I Get Comments

Nick Bradley said...
When Child labor laws made it illegal for your grandfather to work in an open, legal environment, children his age turned to the black market for money, where the pay was worse and the conditions abhorrent.

At a certain stage in economic development, children work to help put food on the table. Once economies progress past that point, families can afford to keep their kids out of work and educate them -- invest in them.

Any punishment we dole out on 3rd-world countries for having child labor keep them in economic first gear -- or they whore their daughters out and their sons become pickpockets.

June 18, 2007 7:33 PM


Manifesto Joe said...
Hey, I think that suddenly we have an answer to a lot of our social ills. Let's start putting everybody's ass to work in a factory when they're 7 years old! Think of all the character-building experiences they will have. And hell, when you consider it, not everybody needs to know how to read. I understand that 60 percent of Americans have never read a complete book. I suppose there's nothing intrinsically wrong with condemning large segments of the population to lifelong wage slavery. Many are nothing more than brutes, anyway.

To turn serious, your argument is almost analogous to: When you make it illegal for child molesters to rape children, they will do it in secret anyway, where they will do even more awful things to them, bugger them even worse, etc. So why punish them by making it illegal? Let's have it in the open, for all to see. Perhaps we can distribute free condoms at the buggery festivals, to curb the spread of disease.