would libertarians have child labor laws?
Jake Blues
list of questions. One of them was: why do we need to have child labor
laws? I refused to answer the question on the grounds that it was
biased. I mean, I suppose I could have said something like "So that
greedy capitalist corporations don't take advantage of children." But
I'm a bit too libertarian to say something like that. Probably the
shrink concluded that I had a sociopathic tendency. Well, what the
hell: it wasn't my choice to see him in the first place; it was part
of a comprehensive eveluation. Anyway, would libertarians remove all
federal child labor laws? If not, would greedy capitalist
corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids? If
not, what would prevent them from doing so? Have they done so
throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
--
The song of the Sirens is irresistible. Those who hear it and have not
been tied
to the mast like Odysseus will perish among the rocks (c.f. - The
Odyssey).
Paul Ciszek
In article <VsMhg.80381$iB2....@bignews4.bellsouth.net>,
Jake Blues <5h...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>of a comprehensive eveluation. Anyway, would libertarians remove all
>federal child labor laws?
Libertarians are (supposedly) big on all activities being
consensual. Some of the less extreme ones would argue that minors
can't meaningfully consent to as many things as adults can.
The more extreme anarcho-capitalists would have no laws whatsoever.
> If not, would greedy capitalist
>corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids? If
>not, what would prevent them from doing so? Have they done so
>throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
They currently do so in countries that do not have child labor laws,
and in which such labor is worth hiring.
Here in the US, I can't picture anyone getting a kid to do *anything*.
Also, automation is available for all sorts of unskilled tasks. SO
I suspect that the practice wouldn't be as profitable as elsewhere,
and thus might not be as popular as it was around the turn of the
century.
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
Tony Myers (Beloved Man of the People)
Do you think the sun is going to shine all the time without the
government's help? And horse flies! When you libertarians are in power
do you think all the horse flies will disappear?!!? You all didn't even
consider horse flies when you came up with your precious little
political philosophy, did you? I just got back from Branson, and the
first thing I find is a wild yap from you people - about jail and court
and politics
and lawyers and such; what do you think I am- some sort of moneybag?
Here I am
trying to sell my short story trilogy, and you people hound me at every
turn -
howling and moaning. Who are you anyway? I never bought a damn thing
from you people. What kind of rotten business are you people in - that
you have to hound people from all over the country? I get a bunch of
mail every two or three months, and every damn time I get some, I find
a manifesto from you people. What the Hell are you trying to do,
anyway? Don't you realize that I can't work with all this war
coming on us? The atomic fallout is God's WRATH! With the end of the
world right on top of us, I can't afford to work. If I don't get my
work published now, I may never get it published. Haven't you ever
heard of serving god and Mammon? With all the sex going on and people
forgetting about God, how can you hound me like this? Were taking
whiskey into our bodies and all the time drinking God's BLOOD! I
can't hold a job - I get worried all the time and feel half
crazy.....what are you doing with all this money? I don't want your
damn money...we all have a home in Heaven ...what's all this trouble?
You don't understand the strain I'm under - I'm not the same man
I was a year ago. Worrying about my work and money and jobs all the
time is driving me
crazy. I have got to get my work published. Why don't you talk to
some
publishers you know and get me an advance so I can write a novel? Then
I'll
have money...then I'll have it....I won't get these threats! I got
a disease of
some kind over in Branson and I can't even go to a doctor! Everyone
thinks
it's funny, but I have to get a job. I might be the assistant
religion editor
of the Gainsville Sun pretty soon.....I'm going there next week to
see about a
job. I had a car, but someone took it in St. Louis. Oh God, what's
happening
all the time? Everybody wants to steal and drink and sex and take
everybody's
money away from people who don't even sell any thing and there atomic
fallout
everywhere and war coming on. The whole world is going crazy and I
don't even
have a job. You've got to stop threatening me! I'm not well. I have
a blister
on my leg and that damn disease all over my stomach. I can't even
think what I
want to say anymore- this worry is driving me crazy. I tried to work in
Branson and they made me quit. If I get this thing in Gainsville I'll
be a religion editor and publish my own book in the paper. After that I
will get a job and be well.
> I have recently had a session with a psychologist. He was asking me a
> list of questions. One of them was: why do we need to have child labor
> laws?
Why would that question come up in therapy unless you mention running a
sweatshop or something like that?
Jake Blues
"Tony Myers (Beloved Man of the People)" <Sedat...@gmail.com> wrote
in message
news:1149749347.0...@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>*Snip rant probably written under the influence*
Though I'll say this much: that "precious little political philosophy"
was the basis for the Constitution. No political party or group "came
up" with it.
> > I have recently had a session with a psychologist. He was asking
me a
> > list of questions. One of them was: why do we need to have child
labor
> > laws?
>
> Why would that question come up in therapy unless you mention
running a
> sweatshop or something like that?
>
I wasn't in therapy. As I said, it was part of a general evaluation.
They tested my math, writing, keyboarding, computer knowledge, --- and
general state of mind. The shrink worked almost entirely from a list
of questions he asked me and every other poor sap who came through
there.
Tony Myers (Beloved Man of the People)
Hey, the only thing I'm high on is life. And Jesus. Hugs not drugs -
that's my motto
Jake Blues
> > >*Snip rant probably written under the influence*
>
> Hey, the only thing I'm high on is life. And Jesus. Hugs not drugs -
> that's my motto
brain-damaging toxin when abused.
>
Tony Myers (Beloved Man of the People)
Ever seen some whore on a street corner turning tricks so she can get
some money to support her collection plate habit?
Jake Blues
>
From http://www.sexwork.com/coalition/christian.html
Prostitutes in the Bible
There are only a few non-cultic prostitutes mentioned in the bible.
Since men could
have as many wives and concubines (for breeding or just sexual
enjoyment) as they
could afford it may have been only the poorer men who would need
prostitutes for
sexual variety. They couldn't afford the "upkeep" of wives or
concubines so they
went to prostitutes for sexual pleasure and release.
Prostitution in Hebrew society was morally censored at times for
legitimate reasons
such as the knowing who would own the resulting children, with no
effective birth
control, but it was not illegal or a sin. Only Israelite priests were
prohibited
from marrying a prostitute. Listed as wrongs for which God will judge
is trading
"a boy for a harlot" (Joel 3:3). But being a prostitute (harlot or
zonah in Hebrew)
herself, if single, is guilty of no biblical crime unless she is a
priest's daughter,
in which case says Lev 21:9 she "profaneth her father" and "shall be
burnt with fire."
Prostitution was common in biblical times. In Proverbs men are warned
against squandering
their money foolishly on prostitutes. But it was a money issue not
morality. There
was no law against prostitution for non-Hebrew women. Today
prostitution flourishes
in Israel and some of the world's most popular brothels are in Tel
Aviv. For Hebrew
women it was very important to have a husband to have children with to
maintain the
Hebrew people. It was never considered adultery for a man, married or
single, to
have sex with a prostitute, as long as she was single (not owned by
another man).
Dana Carpender
Paul Ciszek wrote:
> In article <VsMhg.80381$iB2....@bignews4.bellsouth.net>,
> Jake Blues <5h...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>
>>of a comprehensive eveluation. Anyway, would libertarians remove all
>>federal child labor laws?
>
>
> Libertarians are (supposedly) big on all activities being
> consensual. Some of the less extreme ones would argue that minors
> can't meaningfully consent to as many things as adults can.
> The more extreme anarcho-capitalists would have no laws whatsoever.
>
>
>>If not, would greedy capitalist
>>corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids? If
>>not, what would prevent them from doing so? Have they done so
>>throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
>
>
> They currently do so in countries that do not have child labor laws,
> and in which such labor is worth hiring.
>
> Here in the US, I can't picture anyone getting a kid to do *anything*.
All depends on the family. It's no harder to get children to do things
than it ever was. Parents just have to decide to be parents, instead of
pals.
Dana
plausible prose man
Jake Blues wrote:
> Anyway, would libertarians remove all
> federal child labor laws?
Probably, except those relating to fraud or something.
> If not, would greedy capitalist
> corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids?
Sure
> If
> not, what would prevent them from doing so?
What useful good would be served by preventing them?
> Have they done so
> throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
There were times when that was the best thing for a given set of the
population, at least here in the states. Laws are really just making
people worse off. Since hardly anyone would choose it now its not
really something we notice, the downside, and we can congratulate
ourselves on how laws have made everyone better off.
Kurt Weber
> Anyway, would libertarians remove all
> federal child labor laws?
Yes...others have mentioned "except fraud", but that would already be
generally covered by other statutes.
> If not, would greedy capitalist
> corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids?
How the hell is that relevant? As long as they're not using physical force
or fraud (or the threat thereof), how is that anyone's business but their
own?
--
Kurt Weber
ku...@vacommunity.net
Total free-market capitalism: the ONLY moral system
Help stop socialism: Don't reform Socialist Security, eliminate it!
plausible prose man
plausible prose man wrote:
> Jake Blues wrote:
> > Anyway, would libertarians remove all
> > federal child labor laws?
>
> Probably, except those relating to fraud or something.
>
> > If not, would greedy capitalist
> > corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids?
>
> Sure
This answer of mine here is a little glib, and doesn't really show how
your use of language shows us your (incorrect) assumptions, ie "greedy"
and "take advantage" have certain built-in, pejorative connotations.
You could just as easily, and as accurately say "greedy" kids would
"take advantage" of employers, or hungry people take advantage of
restaurants, or Harry Potter fans "take advantage of" J. K. Rowlings,
Scholastic, and Warner Brothers Entertainment.
Peter Bjørn Perlsø
> In article <VsMhg.80381$iB2....@bignews4.bellsouth.net>,
> Jake Blues <5h...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >of a comprehensive eveluation. Anyway, would libertarians remove all
> >federal child labor laws?
>
> Libertarians are (supposedly) big on all activities being
> consensual. Some of the less extreme ones would argue that minors
> can't meaningfully consent to as many things as adults can.
> The more extreme anarcho-capitalists would have no laws whatsoever.
>
> > If not, would greedy capitalist
> >corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids? If
> >not, what would prevent them from doing so? Have they done so
> >throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
>
> They currently do so in countries that do not have child labor laws,
> and in which such labor is worth hiring.
>
> Here in the US, I can't picture anyone getting a kid to do *anything*.
> Also, automation is available for all sorts of unskilled tasks. SO
> I suspect that the practice wouldn't be as profitable as elsewhere,
> and thus might not be as popular as it was around the turn of the
> century.
I agree. While the question is not irellevant, I doubt it is as
important in a highly automated society, because children aren't skilled
labor (IMO).
--
regards, Peter Bjørn Perlsø
http://liberterran.org
Kevin
Eh, that's not convincing to me. A combination of drugs and
conditioning could make little kids a pretty good alternative to
machine assembly; the software in a ten year old's head is a lot more
advanced than anything running on a chip in today's world. And kids
can be produced by much lower skilled labor than robots can.
--
Kevin
Peter Bjørn Perlsø
> I have recently had a session with a psychologist. He was asking me a
> list of questions. One of them was: why do we need to have child labor
> laws? I refused to answer the question on the grounds that it was
> biased. I mean, I suppose I could have said something like "So that
> greedy capitalist corporations don't take advantage of children." But
> I'm a bit too libertarian to say something like that. Probably the
> shrink concluded that I had a sociopathic tendency. Well, what the
> hell: it wasn't my choice to see him in the first place; it was part
> of a comprehensive eveluation. Anyway, would libertarians remove all
> federal child labor laws? If not, would greedy capitalist
> corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids? If
> not, what would prevent them from doing so? Have they done so
> throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
I would remove all relevant laws, except of course the ones that forbid
coercion, which would be a limitation of freedom.
If the child wants to work and the parents OK it, I don't see a problem
with the child learning some healthy habits, which work usually gives
you.
Kevin
<George...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>Jake Blues wrote:
>> Anyway, would libertarians remove all
>> federal child labor laws?
>
> Probably, except those relating to fraud or something.
Geez, I would hope actual libertarians who end up running things
aren't as nuts as you seem to be.
>> If not, would greedy capitalist
>> corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids?
>
> Sure
>
>> If
>> not, what would prevent them from doing so?
>
> What useful good would be served by preventing them?
Protection of minors; who will decide if a kid 'wants' to quit school
and work eighteen hour days, the kid or the parents? Oh wait, kids
can't decide stuff for themselves, can they? So here we are
back-dooring slavery, again. It's an interesting world you want to
live in, I tell you what.
Then too, let's suppose Sleezy McBag wants to sit on the sofa and
watch soccer all day, and so he and the Mrs turn out a dozen kids in a
dozen years, with pretty minimal effort. The kids, we are shocked to
discover, all want to work in a sweatshop, not go to school. The
McBags both die of boredom waiting for someone to score, and the
taxpayers end up supporting the little McBaglings, since they never
went to school and quit the factory once they were big enough to not
be scared of dad anymore, and, as uneducated little critters are wont
to do, took to lives of crime, and sucked at it, and are now all in
jail, to our expense. Does this seem to be a road to a stable, happy
society to you?
>> Have they done so
>> throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
>
> There were times when that was the best thing for a given set of the
>population, at least here in the states. Laws are really just making
>people worse off. Since hardly anyone would choose it now its not
>really something we notice, the downside, and we can congratulate
>ourselves on how laws have made everyone better off.
It's likely that everyone is better off, and if you could indeed live
in a much less regulated wrt kids sort of society you would find I
think that the things kids were pressed into service for wouldn't make
them good citizens once they turned twenty or so.
But in general, I would think it would violate core libertarian
principles, since the kids can't really make the choices for
themselves, so they're not picking paths of greatest utility for
themselves, the parents are picking paths for the kids that maximize
utility for the parents. A lot of parents would no doubt try to do
the best thing for the kids, but there's no reason to think all would.
--
Kevin
Kevin
Munich circus as the Amazing Nightcrawler, wrote:
>Jake Blues wrote:
>
>> Anyway, would libertarians remove all
>> federal child labor laws?
>
>Yes...others have mentioned "except fraud", but that would already be
>generally covered by other statutes.
>
>> If not, would greedy capitalist
>> corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids?
>
>How the hell is that relevant? As long as they're not using physical force
>or fraud (or the threat thereof), how is that anyone's business but their
>own?
Kids are not capable of making choices like this. If you think a
sixteen year old is, what about a twelve year old? If you think a
twelve year old is, move down until you find an age that's not.
You would, I suppose, think that a four year old should be allowed to
'choose' to work in the sex industry? A six year old should be
allowed to 'choose' to work in a sweatshop, and the sweatshop owner
should be allowed to 'help' the kids focus with a nice drug cocktail?
Heck, why stop there? "Honey, wave your fist twice if you want us to
sell your kidneys on ebay! Twice honey! You do? You're sure? Both
of them or just one? Golly, both? Okey doke, then, honey, whatever
you say."
Whatever adults want to do is fine with me. Moving the age of
adulthood down a bit is fine with me. But as long as kids have
decisions made for them by parents, some of those parents are going to
choose to damage the kids for fun or for profit, and the rest of us
get to stop them, either through formal laws or just by taking a bat
to them.
--
Kevin
plausible prose man
Kevin wrote:
> On 8 Jun 2006 13:50:35 -0700, "plausible prose man"
> <George...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Jake Blues wrote:
> >> Anyway, would libertarians remove all
> >> federal child labor laws?
> >
> > Probably, except those relating to fraud or something.
>
> Geez, I would hope actual libertarians who end up running things
> aren't as nuts as you seem to be.
I hope some day you decide to use your brain to think about some of
your more fundemental assumptions. Your "first principles," as it were.
> >> If not, would greedy capitalist
> >> corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids?
> >
> > Sure
> >
> >> If
> >> not, what would prevent them from doing so?
> >
> > What useful good would be served by preventing them?
>
> Protection of minors;
Protected from what? Having an income? Acquiring valuable work
experience and histories?
> who will decide if a kid 'wants' to quit school
> and work eighteen hour days, the kid or the parents?
Probably some combination of the kid and his parents, like with most
things.
> Oh wait, kids
> can't decide stuff for themselves, can they?
No, in fact they can. My nephew, for instance, he knows what he likes
to watch on TV, for instance.
> So here we are
> back-dooring slavery, again.
Is your job slavery?
> It's an interesting world
Let's keep it that way.
> Then too, let's suppose Sleezy McBag wants to sit on the sofa and
> watch soccer all day, and so he and the Mrs turn out a dozen kids in a
> dozen years, with pretty minimal effort.
Okay, sure.
>The kids, we are shocked to
> discover, all want to work in a sweatshop, not go to school.
I bet those kids mostly don't go to school, and when they do, it's
mainly to harass the other kids.
> The
> McBags both die of boredom waiting for someone to score, and the
> taxpayers end up supporting the little McBaglings, since they never
> went to school and quit the factory once they were big enough to not
> be scared of dad anymore, and, as uneducated little critters are wont
> to do, took to lives of crime, and sucked at it, and are now all in
> jail, to our expense. Does this seem to be a road to a stable, happy
> society to you?
I'm not at all sure this is anything like the situation that would
obtain in real life.
> >> Have they done so
> >> throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
> >
> > There were times when that was the best thing for a given set of the
> >population, at least here in the states. Laws are really just making
> >people worse off. Since hardly anyone would choose it now its not
> >really something we notice, the downside, and we can congratulate
> >ourselves on how laws have made everyone better off.
>
> It's likely that everyone is better off,
Well, no, no, that's not true. I mean, if what you're going to be is a
waitress, or let's say eventually a restaurant manager, I bet your best
move is to get into that biz right away, especially if, say, your
income could really make your family better off.
>and if you could indeed live
> in a much less regulated wrt kids sort of society you would find I
> think that the things kids were pressed into service for
No one's pressed into service, Kevin. Let go of that idea.
> But in general, I would think it would violate core libertarian
> principles, since the kids can't really make the choices for
> themselves, so they're not picking paths of greatest utility for
> themselves, the parents are picking paths for the kids that maximize
> utility for the parents. A lot of parents would no doubt try to do
> the best thing for the kids, but there's no reason to think all would.
Perhaps, but there is plenty of reason to think all parents would make
better choices, or at least no worse, than some small group of
strangers off where-ever, especially if they start listening to the
"it's just eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil to make (let) children work!" lobby, and
certainly it'll cost less.
Pixel Dent
pe...@DIESPAMMERDIE.dk (Peter Bjørn Perlsø) wrote:
Well, my libertarian bona fides are solid but I don't see a problem with
child labor laws as I don't think children are qualified to enter in to
contracts of any sort.
The one caveat I'd place is there should be a non-trivial but
non-onerous method of becoming a legal adult. At 15 I was running my own
software company and employing other people but had to set up a few
legal fictions to get around the fact that I was legally still a child
and had no desire to go the full emancipation route. Would have been
nice if there were some middle path.
Kevin
<George...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>Kevin wrote:
>> On 8 Jun 2006 13:50:35 -0700, "plausible prose man"
>> <George...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Jake Blues wrote:
>> >> Anyway, would libertarians remove all
>> >> federal child labor laws?
>> >
>> > Probably, except those relating to fraud or something.
>>
>> Geez, I would hope actual libertarians who end up running things
>> aren't as nuts as you seem to be.
>
> I hope some day you decide to use your brain to think about some of
>your more fundemental assumptions. Your "first principles," as it were.
I'm pretty at home with the idea. I'm perfectly happy with whatever a
competent person chooses to do, and I think you know it, but child
labor is a fucked up idea in an industrialized country, and may well
be a fucked up idea anywhere.
>> >> If not, would greedy capitalist
>> >> corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids?
>> >
>> > Sure
>> >
>> >> If
>> >> not, what would prevent them from doing so?
>> >
>> > What useful good would be served by preventing them?
>>
>> Protection of minors;
>
> Protected from what? Having an income? Acquiring valuable work
>experience and histories?
You know, taking the place of robot assemby workers, and getting
fucked by old guys from Europe and Des Moines.
>> who will decide if a kid 'wants' to quit school
>> and work eighteen hour days, the kid or the parents?
>
> Probably some combination of the kid and his parents, like with most
>things.
You know, a lot of the time that might well be the case, and the job
might be fine and the whole thing might be fine, but the edge cases
would good and truly suck, and not just for the kids.
>> Oh wait, kids
>> can't decide stuff for themselves, can they?
>
> No, in fact they can. My nephew, for instance, he knows what he likes
>to watch on TV, for instance.
Uh huh. How does he feel about school?
>> So here we are
>> back-dooring slavery, again.
>
> Is your job slavery?
No one else walked me up to the gate and told the foreman that I
wanted to work in the sweatshop.
>> It's an interesting world
>
> Let's keep it that way.
>
>
>> Then too, let's suppose Sleezy McBag wants to sit on the sofa and
>> watch soccer all day, and so he and the Mrs turn out a dozen kids in a
>> dozen years, with pretty minimal effort.
>
> Okay, sure.
>
>>The kids, we are shocked to
>> discover, all want to work in a sweatshop, not go to school.
>
> I bet those kids mostly don't go to school, and when they do, it's
>mainly to harass the other kids.
What, the McBag kids? As it turns out, they're all very clever and
capable, in a grand genetic joke. It's my story, I can fill in
whatever details I want. Sadly, Dad McBag beats the hell out of them
if they mention school. In this interesting world of yours, are the
cops supposed to interfere in that sort of thing, or not?
>> The
>> McBags both die of boredom waiting for someone to score, and the
>> taxpayers end up supporting the little McBaglings, since they never
>> went to school and quit the factory once they were big enough to not
>> be scared of dad anymore, and, as uneducated little critters are wont
>> to do, took to lives of crime, and sucked at it, and are now all in
>> jail, to our expense. Does this seem to be a road to a stable, happy
>> society to you?
>
> I'm not at all sure this is anything like the situation that would
>obtain in real life.
Why would it not? Do you think I couldn't make a profit out of a
bunch of ten year olds, some Ritalin-like cocktails to help them
focus, and some assembly lines? Do you think there are no parents who
would deliver kids to such a place? Do you think they'd be good and
useful citizens when they had had such an upbringing?
>> >> Have they done so
>> >> throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
>> >
>> > There were times when that was the best thing for a given set of the
>> >population, at least here in the states. Laws are really just making
>> >people worse off. Since hardly anyone would choose it now its not
>> >really something we notice, the downside, and we can congratulate
>> >ourselves on how laws have made everyone better off.
>>
>> It's likely that everyone is better off,
>
> Well, no, no, that's not true. I mean, if what you're going to be is a
>waitress, or let's say eventually a restaurant manager, I bet your best
>move is to get into that biz right away, especially if, say, your
>income could really make your family better off.
Sure, I'm not saying there are no happy stories to be told.
>>and if you could indeed live
>> in a much less regulated wrt kids sort of society you would find I
>> think that the things kids were pressed into service for
>
> No one's pressed into service, Kevin. Let go of that idea.
Really? Because, in your world I can't exactly see why you would
think there would not be kids forced to do stuff, and in the real
world I'm pretty sure I've read that not every child prostitute in
Thailand is a volunteer, amazingly.
So, you'd like kids to work, right? And of course prostitution would
be legal, that's a given, and a good thing, too, as long as it's
adults we're talking about. So how does your nephew feel about
entertainting older gentlemen for short visits, to help out the
college fund? And don't tell me no one would do that, since there's
scads of people doing it right now, what you're proposing would just
make it legal.
>> But in general, I would think it would violate core libertarian
>> principles, since the kids can't really make the choices for
>> themselves, so they're not picking paths of greatest utility for
>> themselves, the parents are picking paths for the kids that maximize
>> utility for the parents. A lot of parents would no doubt try to do
>> the best thing for the kids, but there's no reason to think all would.
>
> Perhaps, but there is plenty of reason to think all parents would make
>better choices, or at least no worse, than some small group of
>strangers off where-ever, especially if they start listening to the
>"it's just eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil to make (let) children work!" lobby, and
>certainly it'll cost less.
That's idiotic. And it's time to watch basketball.
--
Kevin
bill van
Kevin <K_S_O...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm perfectly happy with whatever a
> competent person chooses to do, and I think you know it, but child
> labor is a fucked up idea in an industrialized country, and may well
> be a fucked up idea anywhere.
I'm broadly in agreement, but I can see at least one big exception:
small family businesses.
I'm thinking particularly of Chinese corner stores and laundries/dry
cleaners and restaurants in Western Canada, the place I'm most familiar
with. It's very typical for the parents to work extremely long hours to
make these places go, and as soon as they're old enough to be competent
at it, the kids pitch in too.
I'm sure there are times when they'd rather be out with their friends,
but most of the kids do not seem alienated by the experience. What seems
to happen a lot is that the combined hard work earns enough to send the
kids to university, where they do well because they're disciplined, and
they end up with quality educations and qualified for much more
rewarding jobs.
That couldn't happen if their parents were forced to hire wage labor
instead of having the kids mind the store. Chances are the businesses
wouldn't be viable, period; they are not great profit centres. When the
folks retire, not only are the kids not there to take over the business
because they're off opening medical practices or becoming research
scientists, but -- and this is especially true of grocery stores, maybe
less so for businesses that require more capital investment -- the
businesses can't be sold for very much, since they can be started from
scratch for not very much money. But if all goes well, the kids support
the parents in their old age.
I think this kind of thing has been an entry to North America for many
families from many places, not only China. I don't see it as unduly
exploitive, either. If anything, it seems to build character.
Pulling carts in coal mines, working in sweat shops and being forced
into prostitution at age 12 are a different kettle of fish.
bill
Peter Bjørn Perlsø
> Eh, that's not convincing to me. A combination of drugs and
> conditioning could make little kids a pretty good alternative to
> machine assembly; the software in a ten year old's head is a lot more
> advanced than anything running on a chip in today's world. And kids
> can be produced by much lower skilled labor than robots can.
You're suggesting that the only thing stopping the filthy capitalists
from using child labor is that we need to drung them senseless?
Come on!
Kevin
Perlsø) wrote:
>Kevin <K_S_O...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Eh, that's not convincing to me. A combination of drugs and
>> conditioning could make little kids a pretty good alternative to
>> machine assembly; the software in a ten year old's head is a lot more
>> advanced than anything running on a chip in today's world. And kids
>> can be produced by much lower skilled labor than robots can.
>
>You're suggesting that the only thing stopping the filthy capitalists
>from using child labor is that we need to drung them senseless?
Er, no. I fear you're quite a long way from Reading.
I'm saying if we removed all the drug laws and all the child labor
laws, sweatshops wouldn't be places you'd want to spend your youth,
and yet they would be places where some kids do spend their youth, and
that the effects on society would be sucky.
>Come on!
Yay! Where are we going? Is it a pony?
--
Kevin
I bet it's a pony!
Kevin
I'm down with that. In fact, I'm down with many exceptions, it's
first-principles abdication of all sorts of protection of minors laws
without actually thinking about how that will turn out that I'm shy
of.
--
Kevin
Jake Blues
*snip*
The
> McBags both die of boredom waiting for someone to score, and the
> taxpayers end up supporting the little McBaglings, since they never
> went to school and quit the factory once they were big enough to not
> be scared of dad anymore, and, as uneducated little critters are
wont
> to do, took to lives of crime, and sucked at it, and are now all in
> jail, to our expense. Does this seem to be a road to a stable,
happy
> society to you?
I wasn't aware of an inverse correlation between education and the
commission of crime. Site please?
Kevin
wrote:
Oh, for god's sake. Google "Correlation crime education" gives a slew
of results. For example:
Executive Summary
This report illustrates the overwhelming consensus among public
officials that
postsecondary education is the most successful and cost-effective
method of preventing
crime. The United States Government should resume its long-standing
policy of releasing a
fraction of Pell Grants to qualified incarcerated Americans. As proven
by the government
studies cited in this memo, its impact was enormously positive.
Resuming this policy would
slash rates of recidivism and save the states millions of dollars.
Note. The data cited in this memo comes exclusively from official
publications
produced by or for the United States Government and the governments of
the states.
How's that?
--
Kevin
plausible prose man
Kevin wrote:
> On Fri, 9 Jun 2006 12:02:03 +0200, pe...@DIESPAMMERDIE.dk (Peter Bjørn
> Perlsø) wrote:
>
> >Kevin <K_S_O...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Eh, that's not convincing to me. A combination of drugs and
> >> conditioning could make little kids a pretty good alternative to
> >> machine assembly; the software in a ten year old's head is a lot more
> >> advanced than anything running on a chip in today's world. And kids
> >> can be produced by much lower skilled labor than robots can.
> >
> >You're suggesting that the only thing stopping the filthy capitalists
> >from using child labor is that we need to drung them senseless?
>
> Er, no. I fear you're quite a long way from Reading.
>
> I'm saying if we removed all the drug laws and all the child labor
> laws, sweatshops wouldn't be places you'd want to spend your youth,
Well, they wouldn't be places I wanted to spend my youth, anyway.
> and yet they would be places where some kids do spend their youth, and
> that the effects on society would be sucky.
Well, you're wrong about that.
Dana Carpender
Kevin wrote:
Yabbut all the really *good* crime is committed by educated people. I
bet Ken Lay went to college, or at the very least, graduated high school.
Dana
Binyamin Dissen
:>I wasn't aware of an inverse correlation between education and the
:>commission of crime. Site please?
You probably meant cite. But I digress.
I would expect that the inverse correlation is between education and getting
caught/punished for a crime.
--
Binyamin Dissen <bdi...@dissensoftware.com>
http://www.dissensoftware.com
Should you use the mailblocks package and expect a response from me,
you should preauthorize the dissensoftware.com domain.
I very rarely bother responding to challenge/response systems,
especially those from irresponsible companies.
Kevin
It's dangerously close to a spelling flame, but I really hate that
thing, there.
>all the really *good* crime is committed by educated people. I
>bet Ken Lay went to college, or at the very least, graduated high school.
Sure, and Ken Lay is likely, if he had interactions with you and you
were gullible enough to listen to him, to have done far more damage to
you than any high school dropout crackhead mugger, or at least any
high school dropout crackhead mugger who doesn't kill you. On the
other hand, parks and downtowns and Rio and places like that would all
be nicer if everyone were trying to rob us that way rather than with a
shiv, and it's at least arguable that if we all had a better
understanding of finance, a) he wouldn't have convinced so many people
to stay in unbalance investments involving Enron, work there or not,
and 2), we might well have better laws covering such acts.
--
Kevin
Frank Clarke
<vnbh82hgk3tkq6h4n...@4ax.com>
>Heck, why stop there? "Honey, wave your fist twice if you want us to
>sell your kidneys on ebay! Twice honey! You do? You're sure? Both
>of them or just one? Golly, both? Okey doke, then, honey, whatever
>you say."
>
>Whatever adults want to do is fine with me. Moving the age of
>adulthood down a bit is fine with me. But as long as kids have
>decisions made for them by parents, some of those parents are going to
>choose to damage the kids for fun or for profit, and the rest of us
>get to stop them, either through formal laws or just by taking a bat
>to them.
Darwin suspects this is a self-limiting problem...
(change Arabic number to Roman numeral to email)
plausible prose man
Kevin wrote:
> On 8 Jun 2006 16:48:37 -0700, "plausible prose man"
> <George...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Kevin wrote:
> >> On 8 Jun 2006 13:50:35 -0700, "plausible prose man"
> >> <George...@aol.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> >Jake Blues wrote:
> >> >> Anyway, would libertarians remove all
> >> >> federal child labor laws?
> >> >
> >> > Probably, except those relating to fraud or something.
> >>
> >> Geez, I would hope actual libertarians who end up running things
> >> aren't as nuts as you seem to be.
> >
> > I hope some day you decide to use your brain to think about some of
> >your more fundemental assumptions. Your "first principles," as it were.
>
> I'm pretty at home with the idea. I'm perfectly happy with whatever a
> competent person chooses to do, and I think you know it, but child
> labor is a fucked up idea in an industrialized country,
see, this is what I mean about 'first principles." Obviously, if you
start with that as an unexaminable idea, you'd reach the conclusion
"No! because its evil, and would ruin everything!"
>and may well
> be a fucked up idea anywhere.
Keep in mind outlawing something, at least in this context, isn't
going to make the sort of person to whom child labor an attractive
proposition any richer or anything, and so there's still the supply of
child labor, and a demand for it, except now the people demanding it
can be even more coercive of the suppliers, since employers won't have
to compete so hard for workers, and that kind of thing.
> >> >> If not, would greedy capitalist
> >> >> corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids?
> >> >
> >> > Sure
> >> >
> >> >> If
> >> >> not, what would prevent them from doing so?
> >> >
> >> > What useful good would be served by preventing them?
> >>
> >> Protection of minors;
> >
> > Protected from what? Having an income? Acquiring valuable work
> >experience and histories?
>
> You know, taking the place of robot assemby workers,
How sad that would be.
>and getting
> fucked by old guys from Europe and Des Moines.
I suspect if you look you'll see child prostitution a growth industry
in the sort of place that doesn't have much of an industrial base, and
just general crushing poverty all around. One thing we know about those
sorts of places, they don't suffer for lack of laws restricting what
one may do with ones capital, all in the name of some public good or
another.
> >> who will decide if a kid 'wants' to quit school
> >> and work eighteen hour days, the kid or the parents?
> >
> > Probably some combination of the kid and his parents, like with most
> >things.
>
> You know, a lot of the time that might well be the case, and the job
> might be fine and the whole thing might be fine, but the edge cases
> would good and truly suck,
I think not outlawing the "a lot of the time" cases would go the
longest way towards reducing the edge cases.
> >> Oh wait, kids
> >> can't decide stuff for themselves, can they?
> >
> > No, in fact they can. My nephew, for instance, he knows what he likes
> >to watch on TV, for instance.
>
> Uh huh. How does he feel about school?
Well...you know, he doesn't have to be shot with tranquilizers and
dragged over there in restraints, so he probably doesn't it hate it all
that much. I'm sure he likes it a good deal less than any given snow
day, sure.
> >> So here we are
> >> back-dooring slavery, again.
> >
> > Is your job slavery?
>
> No one else walked me up to the gate and told the foreman that I
> wanted to work in the sweatshop.
Yeah, that's cute. But it occurs to me the best way to back-door
slavery is to outlaw something a lot of people have no real better
option than, so they wind up doing it anyway, only, you know, out of
the eye of public scrutiny.
> >> Then too, let's suppose Sleezy McBag wants to sit on the sofa and
> >> watch soccer all day, and so he and the Mrs turn out a dozen kids in a
> >> dozen years, with pretty minimal effort.
> >
> > Okay, sure.
> >
> >>The kids, we are shocked to
> >> discover, all want to work in a sweatshop, not go to school.
> >
> > I bet those kids mostly don't go to school, and when they do, it's
> >mainly to harass the other kids.
>
> What, the McBag kids? As it turns out, they're all very clever and
> capable, in a grand genetic joke. It's my story, I can fill in
> whatever details I want.
That seems a bit like cheating, at least if you're trying to convince
me of what would happen in real life if we let very much of this kind
of thing go on.
> Sadly, Dad McBag beats the hell out of them
> if they mention school. In this interesting world of yours, are the
> cops supposed to interfere in that sort of thing, or not?
I think most capitalists would oppose folks "beating the hell" out of
the children, depending on what solutions you propose and how many
ordinary people's lives it ruined and how much it cost and what all.
> >> The
> >> McBags both die of boredom waiting for someone to score, and the
> >> taxpayers end up supporting the little McBaglings, since they never
> >> went to school and quit the factory once they were big enough to not
> >> be scared of dad anymore, and, as uneducated little critters are wont
> >> to do, took to lives of crime, and sucked at it, and are now all in
> >> jail, to our expense. Does this seem to be a road to a stable, happy
> >> society to you?
> >
> > I'm not at all sure this is anything like the situation that would
> >obtain in real life.
>
> Why would it not?
Well, to start with, since it was obviously you just making up things,
I had a MEGO moment much earlier than usual.
> Do you think I couldn't make a profit out of a
> bunch of ten year olds, some Ritalin-like cocktails to help them
> focus, and some assembly lines?
Well, I suppose you might be able to, if your overhead was low and
whoever you were supplying with what wasn't concerned about quality.
> Do you think there are no parents who
> would deliver kids to such a place?
Like here in the states? Probably not. In a country with crushing
poverty? Maybe.
>Do you think they'd be good and
> useful citizens when they had had such an upbringing?
Probably, yeah. I mean, they'd be basically law abiding, productive,
and well socialized.
> >> >> Have they done so
> >> >> throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
> >> >
> >> > There were times when that was the best thing for a given set of the
> >> >population, at least here in the states. Laws are really just making
> >> >people worse off. Since hardly anyone would choose it now its not
> >> >really something we notice, the downside, and we can congratulate
> >> >ourselves on how laws have made everyone better off.
> >>
> >> It's likely that everyone is better off,
> >
> > Well, no, no, that's not true. I mean, if what you're going to be is a
> >waitress, or let's say eventually a restaurant manager, I bet your best
> >move is to get into that biz right away, especially if, say, your
> >income could really make your family better off.
>
> Sure, I'm not saying there are no happy stories to be told.
I think you did. In fact, earlier, since you bring up the issues of
"edge cases," you're saying the small number of very bad things would
outweight the large number of mild benefits.
> >>and if you could indeed live
> >> in a much less regulated wrt kids sort of society you would find I
> >> think that the things kids were pressed into service for
> >
> > No one's pressed into service, Kevin. Let go of that idea.
>
> Really?
Yes, really. Are you pressed into service in your job? Is the only
thing that kept your parents from selling you into some Roald Dahl
nightmare is doing so would be illegal?
> Because, in your world I can't exactly see why you would
> think there would not be kids forced to do stuff, and in the real
> world I'm pretty sure I've read that not every child prostitute in
> Thailand is a volunteer, amazingly.
Do they have a nike factory in Thailand? Why, or why not?
> So, you'd like kids to work, right?
I don't care what they do, so long as its what they want to do,
mutatis mutandis.
> And of course prostitution would
> be legal, that's a given, and a good thing, too, as long as it's
> adults we're talking about.
Uh, oh, I think I'm being set up here.
> So how does your nephew feel about
> entertainting older gentlemen for short visits, to help out the
> college fund?
I bet he'd think that was pretty creepy, really, to say nothing of his
parents and what they'd say about it.
> And don't tell me no one would do that, since there's
> scads of people doing it right now, what you're proposing would just
> make it legal.
I just saw something on Oprah about a kid who had a nice little
sideline going in exposing himself on the internet, and through the
interview I got the impression that, despite all the fuss that had been
made, he'd mostly just learned the things adults wanted to hear him say
rather than having really internalized any idea of the wrongness of
what he was up to.
Oddly, though, his mom put a stop to it once she found out.
Still, all in all...if you're so unaffected by what the greater mass
of people think of something that you'd be willing to get involved in
something like that, it seems you'd be unlikely to let a trivial thing
like its being illegal stop you.
> >> But in general, I would think it would violate core libertarian
> >> principles, since the kids can't really make the choices for
> >> themselves, so they're not picking paths of greatest utility for
> >> themselves, the parents are picking paths for the kids that maximize
> >> utility for the parents. A lot of parents would no doubt try to do
> >> the best thing for the kids, but there's no reason to think all would.
> >
> > Perhaps, but there is plenty of reason to think all parents would make
> >better choices, or at least no worse, than some small group of
> >strangers off where-ever, especially if they start listening to the
> >"it's just eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil to make (let) children work!" lobby, and
> >certainly it'll cost less.
>
> That's idiotic.
Well, you're wrong about that.
> And it's time to watch basketball.
A past time much more commensurate with your mental gifts.
Jerry Bauer
(in article <1149886428....@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>):
Q. Why are there child labor laws?
A. Because people are utility-maximizers.
Jerry Bauer
(in article <Mdkig.3777$y%3.3...@bignews1.bellsouth.net>):
>
>
> I wasn't aware of an inverse correlation between education and the
> commission of crime. Site please?
>
How about literacy?
Kevin
<George...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>Kevin wrote:
>> On 8 Jun 2006 16:48:37 -0700, "plausible prose man"
>> <George...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Kevin wrote:
>> >> On 8 Jun 2006 13:50:35 -0700, "plausible prose man"
>> >> <George...@aol.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >
>> >> >Jake Blues wrote:
>> >> >> Anyway, would libertarians remove all
>> >> >> federal child labor laws?
>> >> >
>> >> > Probably, except those relating to fraud or something.
>> >>
>> >> Geez, I would hope actual libertarians who end up running things
>> >> aren't as nuts as you seem to be.
>> >
>> > I hope some day you decide to use your brain to think about some of
>> >your more fundemental assumptions. Your "first principles," as it were.
>>
>> I'm pretty at home with the idea. I'm perfectly happy with whatever a
>> competent person chooses to do, and I think you know it, but child
>> labor is a fucked up idea in an industrialized country,
>
> see, this is what I mean about 'first principles." Obviously, if you
>start with that as an unexaminable idea, you'd reach the conclusion
>"No! because its evil, and would ruin everything!"
I was stating my conclusion, so you could see what we're working
towards. Not an axiom, anyway.
>>and may well
>> be a fucked up idea anywhere.
>
> Keep in mind outlawing something, at least in this context, isn't
>going to make the sort of person to whom child labor an attractive
>proposition any richer or anything, and so there's still the supply of
>child labor, and a demand for it, except now the people demanding it
>can be even more coercive of the suppliers, since employers won't have
>to compete so hard for workers, and that kind of thing.
All that sounds good, but in actuality it turns out we have more or
less outlawed child labor here in the US, and kids here in the US do
go to school rather than sweatshops, for the most part, so it's not
much like the drug trade you're trying to draw lines to, after all.
>> >> >> If not, would greedy capitalist
>> >> >> corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids?
>> >> >
>> >> > Sure
>> >> >
>> >> >> If
>> >> >> not, what would prevent them from doing so?
>> >> >
>> >> > What useful good would be served by preventing them?
>> >>
>> >> Protection of minors;
>> >
>> > Protected from what? Having an income? Acquiring valuable work
>> >experience and histories?
>>
>> You know, taking the place of robot assemby workers,
>
> How sad that would be
>
>>and getting
>> fucked by old guys from Europe and Des Moines.
>
> I suspect if you look you'll see child prostitution a growth industry
>in the sort of place that doesn't have much of an industrial base, and
>just general crushing poverty all around. One thing we know about those
>sorts of places, they don't suffer for lack of laws restricting what
>one may do with ones capital, all in the name of some public good or
>another.
Like India, for example? Pretty good sized child prostitution market
there, would you like to explain how that's related to them not having
any sorts of economic growth or any burgeoning software industries,
any of that sort of thing?
>> >> who will decide if a kid 'wants' to quit school
>> >> and work eighteen hour days, the kid or the parents?
>> >
>> > Probably some combination of the kid and his parents, like with most
>> >things.
>>
>> You know, a lot of the time that might well be the case, and the job
>> might be fine and the whole thing might be fine, but the edge cases
>> would good and truly suck,
>
>I think not outlawing the "a lot of the time" cases would go the
>longest way towards reducing the edge cases.
Yes, well, you're wrong about that.
>> > Is your job slavery?
>>
>> No one else walked me up to the gate and told the foreman that I
>> wanted to work in the sweatshop.
>
> Yeah, that's cute. But it occurs to me the best way to back-door
>slavery is to outlaw something a lot of people have no real better
>option than, so they wind up doing it anyway, only, you know, out of
>the eye of public scrutiny.
Again, like drug laws. Again, we do have child labor laws here, and
we don't see a black market in child labor, I'll leave it as an
excercise for you to figure out how ten year olds are different from
heroin, but your hypotheticals don't hold so much water when you're
hypotheticalling about a law we actually have.
>> Sadly, Dad McBag beats the hell out of them
>> if they mention school. In this interesting world of yours, are the
>> cops supposed to interfere in that sort of thing, or not?
>
> I think most capitalists would oppose folks "beating the hell" out of
>the children, depending on what solutions you propose and how many
>ordinary people's lives it ruined and how much it cost and what all.
Ok, so really, let's think about this. If what you're saying is that
a thirteen or fifteen year old should be allowed to quit school and
get a job if he wants, for some kinds of jobs, you know, maybe I'm
open to that, I guess, but I would say all you're really doing is
moving the age of when you can decide for yourself; if you think teens
are too restricted, maybe that's right. If you're saying what you're
sounding like saying, that any kid can engage in any job that any
adult could do under a libertarian ideal society, well, you know,
there actually are ages where the kid really isn't deciding, the
parent is, Einstein. Four year olds don't maximize utility and decide
that getting a shot is a good idea for future health, mommy takes them
to the vet. So why don't you actually lay out what you're saying; can
a parent hire out a five year old? A seven year old? A ten year old?
To do what sorts of things?
>> Do you think I couldn't make a profit out of a
>> bunch of ten year olds, some Ritalin-like cocktails to help them
>> focus, and some assembly lines?
>
> Well, I suppose you might be able to, if your overhead was low and
>whoever you were supplying with what wasn't concerned about quality.
>
>> Do you think there are no parents who
>> would deliver kids to such a place?
>
> Like here in the states? Probably not.
Of course there are.
>In a country with crushing
>poverty? Maybe.
I think worrying about problems here is more than enough trouble for
us, thanks. If that makes me un-American I'll have to tough that out.
>>Do you think they'd be good and
>> useful citizens when they had had such an upbringing?
>
> Probably, yeah. I mean, they'd be basically law abiding, productive,
>and well socialized.
Uh, no. Crime vs education stats disagree with you.
>> Sure, I'm not saying there are no happy stories to be told.
>
> I think you did. In fact, earlier, since you bring up the issues of
>"edge cases," you're saying the small number of very bad things would
>outweight the large number of mild benefits.
I do think a moderate number of bad things (uneducated kids) and a
small number of really bad things (ten year olds in the sex trade)
would outweigh a large number of benefits, yes, even in purely
financial terms.
>> >>and if you could indeed live
>> >> in a much less regulated wrt kids sort of society you would find I
>> >> think that the things kids were pressed into service for
>> >
>> > No one's pressed into service, Kevin. Let go of that idea.
>>
>> Really?
>
> Yes, really. Are you pressed into service in your job? Is the only
>thing that kept your parents from selling you into some Roald Dahl
>nightmare is doing so would be illegal?
>
>> Because, in your world I can't exactly see why you would
>> think there would not be kids forced to do stuff, and in the real
>> world I'm pretty sure I've read that not every child prostitute in
>> Thailand is a volunteer, amazingly.
>
> Do they have a nike factory in Thailand?
Sure.
>Why, or why not?
I, uh... What? Because it's cheap, I suppose. What's your point
here? I'm not completely on the side of child labor in third world
contries, but that's a different argument than legalizing it here.
Or did you think there were no Nike factories in Thailand? Anyway,
no, the Nike factory is not saving the Thai kids from child
prostitution, as it turns out.
>> So, you'd like kids to work, right?
>
> I don't care what they do, so long as its what they want to do,
>mutatis mutandis.
I just don't think that deciding to quit your education is something
you can knowingly choose to do at nine.
>> And of course prostitution would
>> be legal, that's a given, and a good thing, too, as long as it's
>> adults we're talking about.
>
> Uh, oh, I think I'm being set up here.
Spidey sense tingling, is it?
>> So how does your nephew feel about
>> entertainting older gentlemen for short visits, to help out the
>> college fund?
>
> I bet he'd think that was pretty creepy, really, to say nothing of his
>parents and what they'd say about it.
Good that he lucked into them, then.
>> And don't tell me no one would do that, since there's
>> scads of people doing it right now, what you're proposing would just
>> make it legal.
>
> I just saw something on Oprah about a kid who had a nice little
>sideline going in exposing himself on the internet, and through the
>interview I got the impression that, despite all the fuss that had been
>made, he'd mostly just learned the things adults wanted to hear him say
>rather than having really internalized any idea of the wrongness of
>what he was up to.
As, uh, touching as that is, I am not quite convinced by it that child
prostitution is a good thing, if that was your goal. Indeed, it makes
me think that people would get on tv and try to convince the great
unwashed that they did indeed have a nine year old who likes to give
blowjobs to truckers, is what it makes me think.
> Oddly, though, his mom put a stop to it once she found out.
Yeah, and there's likely to be no deviation at all in that behavior
when spread over several million poor people. Good then.
> Still, all in all...if you're so unaffected by what the greater mass
>of people think of something that you'd be willing to get involved in
>something like that, it seems you'd be unlikely to let a trivial thing
>like its being illegal stop you.
Again, as far as I know child labor and prostitution in the US is
actually stopped pretty well by the current laws and enforcement, so
your hypothetical tone is out of place.
blah blah...
>> That's idiotic.
>
> Well, you're wrong about that.
>
>> And it's time to watch basketball.
>
> A past time much more commensurate with your mental gifts.
Pastime, not past time, it's one word. But thank you for the kind
thoughts.
--
Kevin
tooloud
> In article <VsMhg.80381$iB2....@bignews4.bellsouth.net>,
> Jake Blues <5h...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>> federal child labor laws?
>
> Libertarians are (supposedly) big on all activities being
> consensual. Some of the less extreme ones would argue that minors
> can't meaningfully consent to as many things as adults can.
> The more extreme anarcho-capitalists would have no laws whatsoever.
>
>> not, what would prevent them from doing so? Have they done so
>> throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
>
> and in which such labor is worth hiring.
>
> Here in the US, I can't picture anyone getting a kid to do *anything*.
Eh, I don't think kids are as bad as some people make them out to be. You
know, we're always hearing about how this generation does this or that
generation is lazy, but in the grand scheme of things, everyone grows up and
the world keeps ticking.
I mean, the kids don't seem to be doing anything too much worse than what I
did when I was their age, and I turned into a real grownup with an actual
job and am making a contribution to society.
> Also, automation is available for all sorts of unskilled tasks. SO
> I suspect that the practice wouldn't be as profitable as elsewhere,
> and thus might not be as popular as it was around the turn of the
> century.
--
tooloud
Remove nothing to reply
Frank Clarke
<post...@dissensoftware.com> wrote:
<kupj82t9kfju0oo9b...@4ax.com>
>I would expect that the inverse correlation is between education and getting
>caught/punished for a crime.
My daughter worked as a Correctional Probation Officer. She said that after
observing the inmates she was able to assert categorically that there are no
smart people in prison -- and she was including the guards.
Michael A. Clem
> Anyway, would libertarians remove all
> corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids? If
> not, what would prevent them from doing so? Have they done so
> throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
>
>
Historically, children have usually been pressed into labor. This only
changed when society became productive enough that the parents could
afford to not have their children work, or simply relegated children to
doing "chores" for a personal allowance.
Anti-capitalists focus on children in the factories during the
beginnings of the industrial age, but they tend to ignore children
working in the pre-industrial age to support their conclusion that
capitalism is bad.
Current child labor prevails in third world countries that have not
fully joined the capitalist market, or, given the policies of the WTO
and IMF, have been hampered in their efforts to join the capitalist market.
And who is Cecil Adams?
plausible prose man
Jerry Bauer wrote:
> Q. Why are there child labor laws?
>
> A. Because people are utility-maximizers.
Careful, there's all that social choice stuff which shows us often
laws are emergent phenomenon stuff, having little if any connection to
the actual preferences of real people.
plausible prose man
Kevin wrote:
> > see, this is what I mean about 'first principles." Obviously, if you
> >start with that as an unexaminable idea, you'd reach the conclusion
> >"No! because its evil, and would ruin everything!"
>
> I was stating my conclusion, so you could see what we're working
> towards. Not an axiom, anyway.
When your conclusion's indistinguishable from your axiom, your chain
of reasoning is extremely unlikely to have been productive or even just
interesting.
>
> >>and may well
> >> be a fucked up idea anywhere.
> >
> > Keep in mind outlawing something, at least in this context, isn't
> >going to make the sort of person to whom child labor an attractive
> >proposition any richer or anything, and so there's still the supply of
> >child labor, and a demand for it, except now the people demanding it
> >can be even more coercive of the suppliers, since employers won't have
> >to compete so hard for workers, and that kind of thing.
>
> All that sounds good, but in actuality it turns out we have more or
> less outlawed child labor here in the US,
We've also outlawed incest. So you're telling me that not only is it
just the laws that kept your mum and da from sending you off to the
badger mine, it was only the laws against incest that kept their hands
off you.
> >>Do you think they'd be good and
> >> useful citizens when they had had such an upbringing?
> >
> > Probably, yeah. I mean, they'd be basically law abiding, productive,
> >and well socialized.
>
> Uh, no.
No, you know I'm right.
> Crime vs education stats disagree with you.
I bet they don't, either, at least not as they point up some magical
ability of education, at least not the kind you get in what passes for
a school here in the states, to make the ignorant wise and the indolent
diligent. I bet I can find, however, at least two studies showing
people with extensive work experience tend not to be commiting crime,
although of course if I do you'll just explain all that away, weakly.
> >> >>and if you could indeed live
> >> >> in a much less regulated wrt kids sort of society you would find I
> >> >> think that the things kids were pressed into service for
> >> >
> >> > No one's pressed into service, Kevin. Let go of that idea.
> >>
> >> Really?
> >
> > Yes, really. Are you pressed into service in your job? Is the only
> >thing that kept your parents from selling you into some Roald Dahl
> >nightmare is doing so would be illegal?
No answer here, Kevin?
> >
> >> Because, in your world I can't exactly see why you would
> >> think there would not be kids forced to do stuff, and in the real
> >> world I'm pretty sure I've read that not every child prostitute in
> >> Thailand is a volunteer, amazingly.
> >
> > Do they have a nike factory in Thailand?
>
> Sure.
>
> >Why, or why not?
>
> I, uh... What? Because it's cheap, I suppose. What's your point
> here? I'm not completely on the side of child labor in third world
> contries, but that's a different argument than legalizing it here.
Here's a good article. I especially like the way the historian makes
fun of Hershberger.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor
Note, for example:
"claims of increased misery...[are] based on ignorance of how squalid
life actually had been earlier. Before children began earning money
working in factories, they had been sent to live in parish poorhouses,
apprenticed as unpaid household servants, rented out for backbreaking
agricultural labor, or became beggars, vagrants, thieves, and
prostitutes (Nutten) . The precapitalist "good old days" simply never
existed" [2] "
And
"However, some express concerns that boycotting products manufactured
through child labor may force these children to turn to more dangerous
professions due to necessity, such as prostitution or agriculture. For
example, a UNICEF study found that that 5,000 to 7,000 Nepalese
children turned to prostitution after the United States banned that
country's carpet exports in the 1990s. Also, after the Child Labor
Deterrence Act was introduced in the US an estimated 50,000 children
were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Bangladesh, leaving
many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and
prostitution," --"all of them more hazardous and exploitative than
garment production" according to a UNICEF study. [3] The study says
that boycotts are "blunt instruments with long-term consequences that
can actually harm rather than help the children involved."
So, unsurprisingly to anyone with a basic grasp of economics, child
prostitution isn't so much an artifact of child labor, but an artifact
of laws against child labor, and indeed, prostitution. I don't know if
you watch HBO, but if Cathouse and their various shows about hookers in
the rest of the US are any guide, the main thing laws against things
people are going to do anyway accomplish is ensuer people doing those
things do them in miserable, dangerous enviroments.
>
> Or did you think there were no Nike factories in Thailand? Anyway,
> no, the Nike factory is not saving the Thai kids from child
> prostitution, as it turns out.
>
> >> So, you'd like kids to work, right?
> >
> > I don't care what they do, so long as its what they want to do,
> >mutatis mutandis.
>
> I just don't think that deciding to quit your education is something
> you can knowingly choose to do at nine.
I'm really quite skeptical very many parents would make their children
quit their education in the era of things like this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786808381/103-9652838-8858227?v=glance&n=283155
As for the ones who would, well, few of them would get much good out
of an education anyway, or at least that's what studies show.
> >> And of course prostitution would
> >> be legal, that's a given, and a good thing, too, as long as it's
> >> adults we're talking about.
> >
> > Uh, oh, I think I'm being set up here.
>
> Spidey sense tingling, is it?
After about the third false dichotomy or loaded question, argument
from false premises, you tend to get a feel for these things.
>
> >> So how does your nephew feel about
> >> entertainting older gentlemen for short visits, to help out the
> >> college fund?
> >
> > I bet he'd think that was pretty creepy, really, to say nothing of his
> >parents and what they'd say about it.
>
> Good that he lucked into them, then.
Yes, now...what went wrong with Lars? I wonder if Dana, given what we
know about her issues with refined carbohydrates, ever sucked a dick
for a candy bar back when she was a girl.
> >> And don't tell me no one would do that, since there's
> >> scads of people doing it right now, what you're proposing would just
> >> make it legal.
> >
> > I just saw something on Oprah about a kid who had a nice little
> >sideline going in exposing himself on the internet, and through the
> >interview I got the impression that, despite all the fuss that had been
> >made, he'd mostly just learned the things adults wanted to hear him say
> >rather than having really internalized any idea of the wrongness of
> >what he was up to.
>
> As, uh, touching as that is, I am not quite convinced by it that child
> prostitution is a good thing, if that was your goal.
No, I was definitely agreeing with you there is such a thing out
there. I admit, its sort of at the limit of my moral judgement.
> Indeed, it makes
> me think that people would get on tv and try to convince the great
> unwashed that they did indeed have a nine year old who likes to give
> blowjobs to truckers, is what it makes me think.
I'm surprised we haven't seen that kind of thing on TV. Still, if
nothing else, legalization would certainly improve life for nine year
olds in the dick-sucking business, and its not like there aren't any.
> > Oddly, though, his mom put a stop to it once she found out.
>
> Yeah, and there's likely to be no deviation at all in that behavior
> when spread over several million poor people.
There aren't several million poor people in the US, at least not poor
to a point where prostituting their childern's an attractive option to
them.
> > Still, all in all...if you're so unaffected by what the greater mass
> >of people think of something that you'd be willing to get involved in
> >something like that, it seems you'd be unlikely to let a trivial thing
> >like its being illegal stop you.
>
> Again, as far as I know child labor and prostitution in the US is
> actually stopped pretty well by the current laws and enforcement,
No, Kevin, they're stopped because they're either economically
unnecessary or actually morally repugnant to the greater mass of
society, at least here in the states.
Jerry Bauer
(in article <1149966376.6...@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>):
Q. Why are there laws?
A. No one knows. They just happen.
Michael Price
> On Fri, 9 Jun 2006 13:53:48 -0700, plausible prose man wrote
> (in article <1149886428....@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>):
>
> >
> > Kevin wrote:
> >> On Fri, 9 Jun 2006 12:02:03 +0200, pe...@DIESPAMMERDIE.dk (Peter Bjørn
> >> Perlsø) wrote:
> >>
> >>> Kevin <K_S_O...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Eh, that's not convincing to me. A combination of drugs and
> >>>> conditioning could make little kids a pretty good alternative to
> >>>> machine assembly; the software in a ten year old's head is a lot more
> >>>> advanced than anything running on a chip in today's world. And kids
> >>>> can be produced by much lower skilled labor than robots can.
> >>>
> >>> You're suggesting that the only thing stopping the filthy capitalists
> >>> from using child labor is that we need to drung them senseless?
> >>
> >> Er, no. I fear you're quite a long way from Reading.
> >>
> >> I'm saying if we removed all the drug laws and all the child labor
> >> laws, sweatshops wouldn't be places you'd want to spend your youth,
> >
> > Well, they wouldn't be places I wanted to spend my youth, anyway.
Well you probably had better choices than a 3rd world farm and a
sweatshop.
If those were your choices you might not be so reluctant to put in an
honest
12 hour day.
> >
> >> and yet they would be places where some kids do spend their youth, and
> >> that the effects on society would be sucky.
> >
> > Well, you're wrong about that.
> >
>
> Q. Why are there child labor laws?
>
> A. Because people are utility-maximizers.
That's pretty vague. Which people and how are they maximising their
utility?
Clearly not everyone is or there'd be no need for the law.
Michael Price
Not in a State system. Laws are made by certain people presumably
for their
own benefit, and people try to influence those people by offering them
benefits
in return for laws that benefit them.
Vlad
> I have recently had a session with a psychologist. He was asking me a
> list of questions. One of them was: why do we need to have child labor
> laws? I refused to answer the question on the grounds that it was
> biased. I mean, I suppose I could have said something like "So that
> greedy capitalist corporations don't take advantage of children." But
> I'm a bit too libertarian to say something like that. Probably the
> shrink concluded that I had a sociopathic tendency. Well, what the
> hell: it wasn't my choice to see him in the first place; it was part
> federal child labor laws? If not, would greedy capitalist
> corporations/companies/employers, in fact, take advantage of kids? If
> not, what would prevent them from doing so? Have they done so
> throughout history, all the way up until the feds enacted those laws?
>
>
--
Two ways to improve your life.
1. Turn off the TV.
2. Throw it out the window.
Vlad the Impaler
tooloud
Did you ever consider that it's not that kids are getting fat and lazy, but
that you're getting old, bitter, and senile?
Bob Geary
You can't rule out both.
bob "fat, lazy, old, bitter, *and* senile" geary
darkon
Several possibilities occur to me:
* She's right. They really are stupid.
* It just happened that she never saw any smart inmates
or guards.
* Maybe people known to be smart get the shit beat out of
them in prison. "You ain't so smart now, are you?"
Smart people are smart enough to act stupid so they
don't stand out.
There are probably others I missed. Not having had any experience
with prisons myself, I'm willing to accept her word for it.
(Always pending further evidence, of course.)
--
Stupid, draw back your bow, and let your arrow go....