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by lnxg33k1 806 days ago
This reminds me of my time in Netherlands, you would go to a supermarket and there were 10 years old guys fixing shelfs. Paid 2.5 euros per hour. Exploited by corporate since childhood, in order "To understand the value of money". Imagine living your life without dreams, just always as a bolt of the economic system.

> Third-party developers on Roblox are paid in Robux, the platform’s in-game currency

> user can buy 1,000 Robux for $12.50 but can cash out 1,000 Robux for just $3.50

> 15 years old, in Indonesia, living in a slum, and then now with just a laptop, I can create something, make money

> we wanted to be a resource for legislators as they start thinking about laws

Probably there are already laws, but by my side there is even something of greater value than those laws, and it tells me that you're a piece of shit

2 comments

There absolutely are laws. England has had laws about paying people in "the coin of the realm" since the 1400s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_Acts

As for revoking children's right to toil, it took a lot longer.

"I owe my soul to the company store."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Tons

What's the problem with children working as long as there aren't forced to do so? If we are concerned about the economic pressure created from capitalism, the solution is to just give people money/UBI rather than prohibit the options they actively are seeking to deal with economic pressure.
> What's the problem with children working as long as there aren't forced to do so?

I think one the problems is that it's quite difficult to identify where a child is choosing to "work", and where a child has been coerced into the activity. There's a reason why we have a concept of ages of consent, where a child cannot consent to certain things, because their brain has failed to develop sufficiently yet in order to either understand the implications of their choices, or to understand whether this is actually their choice, or one that has been bestowed upon them.