[ineedasername]

I worked up to 60 hours a week (I'd say avg 50) from the time I was 13 years old making $6 an hour. It was backbreaking, grueling labor. But not a coal mine so no risk of black lung, so I guess everything is okay? Or maybe my parents should have taken advantage of economic opportunities that didn't exist (they looked, constantly, for options).

This was in the US. Most of the time I did my homework in school, cramming in assignments for second period during first period, then 3rd period hw during second period, etc. Child labor isn't dead, and if you truly think that everyone has the economic opportunities to avoid these circumstance then you don't have the scope of experience needed to accurately assess the state of society.

(And no, it wasn't a case of "well if you can't support children you shouldn't have them" The circumstances of the above situation came about long after I was born, though before I was 13)

[notch656a]

Would your family have been better off if the income from your $6/hr job was lost? I presume this work was beneficial to your family somehow, otherwise you wouldn't have engaged in it.

[ineedasername]

Is "better off [economically]" you're guide on ethical labor practices? I don't want to read too much into your comment, but that is the implication, in which case any labor practice can be justified so long as someone is willing to do it. That's a rather extreme view.

[notch656a]

Answer my question and I'll be happy to answer yours in kind. Please note 'economically' was added by you. I genuinely wondered if you and your family would be better off in general, not just economically. Usually economic effects have greater effects on the family outside of the economic outlook. It would be strange indeed if you toiled for years doing something to create a net hurt to your family.

I will say if you engaged in some unethical labor practices to help your family while earning those $6, I personally could look past them to some extent. I assume you did this to help your family survive so anything unethical you did was out of necessity. Personally I withhold judgement.

[ineedasername]

I can't give a full answer to your question without revealing things I don't want to put online. The best I can do is say I don't know. It's hard to judge what would have happened otherwise, what opportunities I might have pursued.

So, I answered as best I can. But even if, under yours or anyone's definition, we were better off, what does that say? An economic system or society (can't really full disentangle the two) where a family is either unable to survive or do more than barely survive unless their kids work in this way... That does not seem like a society optimized for for its own best outcomes as a whole or for many individuals either. I also don't have any magic answer that would fix things either, but acknowledging the problem is a necessary step along the way. Asking if my family was better off is just asking if a shitty situation would have been any shittier otherwise. I prefer to think we should work towards less shitty circumstances overall, and the entrenched systems aren't it.

[notch656a]

Appreciate the response. To answer your question

>Is "better off [economically]" you're guide on ethical labor practices?

No. But live in reality. I know people have to make hard decisions. If the choice is "Family starves to death" or "Child labor results in survival of family", I would never try to stop this family from having that opportunity to survive. Whether it is better to ban the job so the family starves to death? My inclination is to say no. Clearly some better alternatives would be superior, but in the end you work with the options you have available and not the ones you wish you had. If superior alternative exists, we don't even need to ban child labor because the hand of free will will go towards the superior option.

I've also seen a number of circumstances where child labor is just genuinely what works for a family. Our neighborhood chinese restaraunt, even the 6 and 7 y/o or so work EVERY NIGHT for HOURS, basically when they get home from school until bed. These children are so young, they can barely enunciate clearly most of the time. They do their homework while taking phone orders and even ring you up at the cash register. I'm not even sure they get weekends off. Is it ethical? I don't know, but that family made the calculus it's right for their family and indeed I think it would be unethical for me to stop them. Who knows, their family may be better off for it and it may even be saving them from bankruptcy and losing health insurance and eventually even their lives (especially depending on their immigration status). Maybe the children will end up successful businesspeople as a result of their child labor and donate billions so 1000 other children DON'T have to work.

At the end of the day your situation may have been more iffy (you don't know whether it was actually beneficial). That indicates to me you weren't going to starve to death or anything if you didn't work, because if you were you'd have said right away you were better off than not earning any money. You may have a different outlook if it wasn't so iffy, like if the alternative was much worse.

[ineedasername]

>No. But live in reality.

I live there, grew up with a strong dose of it, but I take your point and understand. I'm not ideological on the issue except that I think we can do better, so a viewpoint rooted in (for me, cynical) practicality is easy for me to relate to. It's different than an ideological one, which is what was the question I was trying to understand from your statement. It's harder to have productive conversation on matters of ideology.

At the end of the day your situation may have been more iffy (you don't know whether it was actually beneficial). That indicates to me you weren't going to starve to death

Eh, yes and no. Again, personal details involved. But, mostly, not about extreme food security problems. A parent worked in food service as a second job, which helped. (No theft, just generous owners)

In general I find child labor laws to be deeply ironic in a Kafka-esque way for the reasons you touch on. Out socioeconomic system produces situations that all but require such labor, but then it is outlawed. Like so many other laws, it doesn't solve the problem that leads to the bad thing in the first place.

Better to have an extremely strong safety net w/ a strong job training & job placement system. It's often a catch 22 though. In my state unemployed people can go to community college for free, and there are even 1-year full time programs for in-demand jobs that have okay pay. The problem is, how do you love during that the new period? That's one gap. Another one are people who are employed but don't make enough money-- no free college for them, so they're stuck in their economic niche. And if they lost the job they'd still face the first issue of living while they learn. Another gap is the job market: fix the above issues and the college programs I referenced would be flooded beyond their capacity and wages in the job market kept low by a higher labor supply.

I think we could chip away at some of these issues, but the most common political solution, probably because it seems quick and easy, is to raise the floor on minimum wage. There's a little elasticity there, but I don't think it can be raised enough to solve these problems. Low-margin businesses (supermarkets!) especially will have to raise prices, which will then eat into the cost of living. The idea that minimum wage can be doubled without inflation always strikes me as wishful thinking.