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My question back would be: why _is_ child labor the only alternative to extreme poverty or starvation? Why can't adults be paid a sufficient wage to avoid starv

My question back would be: why _is_ child labor the only alternative to extreme poverty or starvation? Why can't adults be paid a sufficient wage to avoid starvation, or why can't our society provide for these children without requiring them to work? The fact that things are that way currently, is not an argument that things should be that way. It's worth discussing what in the current system necessitates that children work or starve, and whether that's fixable.

Teever 3y ago
To add to your question, I would like to ask: Why is child labour the only alternative to extreme poverty and starvation in a world where we have excess calories?
themagician 3y ago
Because we live in a society that requires a solid base of slavery to function. It always has. Base level resource extraction and processing (cocoa, cobalt, rubber, sulfur, et al.) is done with slaves in order to have an abundance of consumer items at the other end. It is not work people want to do. It is work people will only do under threat of death. It is a horrifying thought. Or it should be. I think you are right in that it is worth discussing, but you must come at it from an honest standpoint. You can not pretend like this is some kind of aberration—it is the backbone of our capitalist society. You can not fix a systemic issue with small changes. A quarter of humans on this planet live in abject poverty. We accept this kind of inequality because "everyone is equal" is something we aspire to one day believe—currently we do not.
- rayiner 3y ago
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  - themagician 3y ago
    > A quarter of humans on this planet live the way humans did before we invented capitalism. Yes. It seems to be necessary.
    - 8bitsrule 3y ago
      Especially necessary for those who, for many centuries, have not been well-paid by the capitalists who took advantage of their situation. Sometimes called exploitation. A practice often maintained by keeping native governments de-stabilized. (See e.g. history of the Caribbean. Or Hawaii.)
      - rayiner 3y ago
        Ah, yes, blame the failures of socialism on “exploitation” by foreigners instead of your ideology. Losers. Losers who condemn their countries to poverty because they can’t admit they’re wrong.
        themagician 3y ago
        No one is talking about socialism here other than you.
        rayiner 3y ago
        As a general principle folks who say stuff like capitalism relies on slavery are advancing socialism.
        deleted 3y ago
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  - teachrdan 3y ago
    I know it's not Bangladesh, but in nearby India, the state of Kerala is the one most influenced by communists, and is also the one with the highest standard of living in the country. Meanwhile there are countless countries that have followed neoliberal models and have terrible quality of life. https://search.brave.com/search?q=kerala+quality+of+life https://search.brave.com/search?q=kerala+quality+of+life
    - hollerith 3y ago
      When there have been dozens of experiments at the country level and at the province level with communism, and you mention only one experiment that supports your position, that is called cherry picking.
      - teachrdan 3y ago
        What do you expect -- for me to catalog and rate every country by economic development and political influence? This comment applies just as well to the post I was replying to, which happened to refer to a country immediately adjacent to the one I referenced.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - rayiner 3y ago
      In 1950, India had a GDP per capita of $597. China was only a little higher at $614. Pakistan was at $650. Taiwan and South Korea were $922 and $876--significantly less than twice as much. Fast forward to 2023, India has increased by less than 5x, and is at $2,600. China has grown 20x, and is at $12,000. South Korea has grown 40x and is at $35,000. Taiwan grew 35x and is at $34,700. The defense of Nehruvian economics--against all evidence and experience--would be funny if the consequences weren't so deadly. It, and the neighboring ideologies of Islamic Socialism in Pakistan and Bangladesh, left those countries far behind Asian competitors that didn't have that much of a head start at the time of independence. Pointing to the least bad implementation of that tragic idea isn't impressive to me.
  - csb6 3y ago
    > Capitalist societies are one of the few places where children don't work. This is simply not true. Essentially every capitalist country has had extensive child labor for long periods in their capitalist development. There was widespread child labor in the early 1900s U.S. - a very capitalist economy then and now. Many developing countries with capitalist economies (such as Ivory Coast and Ghana - you know, the ones in the article) also have extensive child labor today.
    - xyzzyz 3y ago
      Which countries didn’t have widespread child labor in early 1900s?
      - csb6 3y ago
        None of them - capitalist or not, they all had it at that time, and many continue to have it to this day as seen with Ghana and the Ivory Coast. So capitalism doesn’t end child labor, which is my point. It can even expand it or worsen conditions where doing so is profitable.
    - rayiner 3y ago
      All of these countries, like everywhere else, started with with child labor. The difference is that the countries who no longer need it are almost universally capitalist.
      - hezralig 3y ago
        The United States currently has child labor including in meat packing and agricultural positions.
        rayiner 3y ago
        And? In my country, where socialism is one of the four pillars of the political system, child labor is universal.
  - jjj123 3y ago
    Just because the child labor isn’t happening on our soil, isn’t it still valid to say a lot of our supply chains are supported by it? Chocolate, coffee, clothing, rare minerals from electronics, electronic assembly all have slavery and child labor issues globally. I don’t think the US and other wealthy countries are absolved of that horror just because we outlawed child labor for our own citizens but allow (and incentivize!) it when it’s outsourced.
rayiner 3y ago
>My question back would be: why _is_ child labor the only alternative to extreme poverty or starvation? That's been true for virtually all of human history. It was true even in the 20th century in agricultural parts of America. > Why can't adults be paid a sufficient wage to avoid starvation, or why can't our society provide for these children without requiring them to work? Those people don't live in our society, they live in some other society that doesn't generate the kind of surplus required to enable children not to have to work.
- themagician 3y ago
  > Those people don't live in our society, they live in some other society that doesn't generate the kind of surplus required to enable children not to have to work. The "other" less equal children from another society, clearly not connected to our own.
- object-a 3y ago
  There is probably sufficient global surplus to ensure that children do not need to work to survive. As described in the article, companies that control supply chains can squeeze suppliers so that all the surplus accumulates in wealthier countries, instead of with the suppliers. That is not an inevitability, it is a choice made by “our society”. My point was against the sense of inevitability in the parent reply. We can imagine and enact a more equitable distribution. We don’t even need to mess around with socialism for decades to do it
  - rayiner 3y ago
    Even if there was such a surplus, distributing it at a global level would require global governance that would eliminate that surplus.
    - em-bee 3y ago
      not at all. all it would require is the will to actually do it. while you may have a point that in the current state, companies won't willingly reduce their profits to do that, and maybe the only way to get them to make this change right now would be force them and create a massive bureaucracy to make it happen, this is not the only way this can be addressed. for one, our governments could support african countries in charging more for the product. this could be done through trade agreements that are more supportive and less exploitative as they currently are. say for example the price of raw cocoa may have to triple to ensure that the producers at the end get double of what they are getting now. (i think that was what was needed to bring the income to minimum living standards) how much governance is needed to make that happen? once the trade agreements are fixed, it should mostly be spot checking the market prices to make sure the money ends up in the right places. that can't be that hard.
deleted 3y ago
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Teever 3y ago

To add to your question, I would like to ask: Why is child labour the only alternative to extreme poverty and starvation in a world where we have excess calories?

themagician 3y ago

Because we live in a society that requires a solid base of slavery to function. It always has. Base level resource extraction and processing (cocoa, cobalt, rubber, sulfur, et al.) is done with slaves in order to have an abundance of consumer items at the other end. It is not work people want to do. It is work people will only do under threat of death. It is a horrifying thought. Or it should be. I think you are right in that it is worth discussing, but you must come at it from an honest standpoint. You can not pretend like this is some kind of aberration—it is the backbone of our capitalist society. You can not fix a systemic issue with small changes. A quarter of humans on this planet live in abject poverty. We accept this kind of inequality because "everyone is equal" is something we aspire to one day believe—currently we do not.

rayiner 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- themagician 3y ago
  > A quarter of humans on this planet live the way humans did before we invented capitalism. Yes. It seems to be necessary.
  - 8bitsrule 3y ago
    Especially necessary for those who, for many centuries, have not been well-paid by the capitalists who took advantage of their situation. Sometimes called exploitation. A practice often maintained by keeping native governments de-stabilized. (See e.g. history of the Caribbean. Or Hawaii.)
    - rayiner 3y ago
      Ah, yes, blame the failures of socialism on “exploitation” by foreigners instead of your ideology. Losers. Losers who condemn their countries to poverty because they can’t admit they’re wrong.
      - themagician 3y ago
        No one is talking about socialism here other than you.
        rayiner 3y ago
        As a general principle folks who say stuff like capitalism relies on slavery are advancing socialism.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- teachrdan 3y ago
  I know it's not Bangladesh, but in nearby India, the state of Kerala is the one most influenced by communists, and is also the one with the highest standard of living in the country. Meanwhile there are countless countries that have followed neoliberal models and have terrible quality of life. https://search.brave.com/search?q=kerala+quality+of+life https://search.brave.com/search?q=kerala+quality+of+life
  - hollerith 3y ago
    When there have been dozens of experiments at the country level and at the province level with communism, and you mention only one experiment that supports your position, that is called cherry picking.
    - teachrdan 3y ago
      What do you expect -- for me to catalog and rate every country by economic development and political influence? This comment applies just as well to the post I was replying to, which happened to refer to a country immediately adjacent to the one I referenced.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - rayiner 3y ago
    In 1950, India had a GDP per capita of $597. China was only a little higher at $614. Pakistan was at $650. Taiwan and South Korea were $922 and $876--significantly less than twice as much. Fast forward to 2023, India has increased by less than 5x, and is at $2,600. China has grown 20x, and is at $12,000. South Korea has grown 40x and is at $35,000. Taiwan grew 35x and is at $34,700. The defense of Nehruvian economics--against all evidence and experience--would be funny if the consequences weren't so deadly. It, and the neighboring ideologies of Islamic Socialism in Pakistan and Bangladesh, left those countries far behind Asian competitors that didn't have that much of a head start at the time of independence. Pointing to the least bad implementation of that tragic idea isn't impressive to me.
- csb6 3y ago
  > Capitalist societies are one of the few places where children don't work. This is simply not true. Essentially every capitalist country has had extensive child labor for long periods in their capitalist development. There was widespread child labor in the early 1900s U.S. - a very capitalist economy then and now. Many developing countries with capitalist economies (such as Ivory Coast and Ghana - you know, the ones in the article) also have extensive child labor today.
  - xyzzyz 3y ago
    Which countries didn’t have widespread child labor in early 1900s?
    - csb6 3y ago
      None of them - capitalist or not, they all had it at that time, and many continue to have it to this day as seen with Ghana and the Ivory Coast. So capitalism doesn’t end child labor, which is my point. It can even expand it or worsen conditions where doing so is profitable.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    All of these countries, like everywhere else, started with with child labor. The difference is that the countries who no longer need it are almost universally capitalist.
    - hezralig 3y ago
      The United States currently has child labor including in meat packing and agricultural positions.
      - rayiner 3y ago
        And? In my country, where socialism is one of the four pillars of the political system, child labor is universal.
- jjj123 3y ago
  Just because the child labor isn’t happening on our soil, isn’t it still valid to say a lot of our supply chains are supported by it? Chocolate, coffee, clothing, rare minerals from electronics, electronic assembly all have slavery and child labor issues globally. I don’t think the US and other wealthy countries are absolved of that horror just because we outlawed child labor for our own citizens but allow (and incentivize!) it when it’s outsourced.

rayiner 3y ago

>My question back would be: why _is_ child labor the only alternative to extreme poverty or starvation? That's been true for virtually all of human history. It was true even in the 20th century in agricultural parts of America. > Why can't adults be paid a sufficient wage to avoid starvation, or why can't our society provide for these children without requiring them to work? Those people don't live in our society, they live in some other society that doesn't generate the kind of surplus required to enable children not to have to work.

themagician 3y ago
> Those people don't live in our society, they live in some other society that doesn't generate the kind of surplus required to enable children not to have to work. The "other" less equal children from another society, clearly not connected to our own.
object-a 3y ago
There is probably sufficient global surplus to ensure that children do not need to work to survive. As described in the article, companies that control supply chains can squeeze suppliers so that all the surplus accumulates in wealthier countries, instead of with the suppliers. That is not an inevitability, it is a choice made by “our society”. My point was against the sense of inevitability in the parent reply. We can imagine and enact a more equitable distribution. We don’t even need to mess around with socialism for decades to do it
- rayiner 3y ago
  Even if there was such a surplus, distributing it at a global level would require global governance that would eliminate that surplus.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    not at all. all it would require is the will to actually do it. while you may have a point that in the current state, companies won't willingly reduce their profits to do that, and maybe the only way to get them to make this change right now would be force them and create a massive bureaucracy to make it happen, this is not the only way this can be addressed. for one, our governments could support african countries in charging more for the product. this could be done through trade agreements that are more supportive and less exploitative as they currently are. say for example the price of raw cocoa may have to triple to ensure that the producers at the end get double of what they are getting now. (i think that was what was needed to bring the income to minimum living standards) how much governance is needed to make that happen? once the trade agreements are fixed, it should mostly be spot checking the market prices to make sure the money ends up in the right places. that can't be that hard.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]