The Trouble With Child Labor Laws
First, my apologies for reposting this previously blog-linked article in the daily articles section; many readers suggested that it needs a permanent home at Mises.org, so here it is (with the benefit of improvements suggested by commentators).
Productive work imparts glorious lessons in life. What lesson do we impart with child-labor laws? We establish early on who is in charge: not individuals, not parents, but the state. We tell the youth that they are better off being mall rats than fruitful workers. We tell them that they have nothing to offer society until they are 18 or so. We convey the impression that work is a form of exploitation from which they must be protected. We drive a huge social wedge between parents and children and lead kids to believe that they have nothing to learn from their parents' experience. We rob them of what might otherwise be the most valuable early experiences of their young adulthood.
In the end, the most compelling case for getting rid of child-labor laws comes down to one central issue: the freedom to make a choice. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (27)
You've got to be kidding me! You obviously don't know much about the abuses of children of an era in America where children were forced to work extremely long hours for sorry wages. Whether your a slave to the state or a slave to corporate slave masters doesn't make any difference. Your still a slave. The American worker when treated fairly will outwork anyone in the world. We already have to work over 40 hrs a week and have both parents working to pay the cost of living. You must be an elitist that thinks that everyone is lazy and stupid. Labor laws are in place to prevent POWERFUL corporations who have the ability to buy and lobby for laws that would turn us into a nation of slaves. You ever heard of the company store? When will big business earn enough money to satisfy them, when we all are working for nothing and they have all the laws written in their favor. I can't believe your so naive.
Published: February 11, 2008 2:44 PM
RFL ; Did you read read the article? Have you looked at any other articles on this site about freedom to contract? if not why don't you.
you might even learn something.
Published: February 11, 2008 3:15 PM
RFL, did you even read the article let alone carefully consider Mr. Tucker's arguments?
What forced children to work for very long hours for sorry wages in the era you're talking about? It was poverty, and that cannot be legislated away. Only capital accumulation that increases the overall wealth in society can end the type of poverty your talking about, and that's what happened. The industrial revolution led to a rise in the standard of living of the working class, especially after the 1860's. After all, what were they making in the factories? They were making cheap consumer goods that benefited the middle and lower classes.
The end of child labor laws would not bring about the return of 12 hour work days in miserable factories for young kids; the capital accumulation I was talking about means that it is far more profitable to build machines to do the grunt work. It would mean exactly what Mr. Tucker talks about--part time tech work, apprenticeships, etc.
Published: February 11, 2008 3:15 PM
Wow RFL, lots of data to backup your post! Did you even read the article?
I'm not going to rehash all Mr. Tucker's arguments because you obviously are not going to listen no matter what I say, but if you're going to post a comment, please have something to back it up! Or take his points and try and refute them one by one. If you can't refute his posts, then Tucker wins the point.
Published: February 11, 2008 3:25 PM
RFL,
The picture you paint of corporations making slaves of people will never come to pass in a free market. In a free market you're not forced by anyone to do anything, you're free to choose for yourself what you do with your labor. Corporations can't force you work X number of hours, unless of course they have the power of government backing them up.
Free markets don't support government passing laws and/or regulations that benefit corporations. That's not a free market.
In a free market, if a corporation is treating it's workers poorly there's the threat of losing workers to the competition, which is why most corporations provide competitive benefit packages to potential employees.
The arguments you post, if they can be called arguments at all, are based on a false reality you're making up out of thin air.
Published: February 11, 2008 3:46 PM
The problem with company towns had nothing to do with violations of liberty etc. It was a management issue. They are too vertically integrated to be viable over the long run, which is why they were mostly outcompeted by less integrated firm arrangements.
It's interesting to me that you can still whip up a frenzy about the evil of company towns, but no one thinks a thing about a town dominated by one government or a country dominated by a unified nation state. Talk about vertical integration.
Published: February 11, 2008 3:51 PM
Again, this whiny false dichotomy between the 'evil' corporations and government. As if saying corporations are powerful, in capital letters, reinforces the argument at all. How about you actually educate yourself, RFL, then spam the site with the mainstream propaganda that's been rammed down your throat?
Published: February 11, 2008 4:35 PM
">>laws>laws
LOL
well, at least you're knocking at the righ door buddy
Published: February 11, 2008 6:50 PM
Child actors: exploited labor that leads to sometimes terrible psychological problems as adults. Like the Spears girls. Many, many child actors from the last 100 years lost all their earnings thanks to exploitive parents and agents.
And as adults, often could not find work in the field which they knew so well. Their educations suffered, too. Temple/Black spoke out in Congress about the exploitation of herself and others and worked to pass laws preventing the worst abuses. Yet little is improved as we can see in the gossip headlines.
Then there is the tragedy of farm children who have terrible accidents. I grew up in the farming community and remember some really terrible deaths.
And the writer here: using the example of a child of a lawyer? HAHAHA. Get real. These princes and princesses spend their off hours having fun, going to camps or being groomed in various ways. They certainly don't hold down jobs.
As for 16 year olds: I see them at work all over the place! More: I did this, too! All summer and on weekends during my teen years! Good grief. Talk about a useless article.
Published: February 11, 2008 7:01 PM
What good reasons are there for child labor laws?
There is the notion that poor families need to be "protected". This does not stand up to logical reasoning: poor people are not protected from their poverty if they are forbidden to work--that only makes it worse.
There is the notion that if a family cannot feed their children, they should be given assistance from the state. If, for the sake of argument, we accept that premise, then my should they be forbidden from working to supplement their welfare payments?
Their is the point that children are not capable of hard work, or intellectually demanding jobs. So then why would an employer hire a child to perform a job the employer knows the child is not physically or intellectually capable of performing? My would the child apply for such a job?
There is the point that many jobs are too dangerous for children. Why would the parents allow the child to work at such a job? Why would the employer hire a child, and tarnish his reputation? And more importantly, how does that justify forbidding children from doing jobs that are safe?
You might say some jobs are too distasteful, and children should be protected from them. But what is the justification for "protecting" children from doing a distasteful job, especially when the child wants to get paid?
_______________________________________
Labor laws are in place to prevent POWERFUL corporations who have the ability to buy and lobby for laws that would turn us into a nation of slaves.
No corporation, no matter how POWERFUL, is capable of turning free people into a nation of slaves; only military force can do that.
When will big business earn enough money to satisfy them, when we all are working for nothing and they have all the laws written in their favor.
In a free country, nobody has the laws written in their favor. Only statist societies do that.
How you can say that the law exists to protect us from corporations, and then say that the corporations write the laws in the same paragraph, is beyond me.
Published: February 11, 2008 7:43 PM
It'd help if most people who visited this site realized we're not in favour of the status quo (which we are in fact critical of), and that we favour free markets, not corporations over government, as seems to be the popular misconception. It's impossible for every article to restate this, so a willingness to familiarize oneself with core Austrian tenets before embarking in debate on them would be useful.
Published: February 11, 2008 7:50 PM
"No corporation, no matter how POWERFUL, is capable of turning free people into a nation of slaves"
Is this a similar argument whereby a one person can't kill another person directly but can just happen to be a position to save the other person but refuses to help and the other person dies anyway? Well no, forcing someone into slavery would be wrong but what if such a person requires some sort assistance which puts them into debt and the debt happens to one where the debt can't be ever worked off but the person has to keep working anyway? The counterarguments could be "well the person's poverty isn't the loan-giver's problem", "if the person didn't allow him/herself to get that poor then this situation wouldn't have arisen", "the loan-giver is free to set the interest relative to the risk of the loan and the poorer the person, the greater the risk and therefore the higher the interest", "if you undertake a debt you are required to pay debt back, to have the debt waived amounts to stealing from the loan giver", etc.
P.S. Apart from a few benefits a corporation doesn't have much more rights than a business partnership does it? I heard people like Robert Kiyosaki have overstated the magical powers of corporations and other financial advisers reckon that most people are fine to work through sole proprietorships and partnerships.
Published: February 11, 2008 8:36 PM
Elaine, you said:
There are undoubtedly accidents in all lines of work. I would venture to guess that they are much less common among children, because parents are often very protective and prevent them from taking dangerous jobs. I don't have any statistics to back this up, however.
I'd bet poverty (leading to desperation, crime, etc) is far larger a problem for poor children than on the job injuries. While I don't think the repeal of child labor prohibitions would change a whole lot in many cases, I do think it would help more than it hurts.
Published: February 11, 2008 10:13 PM
elaine supkis:
"Their educations suffered, too. Temple/Black spoke out in Congress about the exploitation of herself and others and worked to pass laws preventing the worst abuses..."
shirley temple black's education obviously didn't suffer - she went on to become a prominent republican party member and later us ambassador.
your solution to the problem of exploitative parents is exactly what? try and suggest to us some of your bossy-parent legislation, so that we too can have a few belly laughs.
children die in farm accidents? -so banish them to the cities, which are safe! no child ever dies terribly in bigtown! show us your draft bill.
Published: February 11, 2008 10:35 PM
as an aside, to those who enjoyed this article, i recommend going to the insidecatholic.com source and reading the feedback. great, life-affirming comments.
Published: February 11, 2008 10:50 PM
I've never understood this. Somehow, it's perfectly acceptable for mommy and daddy to work their kids to the bone, but if they let him work in a less-demanding factory where Junior produces a higher effective yield, that's somehow an atrocity?
Maybe the resolution is that we have to go the Kevin_Carson route, that the only reason children ever worked in a factory in preference of mommy and daddy is because mommy and daddy were somehow expropriated, which removed their ability to give Junior a cushy job. Never mind all those families that had no land to begin with because of all those occupyier/users...
Published: February 12, 2008 9:35 AM
Jeffrey,
I myself am new to the theories of Austrian Economics. I never new what I believed politically, socially, and economically until I found out about Ron Paul. That, eventually, led me to LRC, which led me here. I must say that I love reading your articles and audio files. Block, DiLorenzo, Woods, you, and many others have done wonders beyond you can imagine in the field of freedom and liberty.
I would say perhaps no less than one year ago if I read this article I would say you were crazy. Now, with an open mind and heart I can look at issues outside the box without prejudice. You bring up some very interesting points. Kids do know alot more about technology than their parents. I think it could very well teach the the value of a hard earned dollar. Not that a dollar is woth a piece of toilet paper. (but that is another story)
Keep up the good work. I look forward to more articles that challenge my old dying thought and bring me further into liberties warm embrace.
Published: February 12, 2008 1:37 PM
Temple/Black had to marry to find her salvation.
She was still EXPLOITED AS A CHILD. The adults around her benefitted, she did NOT. Period.
The doctrinaire beliefs here leaves out lots of reality check stuff. I wish all of you would have been worked ruthlessly as children. Perhaps, you all would be a little more curious about the effects of labor.
And the laws were passed to increase wages of working ADULTS. Nations that let children be exploited see adults exploited. And most people who are on this site who think destroying working wages is smart or good should check out your pedigrees.
90% of the population were peasants and then labor up until the 20th century. If you think you are ruling elites who will never be trapped in a low-wage situation with children competing because of poverty, I will suggest you do some reading of Dickens, for example.
Lord help Little Dorrit.
Published: February 12, 2008 2:38 PM
I think this a great post. I learned a lot working as a child and teen and hoped that my girls would get the same education. My oldest daughter now works as a stay at home wife and mother and my little one is 16. As the parent of mature young women, I feel qualified to address this tidbit:
My daughters wanted to work in fields other than babysitting as young as 14 but were unable to think about it because of state and federal laws. You might wonder what was wrong with babysitting. It's inconsistent money and when one is learning to manage money and small accounts, inconsistency is bad. When my little one, as a 16 year old college freshman, wanted to find employment, she was faced with laws requiring no driving on the job, no serving alcohol, no using dangerous equipment, etc. (Nevermind she drives on roads anyway, can mix a mean bloody mary and can use a tablesaw at home.)
This type of regulation thins down the available opportunities that there are for teens and potentially puts them in jobs that can be borderline abusive. For example, when my little one finally found a hostess position at a restaurant she came home with stories of hostesses being yelled at and fondled by managers. She is a strong young woman and knew better than to tolerate that sort of behavior but was worried sick about quitting and being jobless. In the end, she gave 2 weeks notice, we paid her car insurance until she found something more appropriate but it took 2 months.
Her work ethic is great and she is shrewd with her money because she knows how long it takes to earn it. The abusive place still calls to ask her back on as there's been a management change.
Published: February 12, 2008 3:46 PM
Why are some of you people so obsessed with Dickens? "Read Dickens". To which I retort, read Hayek.
Published: February 12, 2008 4:11 PM
to elain supkis:
dickens was a wealthy novelist, little dorrit a fictional character. does poetic licence mean nothing to you?
the real world observation you've made about rising wages in the twentieth century has everything to do with the massive accumulation of capital that accompanied the industrial revolution, and nothing to do with workplace legislation. (bangladesh has plenty of attornies/unions - why are they poorer than us?)
what about your draft legislation to protect children from exploitative parents? give us a peek!
Published: February 12, 2008 4:47 PM
Jeffrey's article and a couple of the reactions to it bring to mind the quote (from Hayek) at the beginning of Alexander Shand's book The Capitalist Alternative: An Introduction to Neo-Austrian Economics (NYU Press, 1984):
"Capitalism created the proletariat, but not by making anyone any the worse off; rather by enabling many to survive who would not otherwise have done so."
Published: February 12, 2008 5:01 PM
elain supkis says
"Their educations suffered, too. Temple/Black spoke out in Congress about the exploitation of herself and others and worked to pass laws preventing the worst abuses..."
and then:
"Temple/Black had to marry to find her salvation."
salvation? i thought your point was about education. however exploited she may have been by her parents, shirley temple black certainly didn't get her education from matrimony.
Published: February 12, 2008 5:58 PM
wasn't an article posted on mises couple of months ago by an english guy writing in the 20s, i think he wrote about how much the working class benefited from the increased specialization of labour it in the 19th century.
I wish i could remember his name and would have posted the link.
Published: February 12, 2008 9:53 PM
"Child labor" is work for children under age, (minors) that in some way harms or exploits them. (physically, mentally, morally, or by blocking children from education).
Published: February 20, 2008 1:29 AM
As opposed to state education, which nurtures them and prepares them for life as adults, right?
Published: February 20, 2008 9:47 AM
i agree with the article.ITS A FREE COUNTRY!!! kids wanna work
Published: March 19, 2008 10:00 AM