| > In many countries, child labor wasn't banned because of moral reasons, it was banned as an anti-competitive measure against un-mechanized factories. OK, then child soldiers. Or chemical weapons. Pretty much anything outlawed by the Geneva Convention–all economical ways to wage wars, trumped by morality. Not as anti-competitive measures against killer robots. > I've gone to many nice restaurants where they didn't charge me up front, Restaurants also typically don't risk their lives for you, so not really relevant. > You say that companies should expect profits to fall, That's what I said. > but do you expect the companies to drive themselves into the ground (thus leaving their employees unemployed) in an attempt to do a little to help? That's not what I said. It helps if you stick to what I actually said. > Most companies spend about 50% of their revenue on labor, and have a profit of less than five percent. We're not talking about most companies. We're talking about big industrial PPE manufacturers like 3M, which reported net income of about $5b dollars in 2018, and because of accounting tricks,[1] probably under-reported their income. They have a profit margin of about 50% for at least the past five years.[2] > That means that a 10% increase in labor costs (think overtime) We're not talking about a uniform, across-the-board 10% increase in labour costs, we're talking about targeted cost increases specifically for PPE manufacture. > they really can't afford to reduce their margins much, and remain an extant firm. Based on the actually relevant numbers, it looks like they'll be just fine. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/02/26/hi... > You say we shouldn't gamble our lives on the continued decency of for-profit corporations, but I have more confidence in their ethics than those of the common man. I'm just curious, who do you think makes up these for-profit corporations, some kind of special saints? As opposed to 'common' people? [2] https://ycharts.com/companies/MMM/gross_profit_margin |