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Making children and adults compete in the labor market so business owners can protect their profit margins doesn’t seem off to you? I wouldn’t want to subsidiz

by reb 4y ago

Making children and adults compete in the labor market so business owners can protect their profit margins doesn’t seem off to you? I wouldn’t want to subsidize some company’s low wages by lending them my kid at a discount rate, but that’s just me.

Nextgrid 4y ago
Competing in the labor market so that 1% can become super rich is what most of us do to survive. You could argue that's not moral and I agree, but that doesn't change because of an arbitrary age limit. Either we accept the idea that it's moral that someone needs to effectively be a slave to the system to enjoy basic rights such as a roof, food and medical care, or we don't. Age shouldn't play a role in this.
- reb 4y ago
  The idea that our two choices are “abandon capitalism” or “allow children to be devoured by it” is… unhinged.
  - krapp 4y ago
    If only it were possible to regulate capitalism and have a government that provides for the social welfare. Ah well, who am I kidding? (shovels another load of babies into Mammon's burning maw.)
- hirako2000 4y ago
  Age does play a role in this. Adults have at least the possibility to have developed better critical thinking, life experience to make an appreciation of what's being offered to avoid predation. With you on the struggle against modern slavery that is rampant against adults, let's not make it a child/teen only concern, but until then we certainly need to distinguish adults from the to become grown up men and women. There is a reason we have different moral, legislation and rules w.r.t the treatment of children. That applies to employment, intimate relationships, sales of stimulants, ability to hold a credit cards etc. All down to the fact all the way to being a teen, humans are still in the process of brain and experiences maturation to take on society and independence on their own, without special protection.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  You feel that you are entitled to "basic rights such as a roof, food and medical care" but when asked to do any work in exchange for the things that other people provide for you, you call that being a slave?
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Many jobs that kids take (grocery bagger) are low productivity jobs that adults really shouldn’t be doing (and indeed, child labor laws have led to bag your own groceries being more the norm in many states). Fast food is a good example. It went from a mostly teen job to a mostly adult one, are we really better off because of it?
- gambiting 4y ago
  >>are we really better off because of it? Is this....a trick question? Of course we are. Undeniably so.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    Are you just speaking from a position of not needing this chance when you were a teen?
    - gambiting 4y ago
      I also didn't need to work in a sweatshop as a kid yet I can pretty confidently say those are a bad idea.
      - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
        A privileged comment, and very condescending. Teens working to make their own money to get out of whatever situation they are in is a good thing, not a bad one. Better to work at McDoanld's when you are 16 then when you are 26. But from what you guys are saying, you prefer the latter, and I find it extremely distasteful.
        gambiting 4y ago
        >>Teens working to make their own money to get out of whatever situation they are in is a good thing, not a bad one. You are looking at it from the wrong perspective - it's not about teens being able to make a little money working at McDonalds. It's about letting companies use cheap labour because they know teens aren't in the position to demand good pay and/or benefits. It drags the entire society down, just so you can say teens have the opportunity to work - and for what? Under 18s should stay in full time education, not work in fast food. >>But from what you guys are saying, you prefer the latter, and I find it extremely distasteful. I find it extremely distatestul that you seem to prefer a society where teens are part of the labour force to a society where they aren't, so I guess we won't come to an agreement.
pg_bot 4y ago
I didn't grow up poor, but I wasn't given an allowance and there was no expectation of my parents buying frivolous things for us. If I wanted magic cards or to go to a concert I had to pay for it myself. Having a job at a young age taught me the importance of saving and the value of a dollar. It also gave me more ambition, I didn't want to be stuck at the grocery store forever. I moved over to the hardware store at 15 and used the skills there to learn how to build things. Those skills directly transferred into helping friends building robots for the FIRST competition my senior year of high school. We then became world champions, so I guess it worked out for me.
- gambiting 4y ago
  Yeah that's all great, very nice that you had this attitude and for you this was a way to learn the value of money and realize your hobbies. Very good. But I'm sure you can see how for some families this will be the "new normal" - both parents can't afford their rent/medical/energy bills working two full time jobs, so the moment you turn 14 you have to work to help support the family. This isn't some dystopian pessimistic fantasy - this is just how life works in majority of the world already, look anywhere outside of developed world and getting kids to work is normal. It isn't about them being able to afford magic cards - it's about being able to survive. Like others have posted already - if wages for grown ups weren't bad enough, now they will compete with actual kids who can earn less. Is that the market you want for the society around you?
  - pg_bot 4y ago
    I've seen back breaking poverty, kids as young as 5 breaking rocks into 50 pound bags of gravel making less than $1 a day. My heart weeps for them and I do help them financially by sending them to school. I don't believe in magical thinking. People will do what they need to in order to survive. I understand why people have such a visceral reaction to kids working, but action is generally better than waiting around for someone to save you.
    - gambiting 4y ago
      Yes, I 100% agree with you, and that action is literally anything else than letting kids join the labour pool. If the market is so skewed that you can't make ends meet with 2 full time jobs, it's time for protest, for civil disobedience, for revolution. Letting kids work is a very temporary patch on the shitty situation - in few years even that won't be enough, then what? We bring company town back? You have a house and food provided as long as you work for corporation X, except you can never leave until you're dead? Because that's where this kind of thinking leads to - we allow our working conditions worsen not because of some objective market conditions - but because the mega corporations demand it. It's not even about the elites or 1% - it's about pure unadulterated capitalism.
giantg2 4y ago
I don't think profit margins are at risk in the grocer example since they'll just raise prices given their margins are typically 5% or less.
- ghaff 4y ago
  And/or they'll make more checkout self-service (or even eventually switch to some sort of cashierless system like Amazon has been experimenting with), eliminate baggers (again), generally lower service levels, etc.
stcroixx 4y ago
Hardly a competition. If the best you can muster as an adult is what an unskilled kid can do, the game was over for you a long time ago and you lost.

by reb 4y ago

Nextgrid 4y ago

Competing in the labor market so that 1% can become super rich is what most of us do to survive. You could argue that's not moral and I agree, but that doesn't change because of an arbitrary age limit. Either we accept the idea that it's moral that someone needs to effectively be a slave to the system to enjoy basic rights such as a roof, food and medical care, or we don't. Age shouldn't play a role in this.

reb 4y ago
The idea that our two choices are “abandon capitalism” or “allow children to be devoured by it” is… unhinged.
- krapp 4y ago
  If only it were possible to regulate capitalism and have a government that provides for the social welfare. Ah well, who am I kidding? (shovels another load of babies into Mammon's burning maw.)
hirako2000 4y ago
Age does play a role in this. Adults have at least the possibility to have developed better critical thinking, life experience to make an appreciation of what's being offered to avoid predation. With you on the struggle against modern slavery that is rampant against adults, let's not make it a child/teen only concern, but until then we certainly need to distinguish adults from the to become grown up men and women. There is a reason we have different moral, legislation and rules w.r.t the treatment of children. That applies to employment, intimate relationships, sales of stimulants, ability to hold a credit cards etc. All down to the fact all the way to being a teen, humans are still in the process of brain and experiences maturation to take on society and independence on their own, without special protection.
fallingknife 4y ago
You feel that you are entitled to "basic rights such as a roof, food and medical care" but when asked to do any work in exchange for the things that other people provide for you, you call that being a slave?

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

Many jobs that kids take (grocery bagger) are low productivity jobs that adults really shouldn’t be doing (and indeed, child labor laws have led to bag your own groceries being more the norm in many states). Fast food is a good example. It went from a mostly teen job to a mostly adult one, are we really better off because of it?

gambiting 4y ago
>>are we really better off because of it? Is this....a trick question? Of course we are. Undeniably so.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Are you just speaking from a position of not needing this chance when you were a teen?
  - gambiting 4y ago
    I also didn't need to work in a sweatshop as a kid yet I can pretty confidently say those are a bad idea.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      A privileged comment, and very condescending. Teens working to make their own money to get out of whatever situation they are in is a good thing, not a bad one. Better to work at McDoanld's when you are 16 then when you are 26. But from what you guys are saying, you prefer the latter, and I find it extremely distasteful.
      - gambiting 4y ago
        >>Teens working to make their own money to get out of whatever situation they are in is a good thing, not a bad one. You are looking at it from the wrong perspective - it's not about teens being able to make a little money working at McDonalds. It's about letting companies use cheap labour because they know teens aren't in the position to demand good pay and/or benefits. It drags the entire society down, just so you can say teens have the opportunity to work - and for what? Under 18s should stay in full time education, not work in fast food. >>But from what you guys are saying, you prefer the latter, and I find it extremely distasteful. I find it extremely distatestul that you seem to prefer a society where teens are part of the labour force to a society where they aren't, so I guess we won't come to an agreement.

pg_bot 4y ago

I didn't grow up poor, but I wasn't given an allowance and there was no expectation of my parents buying frivolous things for us. If I wanted magic cards or to go to a concert I had to pay for it myself. Having a job at a young age taught me the importance of saving and the value of a dollar. It also gave me more ambition, I didn't want to be stuck at the grocery store forever. I moved over to the hardware store at 15 and used the skills there to learn how to build things. Those skills directly transferred into helping friends building robots for the FIRST competition my senior year of high school. We then became world champions, so I guess it worked out for me.

gambiting 4y ago
Yeah that's all great, very nice that you had this attitude and for you this was a way to learn the value of money and realize your hobbies. Very good. But I'm sure you can see how for some families this will be the "new normal" - both parents can't afford their rent/medical/energy bills working two full time jobs, so the moment you turn 14 you have to work to help support the family. This isn't some dystopian pessimistic fantasy - this is just how life works in majority of the world already, look anywhere outside of developed world and getting kids to work is normal. It isn't about them being able to afford magic cards - it's about being able to survive. Like others have posted already - if wages for grown ups weren't bad enough, now they will compete with actual kids who can earn less. Is that the market you want for the society around you?
- pg_bot 4y ago
  I've seen back breaking poverty, kids as young as 5 breaking rocks into 50 pound bags of gravel making less than $1 a day. My heart weeps for them and I do help them financially by sending them to school. I don't believe in magical thinking. People will do what they need to in order to survive. I understand why people have such a visceral reaction to kids working, but action is generally better than waiting around for someone to save you.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    Yes, I 100% agree with you, and that action is literally anything else than letting kids join the labour pool. If the market is so skewed that you can't make ends meet with 2 full time jobs, it's time for protest, for civil disobedience, for revolution. Letting kids work is a very temporary patch on the shitty situation - in few years even that won't be enough, then what? We bring company town back? You have a house and food provided as long as you work for corporation X, except you can never leave until you're dead? Because that's where this kind of thinking leads to - we allow our working conditions worsen not because of some objective market conditions - but because the mega corporations demand it. It's not even about the elites or 1% - it's about pure unadulterated capitalism.

giantg2 4y ago

I don't think profit margins are at risk in the grocer example since they'll just raise prices given their margins are typically 5% or less.

ghaff 4y ago
And/or they'll make more checkout self-service (or even eventually switch to some sort of cashierless system like Amazon has been experimenting with), eliminate baggers (again), generally lower service levels, etc.

stcroixx 4y ago

Hardly a competition. If the best you can muster as an adult is what an unskilled kid can do, the game was over for you a long time ago and you lost.