Whats wrong with this picture?

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by S.A.M., Oct 31, 2007.

  1. John99 Banned Banned

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    No BELLS. People reall ARE responsible, as for child labor how can you possibly hold a company responsible when the believe the country they are dealing with is honest.
     
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  3. Bells Staff Member

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    Your views are so simplistic, the only thing I can do is pity you. How about instead of invading them, we force the corporations operating in the West, who employ or contract other companies to use child labour, to actually pay those children a fair and decent wage and to provide them with an education. It would be a start, don't you think? How about our governments stop sponsoring and aiding governments who kidnap and force children into the army. I don't know Baron, 'wadda ya think'?

    Do you deliberately try to be dim? Or does being a simpleton come naturally to you?

    I am asking so that I know how to deal with you in the future.

    Where did I say to let them starve Baron? Please show me because from where I am sitting, you are pulling it out of your wrinkled backside.

    What I am saying is that those children who, by circumstances beyond their control, have to work to help support the family, that they be paid a fair and just wage. Not to force them into slave labour or pay them a pittance simply because they are children. Give them an education as well. Give them rights. What I am saying is to treat them fairly. Sure we may have to pay more, but it is better than to have children worked to death for nothing or next to nothing so we can keep a few more dollars in our pockets. That might, and I say might, be a start. Improve their working conditions and pay them more... Provide them with an education.. health care.. give them a choice in life. 'Ya know'? What I am saying is for us to take responsibility for our actions and our choices. Or better yet, pay the parents enough so they can support and educate their children, without their being forced to send their children out to work to support them. Now which do you think would be the better option Baron?

    Oh you have no idea how mean and nasty I can be Baron.
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2007
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  5. Bells Staff Member

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    Do you honestly believe that companies do not know who they hire or their contractors 'hire' to produce their wares? Don't you think Nike or Gap knew their low priced labour in overseas factories and sweatshops were so low because the people employed to make their goods were in fact children? Surely you aren't so naive John.
     
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  7. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    It's known that poorer families do tend to have larger numbers of children, the reason for this is usually down to knowing that having more able bodies at the food table should mean that the food table has food provided for it. This stereotype is held true in agrarian/rural areas where farming is the only way to live and the farming doesn't pay but feeds and clothes the family.

    The families of course then have their children look for secondary work, away from the family itself and since they probably haven't had a educated upbringing the only jobs open to them are the ones that will train them to do that particular job. Those jobs are usually factories and the factories are usually supplying named manufacturers. The children can of course suggest what ever age they are, since after all being born miles from city hospitals is likely to not grant things like Birth certificates or any forms of social security, How do you check a persons not lieing about their age in a country without such bureaucratic practices?

    Companies are pressurised by consumers now to employ people to check potential employee's ages, as for the result of this... well your a consumer... do you know?
     
  8. redarmy11 Registered Senior Member

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    7,658
    It's less than 200 years since children across the Westerm world were working 18-hour days for barely enough money to keep them alive. Poverty was so widespread that people thought nothing of sending their children up chimneys and into factories from dawn til dusk and beyond.

    http://nhs.needham.k12.ma.us/cur/Baker_00/2002_p7/ak_p7/childlabor.html

    IF... we were somehow able to do what Fraggle says and make sure that what the children earn stays with the children, so that they can have a decent standard of living and play their part in igniting a stagnant economy, that would be fantastic - surely? Britain did it. America did it. Now it's their turn.

    Or are the naysayers and doom-merchants even going to whinge and moan about that?

    What's wrong with kids earning a bit of pocket money (erm... paper-rounds?), as long as mum and dad don't take it off 'em?

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  9. John99 Banned Banned

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    I would say most of the time (maybe all of the time)it is sub contracted to the country providing the labor, and there is no way to know how the money is allocated. Do you think these comapnies get free reign and just set up in another country?
     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Child labor forms what game theorists call a stable strategy - like imported serf labor, it lowers wages to the point that it becomes necessary, and locks the system into that state.

    It is possible for an economic system to find a stable strategy point that forbids child labor - as the US has. But the "market", governed by game theoretic concerns and stuck on a stable strategy point, will not move to the new state by itself. Governmental force would be required.

    As industrial and corporate pressures intrude into the family, their concerns usurp the roles of familial behaviors - the child who cooperated with their parents doing chores on the family farm becomes the child who competes with their parents for wages in the local brick factory. The family loses, over all. The factory gains.
     
  11. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    1,888
    yes, that is also perfectly good example. The Catholic Church cannot be said to be a major factor in the very large population of India. I am glad I did not have to write out a whole sentence for you to get my point. KUdos.

    I did notice however that you opted not to respond to my pointing out the above quote is ludicrous. Conservatives would hate this line of thinking much more that liberals. Try to pass a law like that and all the people who voted for BUSH will be on your ass.
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2007
  12. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    1,888
    I thought it would be obvious. Overpopulation is possible in a country which is only slightly influenced by the Catholic church and where the government actively tries to reduce the size of families (and the Catholic Church for that matter). I was saying that perhaps you theory was limited.
     
  13. kaneda Actual Cynic Registered Senior Member

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    This sort of thing has always been going on but has only recently been noticed. Our only chance is to lift the children from poverty. I've been going to Thailand for almost 22 years and while there are still many poor there have seen it happen to the Thai people over all that they now have a better standard of living than they had then. Prostitutes are aged 18 and above (there are paedophiles in every country so Thailand cannot be blamed for that).

    Sure the catholic church are guilty. Go to a religious forum and mention condoms, abortion and such and the bible-for-brains bunch will be up on their hind legs and ranting at you. I would like a new car every year but can't afford it. If someone is dirt poor, how do they think they can afford to have lots of children? It could be claimed that they believe they will look after them in later life but look around there and that is hardly ever true. The old are not wanted anywhere.

    Education is our best tool. We must educate people and teach them responsibility, while giving them hope for a better future.
     
  14. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Bells, you're advocating not only infringing on the rights of free enterprise of western corporations, but you're also advocating that those same western nations interfere with the culture of other nations. I don't know why, but that doesn't sound too friendly or neighborly to me.

    Baron Max
     
  15. s0meguy Worship me or suffer eternally Valued Senior Member

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    Sounds like we should maintain the situation, it's useful to us...

    If any of you care so much for them, why don't you go there and pay for their education. But no, you people sit here, talking about forcing other people to do it.

    As for you people *cough* idiots who suggest paying them fair wages, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of the corporations going there to offer them jobs in the first place?
     
  16. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    23,053
    I was just thinking ...something I don't do much of around here.

    But, ...if a western parent allowed a little kid to work in a sweat shop here, we'd be screaming at the parents. Why don't we blame the parents of those little kids in the Third World nations that allow their kids to work in "those" places? Why is all of the blame thrown up to western nations? Why must the west be responsible for what's done in the Third World nations?

    Is this just one more of those issues where y'all just make excuses for those fucked up nations and people, and thus place all of the blame on the west?

    Baron Max
     
  17. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Yes..

    Hence why the parents should be paid more for their labour so they are not forced into the position of having to force their children to work to help support the family.

    How can you blame them when they are placed in a position where they have no choice? How can you blame them when their agricultural produce is locked out of the world market? How can you blame them when Western corporations refuse to pay the adults fairly or justly, resulting in those parents not being able to afford to feed their family and being placed in the position where they need to make their children work?
     
  18. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    No, that's the whole point and you're doggedly missing it just to maintain your curmudgeonly alternate ego. By taking jobs those children are increasing their family's income as well as their whole country's GDP. That makes a brighter future for everybody. In another generation the country will be able to afford to build up its infrastructure, including educational, and the adults will have enough income to send their kids off to school. Of course the only thing missing from this picture is that their leaders have to be responsible in order for the country to actually build up that capital, rather than spending it on weapons, palaces and champagne.

    But as I said earlier, that is the real answer to the question in the OP: What's wrong with this picture? Look around the world at the places where poverty is extreme and you'll find despotic governments. Don't complain about children working in factories to help support their families. Complain about assholes running countries. That shouldn't be too hard to relate to, we've got one right here.
    Well that's fair enough, within reason. No one has the power to grant them the right to safety that children have here because we can't send all of their parents these newfangled baby carriages that look like miniature Volvos. We can't grant the the right to a healthy environment because somebody's going to have to fix their economy first. All we can do is try to enlighten the adults so they'll give their children the best lives they can. And of course that starts with the adults who run those countries for their own personal gain.
    So what do you propose as an alternative? Stop shopping at Wal-Mart and Costco and put those factories out of business so their family incomes will plummet? If you've got a better idea, let's hear it. Don't just sit on the sidelines and grumble. We've got Max to do that and one of him is enough.
    As a typical American with no respect for history, I'm getting fed up with being blamed for the world that somebody's ancestors created. The plight of the Third World is largely the responsibility of the British and other colonial powers, who didn't understand that tribal cultures cannot evolve into nations in one generation. But for the goddess's sake, a lot of those colonial administrators honestly thought they were helping to bring those people up out of the Stone Age precisely because they didn't know all those things.

    Max, the chameleon, on another thread is busy blaming the citizens of the Third World for their own plight. He says their intelligence is lower than ours and so they could never develop a civilization. What they've got is the best they can hope for. If their cultures can't survive in the modern world, then we'll just have to let destiny take its course, sit back, and watch them die off. (Am I quoting you fairly accurately, Baron?)

    I think there's a middle ground between those two positions. We all just have to find it.
    You need a refresher course in Econ 101A. Sure some people will be willing to pay more, but the law of supply and demand says that for many reasons a lot of people will stop buying those products if the prices are raised. One very common reason is that they can't afford it. Offshore labor has increased the prosperity of both the consuming nations, because they have more goods, and of the producing nations, because they have more income. Try messing with that universal truth and you're basically trying to reinvent another form of communism. It didn't work the first time and it will never work because an economy simply cannot run that way.
     
  19. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    23,053
    Who placed them there? And if it's so bad, why don't they get out of it instead of having more kids? No, Bells, you're just making excuses for them ...and playing the all-mighty, superior being.

    Who locked them out of the world markets? And what are they doing selling things when they ain't got a pot to piss in?

    Well, in the western nations, they go on strike for higher wages. If they didn't voluntarily work for such low pay, then supply and demand would force those nasty western corps to pay more.

    Or would you rather continue to make excuses for them? ...while they continue to fuck and turn out more kids that they can't feed?

    Baron Max
     
  20. mountainhare Banned Banned

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    3,287
    Bells:
    Nonsense. Those people choose their own destiny.
     
  21. DeepThought Banned Banned

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    It just demonstrates how spoilt Western children are.

    No one born with a mouth to feed is innocent.
     
  22. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Ahh, yes, but Bells wants to take that away from "those people" and have the rich, white western nations do it for them! Ain't she nice?

    Baron Max
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Unfortunately, that is unlikely. Child labor, like serf labor, usually locks the economy into a condition where it remains necessary. The child labor increases the family's income to survival level - the kids can never quit and go to school, because their income is always necessary for their own support. That will be just as true of the next generation of kids.

    As long as child labor is available, the income of the adults will be dragged down by it - capital doesn't pay labor any more than it must, to keep a supply of labor available.

    You seem to be imagining a situation where the laboring child is accumulating some kind of surplus, that the next generation can use.

    As far as who is to blame: The first world is to blame for its own actions and behaviors in third world countries. Beyond that, it's a local problem. That is severe blame, btw, incurred by First World countries. They are and have been behaving abominably.
     

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