Child Labor vs. Child Slavery

Given the very nature of childhood and that our parents force our actions for much of our early lives, isn’t “child slavery” meaningless? Everything is forced.

Back to the child labor laws – Like every law on earth, there are cost to their benefits.

So, first, in a North American context, can I point out that laws against the sorts of jobs that have been discussed here are either non-existent (small amounts of work are allowed) or not enforced?

The *actual* issues in child-labor revolve around near full-time work. The trade-offs that important in such a context are lost educational opportunities (students with a full-time workload are a lot likelier to drop-out) vs. work experience gained and enjoyment of the additional money (nowadays, it’s pretty rare that the money children earn goes to the family).

In poorer countries, the trade-offs tend to be greater educational opportunity vs. additional money into the home. However, this is complicated by the fact that such money may be necessary for survival or it may simply be extra income, and in a national context, it won’t be either-or.

Also, I think it short-sighted to ignore the cultural impact that these laws have. Without child-labor laws, children can be viewed as an economic asset, encouraging larger families. The social norm can be to put one’s children to work, even when it is not economically necessary for survival, eliminating the educational opportunities that encourage long-term growth.

I think if the discussion is framed in ways that address the real issues rather than scoring points, we’re likely to see a more interesting and possibly constructive conversation.

The most irritating part to me is that in all practical cases, people think that child labor is a good idea. Farm work, tutoring, pizza delivery, lawn service, …. Aren’t these generally things we’d be happy to see our children doing?

I think the view of school=slavery maybe rests on overly-formal application of overly-narrow definitions. But a lot of left-side anarchists approve of unschooling (or otherwise disapprove of schooling) so I’m all ears. I think a lot of the objection to child labor over the years (and even today in some countries) is that there is something somehow horizon-shrinking if work is so large (or more importantly, so necessary) a part of a child’s life that it entirely precludes education (including education via unschooling). In keeping with the perhaps dated notion that childhood is somehow associated with innocence, a lot of people would like to think that the privileges of youth include the privilege of assembling the building blocks of what they call an examined life, and maybe even the privilege of, if not living to work, at least not living to work. That your entry into paid work earned you a fourteenfold increase over what was your allowance is impressive, and reflects very positively on your character, but somehow I think the children of most direct concern to the cause of abolishing child labor, probably would have found an allowance to be a pretty alien concept. Nowadays, many lefties (and righties too, of course) are concerned that there’s too little child labor. In 20/20 hindsight it appears that we threw the baby out with the bathwater. Between parenting, schooling, “activities” and other features of the childhood social environment, there is nothing that directly prepares the soon-to-emerge adult for the world of competitive work. While generally supportive of the idea of public education, I must admit it left me utterly unprepared for those Realities. My general reaction to this Unfortunate Situation has been an envy and admiration of what I’ve been told is the German System of Apprenticeship. Apparently the skilled trades apprenticeship program is somehow dovetailed into the public school program. I think this idea has some merit in that if the public schools are open to the public, then an apprenticeship that is part of the curriculum is also open to the public, rather than being a hotbed of nepotism. Perhaps the program does not work as advertised. How would I know? I’m not proud to say it, but I’ve never even been to Europe.

@Pandaemoni:

No. There is no such thing as voluntary slavery because if someone is volunteering for it and they can choose to stop, it is not slavery. By definition, coercion is a necessary element of slavery.

@David Henderson:

I think the case against child labor has been poorly stated. A more persuasive argument is that most children have a capacity for judgement which is much less than that of most adults combined with a small stature and they often have less information. The primary consequence of that is that children could be easily tricked or bullied into “consenting” to perform tasks which are highly dangerous. Think children whose small hands made them perfect to unjam the machinery at a factory. On the other hand, parents are assumed to have the best interests of their children at heart and so, under the direct supervision of their parents, children are allowed to engage in dangerous activities under the assumption that the parent will correctly weigh the dangers versus the benefits to the child.

This arrangement is far from perfect. It means that some children are denied some opportunities and some parents do not have the judgement or do not care enough for their children to make good decisions in the stead of their children. (Whatever good decisions might mean) But ultimately, in most developed societies, I think this is a roughly balanced way to protect children from an abuse of their vulnerability. Perhaps we could better tailor it to carve out more exceptions, but I definitely think this is better.

When it comes to the developing world, I think we have an additional factor on our hands. The child is working often not because that will provide them with an allowance for candies but sometimes because their very survival depends on it. In that case, the balance probably shifts in favor of letting children work as despite their often even greater vulnerability to the dangers I described above, the alternative is still worst.