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I suspect you would not make this argument if the prospective employee were a four year old child and the service to be rendered was sweeping your chimney. But
by ckw 4y ago
I suspect you would not make this argument if the prospective employee were a four year old child and the service to be rendered was sweeping your chimney. But according to what principle do you distinguish the two cases?
- notch656a 4y agoI would also rather a 4 year old have $20 for working than starving (in some fictional scenario where those are the two options). Given such an option the only reason I would refuse the child the work would be for legal liability reasons. IMO if a child is so desperate for food that they must work, then pretty much all other options have failed, and they should be allowed to do it. I can tell you I have had children ask me for work before. When I was struggling to pay for my own family, I had to refuse them work. Instead they simply stole things from me when I wasn't home. That is illegal too, although stealing from people tends to get you put in jail even faster, so I can tell you there seems to be kids in America where this is a real thing it just ends up being the 'work' they do is something illegal since they're not allowed a legal channel to work.
- ckw 4y agoWell you’re consistent, I give you that. What I would say is that collectively we decide on the rules of society— what conditions are acceptable and so on. And just as we have decided in the US that it is unacceptable to allow four year olds to sweep chimneys, so too can we decide that, in the words of Franklin Roosevelt, “no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”