Comment by hobo_in_library | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hobo_in_library | Hacker News Reader

hobo_in_library

Unpopular opinion: Even as a kid, I thought child labor laws were weird. Perhaps this had to do with me growing up in a developing nation where child labor was normal and even openly visible on the streets.

Young me thought: If a kid and their family is dirt poor, should the kids just sit home and starve instead of working to earn an income for themselves? What if the kid _wants_ to work? Are lemon-aid stands `child labor`? Is working in the family store/restaurant child labor?

As an adult, child labor laws seem like a distraction from the real evil: The existence of environments where children feel compelled to perform child labor

And that is very much a question about poverty.

How do you make sure that poor families don't feel so poor that they feel the need to push their kids to work? Our public schools have been a huuuuuge step in this direction (despite all their flaws). Guaranteeing the poor and homeless some amount of food helps with this a lot too.

Of course our current implementations are far from perfect. Poverty is still a big problem in many parts of the US. But I now digress.

My main point: Child labor shouldn't be considered inherently bad. An environment where children FEEL COMPELLED to work as laborers IS bad, and we should focus on eliminating that

I don't think it's so unpopular to be suspicious of a blanket law against child labor, but the point about compulsion is critical. Our progressive laws are a compromise that is massively good in the net-that's the nature of the modern world. It may be there's a better arrangement, but it has to avoid the pain, we can't go back to it now. If children can work, poor children will. This recent essay is a good case FOR: https://letter.palladiummag.com/p/school-is-not-enough But, it's the kind of thing that cannot be flipped like a switch--it has to, as you say, be part of an effective project of economic justice, which we're very far from. In lieu of that, the challenge is, can we continue to prevent child labor while compensating for its downsides? Pain is information. Child labor laws trade a widespread and severe pain for a somewhat narrower and vaguer one, but we can respond to that too (a kind of gradient descent).

The problem with your perspective is you are assuming children have independent wants and needs to work and can stand up for themselves like adult workers can. This just isn't the case.

Children don't personally decide to work, they are told to by parents / authority / etc.. and they are incredibly vulnerable as employees. Comparing child labour to lemonade stands is ridiculous. There are rules about children working in the family store etc.. and child labour laws explicitly account for this. Child labour laws are explicitly about preventing abusive conditions in factories, fields, and other hard, grueling jobs.

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