This is a case where the act itself is evidence of the intent.

I know how insulting this is, but asking this question implies either the one asking shouldn't participate in discussions of any kind, or is involved in the corruption

It’s pretty obvious why the doctor’s guild would prevent more medical school spots from being available.

> It’s pretty obvious why ...

That's never evidence and a well-labeled gateway to our own fallacy. There's a reason serious examination of an issue requires factual evidence in any field, from medicine to law to science, etc.

IME, in areas I lack expertise, the truth is usually intuitive but an unexpected intuition. The only solution, the only source of truth, is evidence.

Do I need to say this on HN? Sadly, it seems like it.

This is how every guild in history has operated. Every profession when it controls the supply of its own members seeks to limit it. The AMA can only furnish the weakest of excuses for this practice. They say it has to do with federal funding for residency programs. But there's no reason for residency programs to need federal funding at all. They generate more value for hospitals than they cost to run.

There's a reason evidence, not fact-free theories, is required.

But now I see the name of your throwaway account. It's sad that you can't talk to other people respectfully.

:'(

It would be interesting to predict a surplus of software engineers and sharply raise the requirements for applicants to engineering departments.

At least the prediction of surplus of VCs in all other countries except US seems to be working well.

/s

I would hope they’d be smart enough to not write it down if they did.

It didn’t no, but that’s the effect, and why it was so slow to change: the existing members benefited.

It's an hypothesis that's worth exploring because of the apparent effect you point out, which is I think is fact. Based on this discussion, I suspect nobody here knows any evidence.

The very sad and dangerous issue is, they don't seem to care or grasp the fallibility of their subjective judgment. Some even turn to ridicule as an argument, which of course is irrelevant and obstructs the search for truth.

Without truth, we are doomed. We only spin our wheels, sometimes excitedly, sometimes frantically, sometimes confidently - but it's all a waste of time and labor. We go nowhere; we gain nothing; we are in the same place tomorrow as today (or we may go backward). We don't even know what problems there are or how to solve them.

(The claim that existing members benefit also needs evidence: Existing members express feeling very overworked, which doesn't corroborate the claim, and most analyses I see say the the money is going to the insurance companies and the hospital owners and managment.)

Is there another reason why having a surplus of doctors a problem?

Isn't "the existing doctors would be displeased" reason enough?

Why doctors would be displeased? They could offload some ungodly load to their peers, while enjoying less desperate patients. BTW patients significantly outnumber doctors, and they would probably be pleased, no?

/s

No?

Well, that's pretty much what the current protectionism is doing.

That’s unfortunately true. “The purpose of a system is what it does.”

There are many possible reasons. Do you want to seriously explore them?