That required some research which seems to indicate to me now that not only did the alleged abuses occur but they were dishearteningly common even in areas of our own country.

Historical revisionism is indeed perpetrated by all stripes of the political spectrum, but I’m still intrigued by this one. What cornerstone of “conservative reading” have I totally missed wherein so many of my colleagues seem to have accepted the idea that “child labor laws” are unnecessary and even “bad” so unquestioningly?

I believe in encouraging parent and family rights but not to the point that bad parents [or parents in bad circumstances, or parents who are pressured by other bad people, etc.] are allowed to infringe upon and curtail lives in the frightening ways that we have seen are so prevalent when there are no laws of consequence on this subject.

Well, that might work if everybody had great parents like you and I did, but not everyone does. Some parents might not put their child’s well-being over economic necessity, and corners would be cut. Wouldn’t it be good to have some overarching standards? We might not all like the particulars, but at least we could change them by law.

I mean, we’re both in favour of laws that make sure children don’t get harmed. I think if it were left to parents, some children would be harmed. We’ve been down this road before.

Frankly, I find this post baffling. Is it some kind of homework exercise where you try to defend the indefensible?

I disagree with most of them. Price fixing, arbitrary hour limits, all sorts of screwy rules regarding age, field of employment, and such. Leave it up to the parents to monitor their own childrens’ employment activities.

Would Connor or others disagree particularly with any of these laws?

…. my two cents….

collective bargaining …
Productivity should be the standard . . .
http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block64.html

work place safety standards . . .
good question. I have a hunch what they would say, but I’ll need to read more.

minimum wage . . .
they’re against it. 100 percent. it makes about as much sense as a maximum wage.

I don’t see a contradiction at all.

What Connor is calling immoral in your bolded text is the removal of personal freedom from an individual by force. Murder. Theft. Abuse. Hence, it is perfectly suitable, under its proper role, for the government to protect individual liberty.

And I find it quite interesting how you’ve touched upon the alarming problem of “moral elites” and yet still finished with saying “It’s more important to prevent the (willing) exploitation of children over the rights of companies (and possibly parents) to exploit them.”

I hesitate to write that because I don’t want you to feel I am attacking you personally. It’s just an observation. What I want to point out is that this is what causes many of the problems in this country — well intentioned men and women who institute policies and programs (laws) that remove the liberty of one to help another in a manner that does nothing to teach self reliance.

Connor,
You’ve answered my question above with your comment. Thank you. Your example was very clear, and it exemplifies the magical hand of the free market prophesied of by Adam Smith. Unfortunately, this unseen hand is thwarted on all sides by massive corporate welfare and to a smaller degree, by the regulations imposed on companies of the types we’ve been speaking of in this link.

So all that stuff aside, what kinds of regulations could be advocated? Where do we draw the line? There’s what’s good for the kids, what’s good for the companies, what we can do as comsumers…Look at the issues; leave the personalitites out of it.

Other types of standards, such as a convenience policies (vacation, wages, sick pay, maternity leave, restroom access, health insurance, etc.) fall outside of government authority (when speaking of proper government, that is) and therefore should be left up to the individual business to determine.

Humans, when not acting under coercion, have the choice of determining what they would prefer. If one employer offers no lunch break, no restroom access, no holiday pay, and long hours, while another employer offers one of those things, the individual would likely choose to work for the latter. Or, he can choose to work for none.

Look at Google, for example. People love working there, because that business has chosen to provide for its employees a number of luxuries that entice others to seek employment there. Thus, as the supply of potential employees increase, they can be selective in their hiring process and employ only the best.

On the other hand, look at any telemarketing call center. They are notorious for having a very high turnover rate. Why? Because the employer offers very little by way of perks and benefits, and thus the employee quickly grows tired of working there, and soon seeks employment elsewhere.

So, naturally, a person will be attracted to a business that chooses to reward its employees and offer them certain perks. A business that does not do so will have a hard time retaining quality employees.

While things operate on a lower scale in third world countries, the principle is the same. There are, no doubt, varying businesses that offer different incentives and impose different requirements. The individual is then able to choose among these possibilities and make a conscious decision as to where they would like to work.

Do the libertarians in the readership think that strict workplace standards are a good idea? Am I wrong?

As Connor has seen in his travel to Africa, there are many, many households in the world headed by chidlren. They have no adult to labor for their income. These children have risen to the moment, and often care for younger siblings. Why condemn them to perpetual hunger or even death by startvation?

I have read this post, the comments, and even the blog entry linked to in the comment above, and all the while in my mind I see those African kids who need to make a living to feed themselves and their brothers and sisters. I do not want them mistreated in the name of that living, but then again I do not want them denied it either.

The answer is to advocate for standards.

But they do get tripped up in their own contradictions sometimes. Connor claims to be a small government conservative, but check this out:

Certain things are inherently morally wrong, such as prostitution, as you point out. Labor itself (the moral kind) is the domain of the individual, where he/she can choose what skills to acquire and how to spend his/her time. With cases of immorality, the government has the ability to intervene (such as murder, theft, abuse, etc.).

Connor says that it’s okay for the state to shut down something if it’s immoral. Wait: if I think it’s immoral? I think child labor is immoral. Apparently not — more on this later. Smoking may be immoral. Some folks think homosexuality’s immoral. Should those things be illegal? Throw adulterers in jail? Far from being ‘small government’, this criterion would give sweeping powers to the state.

What’s happening is that the poster’s inner amoral sociopath is fighting with his inner moralistic cretin. That can happen.

And I think I’ve found the initial bad assumption, no extra charge. Look again.

Certain things are inherently morally wrong, such as prostitution, as you point out.

Oh, that’s the little meme that’s causing the problem right dere. If certain things were inherently wrong, we could feel okay about shuttin’ them down. But if things were inherently wrong, then we should expect to see every culture reflect the same values. They don’t. There are some general tendencies, but even something like murder sees the rules vary from culture to culture. Morals grow out of the society as people in the society figure out how to live together.

So while Connor argues that prostitution is wrong inherently, I’d argue that it’s wrong because of my social values and my human feelings like compassion and empathy. But ask someone else, and you’ll get a different answer. Some Japanese schoolgirls happily prostitute themselves for pocket money, with few moral implications that I’m aware of. I don’t think that’s great — in fact, I’m horrified (them’s my values!) — but the society has found a place for it in its moral system. If it were inherently wrong, we should expect every culture to have the same moral views on it. Instead, we see general tendencies, but not worldwide accord.

This is getting abstract — why does this matter? Let’s review.
Connor argues for moral absolutes; that certain things are inherently wrong, and that the state should intervene in some of those cases. The problem: whose morality? A hypothetical cabal of moral elites? Or does everyone secretly know what’s inherently moral, but they forget because of wickedness? Does everyone need to get baptised and get the Holy Spirit in order to have world peace? (Can you see why advocating moral absolutes leads to advocating theocracy?)

My view: Morals evolve within a community. People perceive things to be immoral because they seem unfair, harmful to people, damaging to social cohesion, and so on. My notion of morality will differ from others, and the struggle to see my values reflected in the system is essentially the story of political and social struggle.

I guess this is a very long way of saying that I see child labour as wrong because I’m putting ‘harm/care’ over ‘individual liberty’ in this case. It’s more important to prevent the (willing) exploitation of children over the rights of companies (and possibly parents) to exploit them. And I’d be willing to use government power to stop this — I think it’s that important. Them’s my values.

But you may disagree. :)

Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven. (D&C 123:13)

The crux of the matter, then, is the ability to first know the issues that we should be exposing (and rejecting). If we discover that Company X is encouraging forced child labor, for example, then we absolutely should refuse to patronize them. However, assuming that “big companies” are all practicing moral evils is naïve in my opinion (though it may very well be true, who knows?). We should try, so far as we’re able, to know what businesses we are supporting (and by corollary, their respective business practices we are likewise supporting) and reject those that are immoral and unethical.

The problems of the global labor market are nearly innumerable. It is certain that well-meaning people who focus too narrowly on one small piece (like ‘child labor’) could assuredly do more harm than good and that seems to be your point.

But I wish I knew how to assail the kinds of things that John Perkins lays out in books like
The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption

It just seems like the people who would rather preserve the status quo (and I certainly don’t include you in that group) are much more adept at pointing out our limited understanding and using that as a weapon of discouragement.

The main problem I see with the “slave labor” argument is knowing how accurate the situation is portrayed.

As an example, consider a company that moves its labor to Bangladesh, since it would be far cheaper to do so. Scores of local workers are hired—people who, quite likely, were either previously working for less, or not at all. These hard working people appreciate the opportunity to provide for their family.

And yet, we cause a stink back at home because of their long hours, poor working conditions, and low pay. But we rarely consider “that which is not seen” (as Bastiat clarified), which in this case might very well be that these jobs are welcomed and appreciated by those we consider to be exploited and abused.

Yeah I worked jobs when I was young too. I liked doing it and earned some good money in my free time. I delivered newspapers, collected newspaper and cans to recycle door-to-door, I sold grapefruit on the corner, I bussed tables for $2 an hour plus a share of waitress tips. But the kind of child labor laws Lindsay is referring to didn’t stop me here in the USA and wouldn’t stop children abroad. The kind of child labor laws *needed* in countries we purchase from should be — in my opinion — similar to laws here, with maybe some modifications due to wisdom in seeing abuses by groups like the FLDS.

I think the larger point is that there are indeed very, very evil organizations which dehumanize whole groups of people to use them as labor. The USA is the #1 customer of these groups and most of these groups are US based. This is wrong, plain and simple. When people say “How could the founding fathers excise that line from the Declaration of Independence blaming King George for the evil human trafficking and then compromise on slave ownership — and even own slaves and slave plantations??” I tend to think “Hmmm, well how can I shop at Walmart?” and it gives it a bit of perspective.

Modern slavery is, indeed, as Lindsay points out in the article you initially link to (thank you, btw) even more subsersive than our plantation heritage because we are still materially sponsoring it, allowing it, and benefitting from it — but we don’t have to see it, worry about it, or feel guilty about it.

First, Connor is nothing like the “conservatives” you read about in 99.9 percent of the media. Just a simple observation. There’s a theme to the things he writes about, and it’s not so much conservatism as it is personal liberty both physically and spiritually.

Second, It is frightening how often people are unwilling to think with their head and rely on conventional crap that has been spewed from the media.

Third, Connor is a smart dude. Stop thinking with a “right-wing” opinion of the guy and re-read the post for content.