Child Labor
Human Rights Watch, the group best known for documenting governmental abuse and war crimes, plans to release a report on Wednesday showing that child and forced labor is widespread on farms that supply a cigarette factory owned by Philip Morris International in Kazakhstan, in Central Asia.
Assuming the child labor is not coerced, these children are better off than if public or government pressure forces Philip Morris to stop hiring them. Under that scenario, most of these children would have zero income rather than a low income. It might “feel good” to oppose child labor, but the alternative for these children is not attending some nice school or relying on parental income; the alternative is an even lower standard of living if they cannot work.
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Malcolm Kirkpatrick
“…(T)he alternative for these children is not attending some nice school or relying on parental income; the alternative is an even lower standard of living if they cannot work.”
The case against child labor is weaker than that.
Compulsory, unpaid labor is slavery (definition). Statutes which compel attendance at school turn children into slaves of school staff. In the US, children work, unpaid, as window-dressing in a massive employment program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel.
It does not take 12 years at $10,000 per pupil-year to teach a normal child to read and compute. Most vocational training occurs more effectively on the job than in a classroom. State (government, generally) provision of History, Civics, and Economics instruction is a threat to democracy, just as State operation of newspapers and broadcast news media would be (are, in totalitarian countries).
Ben Franklin attended school for two years, then apprenticed. Hiram Maxim left school at 14 and apprenticed. Thomas Edison was homeschooled and started working at 13. Robert FitzRoy attended the Admiralty school for 20 months and went to sea at 14.
Suboptimal Planet
I’m close to agreeing with you, but I fear the difficulty is in knowing whether the children have been coerced (either by employers or parents), and whether they are capable of fully appreciating and consenting to the exchange.
Most libertarians agree that prostitution should be legal. Most also insist that only adults can legitimately consent to sex.
If prostitution were legal, should this profession be open to children?
dfvazan
Interesting question. But it seems to me this is a non-issue since laws regarding age of consent already exist. Technically, a legal minor can not “agree” to a sexual relations with or without child labor laws.
For the most part I agree that child labor laws cause more harm than good. My skepticism is in the isolated instances where a parent might willfully abuse a child for financial gain. How do you protect children from genuinely wicked parents who would exploit them as slaves?
jimbino
We regularly abuse kids in Amerika, first by mutilating their sex organs at birth and without their consent, then brainwashing them in various churches, followed by killing their spirit in public school.
Yes, we do need the full 12 years (it really costs $12,000 per 9-month year) to kill the spirit of the most intransigent among them.
Einstein told his parents at age 15 that he no longer wanted to be a German, a Jew or a student in a German school.
I started work at age 10, lucky to have a father who had done so in 1912.
cheyenne
There’s children, and then there’s teens. Beyond that, I just don’t see how it’s helpful to America to use cheap labor (aside from the obvious) I’m looking at the bigger picture, the whole picture.
(my comment will show up if I’m not still being censored
P)
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
(Cheyenne): “…I just don’t see how it’s helpful to America to use cheap labor…”.
Try “I just don’t see how it’s helpful to America to use cheap __X__ (iron ore, copper, paper, lettuce).” Or was that “the obvious”? Given that on the job training is more effective than classwork and the alternative to child labor is an expensive, abusive, stultifying school system, child labor has obvious benefits.
Marc
If child labor was forbidden everywhere, maybe the parent’s children could do their work? Maybe the children could then have time to get a proper education? Maybe they would then become responsible citizens who wish the best for their children and fellow citizens?
Oops. Then there would not be any libertarians anymore!
Sorry. Bad idea. Better put the children in Labor Camps. Long live the Libertarians!
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
Marc,
Please read E.G. West’s “Education Without the State” (online).
The government of a locality is the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in that locality (definition).
Inevitably, someone determines how children spend their time. Why suppose that an agent selected by the dominant violence dealer in your town will make better decisions than a child’s parents?
Who decides what constitutes “proper education”? Thomas Edison was homeschooled and started work at 13, Cyrus McCormick was homeschooled by his parents (his father was a farmer and machinist). Hyram Maxim left school at 13 and apprenticed to a machinist. The Wright brothers did not complete high school, and we’re better for it.
Einstein opposed compulsory schooling. Gandhi opposed compulsory schooling.
Today, in the US, children labor, unpaid, as windowdressing in a massive employment program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel. Do you imagine that the schooling is any more benign in Mali?
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