Certifiable

Today I’m going to teach you how to spot a certain kind of scam, and maybe even scam the scammers a little.

First, let’s talk about a nerdy economic term called “rent-seeking.” I won’t go into too much econ theory here, but basically rent-seeking is “bureaucratic parasitism.” It’s when a system is complex enough that you can make money off the complexity itself by taking advantage of how difficult it would be for the average person to recognize what you’re doing – notably without doing anything actually useful or valuable..

There’s more to it than just that (as I’ll explain), but let’s start with an example. There are some professions in which mistakes can be especially costly or dangerous, such as surgeons or airline pilots. For these professions, there are often lengthy certification or licensing processes to make sure that the people practicing these things have the proper skills and demeanor to do so safely. These institutions become a part of the background tapestry of our culture, and gradually people start to hear words like “unlicensed” or “uncertified” as very negative descriptions. You’d never willingly get operated on by an “unlicensed surgeon,” right? And this is true even though the average person has absolutely no idea what certification actually entails. It’s a rational decision for most people to outsource their evaluation of professionals doing a complex job to a complex system.

Okay, so that’s the system we have. Now let’s imagine our imaginary villain Joe. Joe figures out that the system of his society works this way and comes up with a scheme to extract value from that system without providing anything in return. Here’s the scheme: He starts a certification board for dog walkers.

Some people walk dogs for other people, either as a living or a side hustle. With all due respect to anyone who does this (and contra to situation comedies), it’s trivially easy. There is absolutely no need for anyone who does it to be licensed, certified, or have government oversight. Joe knows this. But he’s betting you don’t. He’s betting that he can scare people with terms like “unlicensed dog walker.” And he’s betting – critically – that anyone who initially recognizes this for what it is will have more to gain by playing along than by calling him out.

Step one is to get a few dog walkers on board, probably with some cheap or even free “courses.” These courses won’t provide any information at all, of course – but they’ll let the pros who take them call themselves “certified dog-walking professionals” or put CDWP after their name on LinkedIn or whatever. That, in turn, will let them command higher prices from customers who would rather pay a little extra to make sure their precious Labradoodle isn’t in the hands of some uncertified maniac, some loose cannon just out here doing God knows what with these dogs.

Maybe some noble dog walker recognizes this as a sham, but what’s he going to do? Say no? Joe even offers him “professional credit,” using his existing experience as a dog walker to automatically qualify for the certification. This guy can get CDWP for free, or he can raise a big stink and refuse it. But for what? So future employers who put “CDWP Required” on job descriptions will pass him over? It’s easier just to go along with it, and that’s part of why the scam works.

Once people start to realize that they can get higher wages as a dog walker by having this certification, it becomes worth money. Now Joe can start charging people to get certified, and they’ll pay it! They’ll pay it even though they know it’s bullshit. They’ll sit in those classes while some teacher pretends to teach them how to walk a dog. They know it’s bogus, but they also know that their customers don’t, and that getting this piece of paper is basically a ticket to increased future earnings indefinitely, so it’s worth rolling your eyes but holding your tongue.

So now Joe has created a little value-extraction machine that provides exactly zero benefit to society. He gets paid to certify dog walkers even though that process does nothing to make society better, and he artificially shifts wages away from some dog walkers (the ones that can’t afford the time or money for the certification) towards those willing (and able) to “play ball.” In every way, society is worse off – but Joe pockets the money.

Over time, this can become so embedded that people start forgetting they’re scamming people. The teachers at Joe’s “school” start to think they’re actually providing some benefit and that people who don’t attend their classes genuinely can’t walk dogs properly. The students believe it too. The classes get more arcane and complicated over time, because “arcane and complicated” is a great way of hiding the fact that it’s all bullshit to begin with.

If Joe is really successful at his scam, he can get the government to pass a law actually requiring dog walkers to be certified. Not everyone pulling this scam is this successful, but believe me, they’ll all try. After all, once it gets enshrined into law it becomes almost impossible for society to shift to any alternatives even if some disruptors see behind the curtain.

So that’s the scam. That’s “rent-seeking.” People like Joe take advantage of the way a system is structured to become a leech on the society supported by that system.

Now let’s introduce our unlikely heroine, Maya. Let’s say Maya is a young woman who wants to walk dogs in her neighborhood as a way of supporting herself. By this point, the “Certified Dog-Walking Professional” courses are thousands of dollars and take months to obtain, but people won’t hire a dog walker without CDWP behind their name. But Maya is a smart critical thinker with a nose for bullshit. She reviews the course lists and talks to a few other dog walkers and quickly figures out that absolutely nothing of value is taught in those classes. She recognizes a truth that has become an unthinkable taboo in her society: She knows perfectly damned well how to walk a dog.

This isn’t a matter of hubris; she’s not “too good for the rules.” She isn’t a dangerous maverick, putting society at risk by hopping into the cockpit of a passenger jet with no training. This is just someone who’s seen the trap before she got caught in it.

So what does Maya do? She figures she can scam the scammers in the same way. She can use the very nature of the scam to beat it.

How? She just… puts CDWP after her name. That’s it. She lists herself as a “Certified Dog-Walking Professional.”

How is this using the nature of the scam? Well, remember – this scam can only exist in the first place because people will outsource their evaluation of their professional service providers to a third party because that evaluation is too complicated to do on your own. Which means she knows that exactly zero of her customers are ever going to request to see her certification. She’s breaking the rules, but the rules were a massive, immoral scam to begin with.

Is Maya going to take down all the villains with this plan? Probably not. Even if she turns out to be the best dog walker in the world and wins the Nobel Prize for Canine Exercise and Transportation then dramatically reveals to the world that she did it all without official certification, she’d probably just be seen as an exception by most and as a cheater to a few.

Sadly, the Joes of the world are always going to exist. Which is all the more reason why you should be like Maya as often as you can. Sniff out the bullshit and opt out whenever you can. You can’t destroy every trap, but you don’t have to be like all the other insane people willingly walking into it, either.

This requires a level of personal responsibility. It’s not immoral to lie about being a “certified dog walker.” It is immoral to lie about being a licensed heart surgeon. Where’s the line? There isn’t one clear, bright one. Which is why the scam works in the first place; people don’t like having to take personal responsibility both for determining what they can do and for determining what others can do. They’d rather outsource all of that critical thinking, even if it means opening up a massive vulnerability to guys like Joe.

So the scam is always going to exist, and there will always be victims of it. But you don’t have to be one of them. If you can walk a dog and you want to, do it – you’d have to be certifiable not to.