1000 from me - for not following their rules. No one complained, no client had reason to complain. All my work came on referral because I did such good work and my clients very much appreciated me. I offended the managerial state. The managerial state is a parasite on the body economic.

Now I no longer do remodeling, in large part because the new inspection regime is run by people who have never worked in the field, who could not work in the field, who learned the rules in a school out of a book. They treated me as a criminal, working on my own, as if the only reason I could be in the business is to defraud people. Such a regime draws petty tyrant types, who facilitate consolidation and monopoly.

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Malenkiy Scot's avatar

>working from the inside

Moldbug made essentially the same argument in Unqualified Reservations a while back: subverting the system from the inside is ineffective at best, and one is completely coopted at worst. Can't find the exact post, though

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