Child Labor: Beneficial in Some Circumstances?

Idyll and Practice

Well, it's an issue of perspective. One way to look at it is to pin the capitalist down on a specific issue: Why is the child working instead of going to school?

And the basic answer is that he or she must. That is, management doesn't pay the parents even a proper subsistence wage. Look at the U.S., by comparison. We fund our education system largely through private property—e.g., property taxes. Where in Nepal do you really have that kind of tax base? Or Pakistan or Honduras?

As I noted previously:

Without this labor, our eighty-dollar Nepalese cotton shirts from the department store would cost two-hundred. The ten-dollar pack of really rather fashionable underwear would cost thirty dollars. (American women are accustomed to paying ridiculous prices for underwear, but it's a statistically unusual phenomenon among men.)

If we look around and consider such labor and socioeconomic/political situations around the world, there is a striking correlation. My hand towels in the bathroom, bought cheap at one or another Kroger store, were made in Pakistan.

Are we willing to do without hand towels at three for five dollars? Will American men really pay twenty bucks a pop for their underwear? How about thirty dollars a pound for coffee?​

A slightly more sarcastic version:

We already complain about paying too much for our Starbucks' coffee. Imagine if, on top of satisfying investors and paying executives, we paid the people who actually pick the coffee a fair wage? That four-dollar mochaccino just hit six or seven dollars at least. If we are ignoring the problem, it is willful and at least somewhat malicious.​

With businesses fleeing overseas because labor costs are allegedly too high in America—but, wait ... too high for what?

Too high for management's egos? Well, perhaps, but that's not the primary issue.

The argument we always used to hear from Reagan Republican capitalists—and it's not without considerable validity—is that if we paid abroad what we pay at home, the cost of goods would rise dramatically. This would bring dramatic consequences to the United States. Not only would it degrade our standard of living by reducing purchasing power, but that reduction would have an effect on the economy, as well.

To wit, considering the fact that child labor of the sort we're trying to discuss exists at all, life sometimes provides some mind-boggling moments, like listening to a manufacturing firm vice president who owns two houses, five boats, five cars, two televisions, two VCRs, three desktop computers, and a mobile phone (ca. early 1990s) explain that he's poor.

And, yes, that's a discussion I've really had before.

I don't disagree with your post, Ice. It's just that, for instance—

—well, yeah, but that idyll isn't the reality that we've built for ourselves.

The way things are—that we have established ourselves—yes, our economy presently depends on the existence and growth of a tremendous poverty class. If we alleviate that poverty class, we reduce our purchasing power and likewise our economy, which also describes a reduction in our quality of life. This is how we've set it up.

There are the ifs, and I agree. But there is also what is, and it seems to me that, presently, what is depends on exploiting a large and growing poverty class.

 

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I don't think it is. I think it is simply false, from any perspective that recognizes economic reality.

For example, this is not realistic:

Identical shirts and underwear can be manufactured in the US and sold in the US, at US adult labor wages and standard retail markups, for much less than that.

Baloney. It maybe hit 4.50, maybe didn't move a penny.

That argument is typical Reaganite dishonesty. The cost of goods would rise somewhat, but not double or triple - and the standard of living produced would not necessarily drop at all.

Anecdote: my source of pac boots for winter footgear used to be Canadian factory production. The company sold, and the buyer moved its manufacturing to China. My preferred boot design now costs $110 - approximately matching the more or less expected 40% price jump in the years since my last purchase, had the company remained in Canada. The quality is a bit lower, which I did not expect from Canadian production. To match the former quality I would have to upgrade the design choice, to $150 or so. Irritated, I went shopping: I can buy a significantly better quality boot matching my design preferences, manufactured in Minnesota, for less than $240 - secure guess, about $215.

Discounting for the quality gain, that's less than a 25% price difference; which in my best guess is mostly due to the lack of the economy of scale formerly provided by the large Canadian factory production setup.

The difference in my standard of living provided by the presence of successful manufacturing operations in my community and well employed people as my neighbors easily covers any remaining differential.

And so forth. The people attempting to put over the idea that child labor and similar exploitation is necessary to provide an ordinary American standard of living are just covering corporate ass.

 

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If in your viewpoint children working in sweatshops isn't exploitation of child labor I guess nothing is. So you just support child sweatshop labor.

 

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@Mindovermatter:

You're missing the point. I'm the one who is saying sweatshops are better than starvation. Tiassa is the one unconditionally condemning all forced labour of children. Understanding the history and causation of a problem is not equivalent to condoning it.

 

Yes - I misquoted Tiassa. That post is for you.

 

In that case its fine. I'm not going to apologise for my stance. I know what lives these children lead. A sweatshop is not an option, its a way not to become a statistic.

 

Nobody is arguing against that meaningless truism.

Selling pieces of ones body to be made into dog food is also better than starvation.

You are also claiming that the wealth of the West was necessarily acquired by enforcing that choice, and Western economies are necessarily based on such exploitation.

The question is: how do you prevent, first; avoid, if presented; or if regrettably necessary dig out of, that trap?

Because the evidence seems to indicate that if you allow industry to profit by child labor, it will create that choice - for the profit of it.

 

It's not the children's fault they are being exploited, clearly they have no choice in the matter. People will do whatever is necessary to be fed, that much is obvious. We have the choice though of how much we pay for the goods they produce and the conditions they are produced in.