accreditation is a thorny issue. It is nice to see the diplomas on the wall (of doctor, lawyer, engineer, architect) but are we sure they know what they are doing? and what if they don't? what recourse?
that is why I guess that people say, when moving to a new town ask around. find a doc in a teaching hospital (more accreditation and more supervision, helping to catch the oafs). Friedman would say that the market will work. As long as information is provided (which it currently isn't. the medical world, for example is shrouded in cya and mystery) When a patient dies, in Friedman's model the next prospective patient would move to a different doctor. Today with cover ups, when a patient dies there is no information on why this happened or indeed if it happened at all. Unless of course there is a law suit. arthur -----Original Message----- From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2003 8:44 AM To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Cavema n Trade vs. Modern Trade [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Harry, > > Go back an re-read Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom. He makes a > strong case for getting rid of a lot of the accreditation in society > saying that it just builds enclaves of monopoly power. ie., privilege. [snip] It seems to me that the justification for accreditation lies in the HUGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE, which prevents persons from verifying the competencies of the persons they need services from by first-person experience of performative evidence. Our doctors, et al., apart from their cdredentials, are mostly "pig in a poke"s to us. I don't see how this can be changed in the anonymo-city. However, perhaps the credentialling process can be shifted from multiple choice tests to the making and predsentation of masterpieces. This happens to some extent (e.g., for watchmaker trainees). But I think the tendency is away from personal presentation of evidence of mastery toward enhancing Educational Testing Service's services. Anoher problem is that even where supposedly evidence of mastery is the criterion, as in the PhD dissertation process, much of the time the "evidence" prouced is something that means nothing to the learner but which is of some use as cheap labor to those who already have their credential. I think we need to acknowledge that many graduate students do not yet have any really meaningful interests in their young lives, and we need to find a way to let them do the jobs they are training for without jumping thru hoops. For the mindful god abhors untimely growth. (--Holderlin) Dissertations should be optional productions, which come when "the spirit moves" a person to have something to say in an honorific sense. Besides making the creenialling process more genuinely reasonable as part of meaningful personal and social life, I think we also ned to tr to minimize the situations which require credentialling. Automobile driving licenses are an obvious example here: The whole instituional establishment of driver licensing only exists because persons cannot walk to the places they need and want to go to in their daily lives. We need to design out of life such regimentation-creating social structures. -- unless, of course, we genuinely enjoy being tested and geting credentialled and failing to get credentialled.... "Daddy, when can I take the SATs? I wanna! I really wanna! When, daddy, PLEASE!" "Sorry son, but you have to go to kindergarten first. You have to learn to be patient. You'll get your chance to do the fun things grownups do when you are old enough. You just have to have some patience...." \brad mccormick -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
