I was looking at web sites for a potential online venture, and I came across this lovely announcement from the American Massage Therapy Association. Now, on the surface you may think this is a good thing for both the consumer and for the Massage therapist. Think harder, it’s actually bad for both. What laws like this do is to implement an entrance fee for anyone that wants to give people a massage. Before this law, anyone could give someone else a massage. As a client, you could get a massage from anyone willing to give you one. With the passage of this law, if you want to be a massage therapist, you now have to pay an entrance fee (education and credentialing, etc, etc). For those entrepreneurs out there that don’t have the cash to pay the fee, they can’t play. For those that do have the cash to play, what do you think happens to their rates? Do you think they want to recoup the cost of the entrance fee? Who do you think is going to pay for that?
Laws like this are nothing short of legalized extortion. Doesn’t this sound like what the mob used to do to businesses? Hey, you want to do business in my town, you have to pay “protection” (now we call it licensing). Laws like this usually arise when a large company, or conglomeration of smaller ones (an “association”) start getting undercut by the (usually) smaller competition. Rather than try to be more competitive, they try to legislate the problem away. If that competition now has to pay entrance fees (for every employee), their rates are going to go up. Usually the members of the “association” already have whatever “license” is required by the law.
As the consumer what benefit are we gaining? Well, our MT is now licensed. What does that mean? Beats me. They can still be an asshole I bet. They can still overcharge you for their service, but now you’ve allowed them to eliminate their competition, so what are you going to do? Before if we didn’t like the MT, we go find another one, and keep looking until we find one we like. Now our choices are limited to only those that chose to go through “schooling” and “credentialing”. We as consumers need to be on the lookout for these kinds of laws so we aren’t unduly denied our choices in the marketplace.
