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Child labor laws suck!


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(Article link https://mises.org/library/trouble-child-labor-laws This is a branch off topic from the Why Millennials are Stressed Out thread.)

The Trouble With Child Labor Laws

By Jeffrey A. Tucker

Let's say you want your computer fixed or your software explained. You can shell out big bucks to the Geek Squad, or you can ask — but you can't hire — a typical teenager, or even a preteen. Their experience with computers and the online world is vastly superior to that of most people over the age of 30. From the point of view of online technology, it is the young who rule. And yet they are professionally powerless: they are forbidden by law from earning wages from their expertise.

Might these folks have something to offer the workplace? And might the young benefit from a bit of early work experience, too? Perhaps — but we'll never know, thanks to antiquated federal, state, and local laws that make it a crime to hire a kid.

Pop culture accepts these laws as a normal part of national life, a means to forestall a Dickensian nightmare of sweat shops and the capitalist exploitation of children. It's time we rid ourselves of images of children tied to rug looms in the developing world. The kids I'm talking about are one of the most courted of all consumer sectors. Society wants them to consume, but law forbids them to produce.

You might be surprised to know that the laws against "child labor" do not date from the 18th century. Indeed, the national law against child labor didn't pass until the Great Depression — in 1938, with the Fair Labor Standards Act. It was the same law that gave us a minimum wage and defined what constitutes full-time and part-time work. It was a handy way to raise wages and lower the unemployment rate: simply define whole sectors of the potential workforce as unemployable.

By the time this legislation passed, however, it was mostly a symbol, a classic case of Washington chasing a trend in order to take credit for it. Youth labor was expected in the 17th and 18th centuries — even welcome, since remunerative work opportunities were newly present. But as prosperity grew with the advance of commerce, more kids left the workforce. By 1930, only 6.4 percent of kids between the ages of 10 and 15 were actually employed, and 3 out of 4 of those were in agriculture.(1)

In wealthier, urban, industrialized areas, child labor was largely gone, as more and more kids were being schooled. Cultural factors were important here, but the most important consideration was economic. More developed economies permit parents to "purchase" their children's education out of the family's surplus income — if only by foregoing what would otherwise be their earnings.

The law itself, then, forestalled no nightmare, nor did it impose one. In those days, there was rising confidence that education was the key to saving the youth of America. Stay in school, get a degree or two, and you would be fixed up for life. Of course, that was before academic standards slipped further and further, and schools themselves began to function as a national child-sitting service. Today, we are far more likely to recognize the contribution that disciplined work makes to the formation of character.

And yet we are stuck with these laws, which are incredibly complicated once you factor in all state and local variations. Kids under the age of 16 are forbidden to earn income in remunerative employment outside a family business. If dad is a blacksmith, you can learn to pound iron with the best of 'em. But if dad works for a law firm, you are out of luck.

From the outset, federal law made exceptions for kid movie stars and performers. Why? It probably has something to do with how Shirley Temple led box-office receipts from 1934–1938. She was one of the highest earning stars of the period.

If you are 14 or 15, you can ask your public school for a waiver and work a limited number of hours when school is not in session. And if you are in private school or home school, you must go ask your local Social Service Agency — not exactly the most welcoming bunch. The public school itself is also permitted to run work programs.

This point about approved labor is an interesting one, if you think about it. The government doesn't seem to mind so much if a kid spends all nonschool hours away from the home, family, and church, but it forbids them from engaging in private-sector work during the time when they would otherwise be in public schools drinking from the well of civic culture.

The legal exemption is also made for delivering newspapers, as if bicycles rather than cars were still the norm for this activity.

Here is another strange exemption: "youth working at home in the making of wreaths composed of natural holly, pine, cedar, or other evergreens (including the harvesting of the evergreens)." Perhaps the wreath lobby was more powerful during the Great Depression than in our own time?

Oh, and there is one final exemption, as incredible as this may be: federal law allows states to allow kids to work for a state or local government at anyage, and there are no hourly restrictions. Virginia, for example, allows this.

The exceptions cut against the dominant theory of the laws that it is somehow evil to "commodify" the labor of kids. If it is wonderful to be a child movie star, congressional page, or home-based wreath maker, why it is wrong to be a teenage software fixer, a grocery bagger, or ice-cream scooper? It makes no sense.

Once you get past the exceptions, the bottom line is clear: full-time work in the private sector, for hours of their own choosing, is permitted only to those "children" who are 18 and older — by which time a child has already passed the age when he can be influenced toward a solid work ethic.

What is lost in the bargain? Kids no longer have the choice to work for money. Parents who believe that their children would benefit from the experience are at a loss. Consumers who would today benefit from our teens' technological knowhow have no commercial way to do so. They have been forcibly excluded from the matrix of exchange.

There is a social-cultural point, too. Employers will tell you that most kids coming out of college are radically unprepared for a regular job. It's not so much that they lack skills or that they can't be trained; it's that they don't understand what it means to serve others in a workplace setting. They resent being told what to do, tend not to follow through, and work by the clock instead of the task. In other words, they are not socialized into how the labor market works. Indeed, if we perceive a culture of sloth, irresponsibility, and entitlement among today's young, perhaps we ought to look here for a contributing factor.

The law is rarely questioned today. But it is a fact that child-labor laws didn't come about easily. It took more than a hundred years of wrangling.(2) The first advocates of keeping kids out of factories were women's labor unions, who didn't appreciate the low-wage competition. And true to form, labor unions have been reliable exclusionists ever since. Opposition did not consist of mining companies looking for cheap labor, but rather parents and clergy alarmed that a law against child labor would be a blow against freedom. They predicted that it would amount to the nationalization of children, which is to say that the government rather than the parents or the child would emerge as the final authority and locus of decision-making.

To give you a flavor of the opposition, consider this funny "Beatitude" read by Congressman Fritz G. Lanham of Texas on the US House floor in 1924, as a point of opposition to a child-labor ban then being considered:

Quote

Consider the Federal agent in the field; he toils not, nor does he spin; and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his populous household was not arrayed with powers like one of these.

Children, obey your agents from Washington, for this is right.

Honor thy father and thy mother, for the Government has created them but a little lower than the Federal agent. Love, honor, and disobey them.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, tell it to thy father and mother and let them do it.

Six days shalt thou do all thy rest, and on the seventh day thy parents shall rest with thee.

Go to the bureau officer, thou sluggard; consider his ways and be idle.

Toil, thou farmer's wife; thou shalt have no servant in thy house, nor let thy children help thee.

And all thy children shall be taught of the Federal agent, and great shall be the peace of thy children.

Thy children shall rise up and call the Federal agent blessed.

In every way, the opponents were right. Child-labor laws were and are a blow against the freedom to work and a boost in government authority over the family. The political class thinks nothing of legislating on behalf of "the children," as if they are the first owners of all kids. Child-labor laws were the first big step in this direction, and the rest follows. If the state can dictate to parents and kids the terms under which teens can be paid, there is essentially nothing they cannot control. There is no sense in arguing about the details of the law. The critical question concerns the locus of decision-making: family or state? Private markets or the public sector?

In so many ways, child-labor laws are an anachronism. There is no sense of speaking of exploitation as if this were the early years of the industrial revolution. Kids as young as 10 can surely contribute their labors in some tasks in ways that would help them come to grips with the relationship between work and reward. They will better learn to respect private forms of social authority outside the home. They will come to understand that some things are expected of them in life. And after they finish college and enter the workforce, it won't come as such a shock the first time they are asked to do something that may not be their first choice.

We know the glorious lessons that are imparted from productive work. What lesson do we impart with child-labor laws? We establish early on who is in charge: not individuals, not parents, but the state. We tell the youth that they are better off being mall rats than fruitful workers. We tell them that they have nothing to offer society until they are 18 or so. We convey the impression that work is a form of exploitation from which they must be protected. We drive a huge social wedge between parents and children and lead kids to believe that they have nothing to learn from their parents' experience. We rob them of what might otherwise be the most valuable early experiences of their young adulthood.

In the end, the most compelling case for getting rid of child-labor laws comes down to one central issue: the freedom to make a choice. Those who think young teens should do nothing but languish in classrooms in the day and play Wii at night will be no worse off. But those who see that remunerative work is great experience for everyone will cheer to see this antique regulation toppled. Maybe then the kids of America can put their computer skills to use doing more than playing World of Warcraft.

1.See EH.net's "Child Labor in the United States" by Robert Whaples, Wake Forest University.

2.For a fascinating history, see "The Child Labor Amendment Debate of the 1920s", by Bill Kauffman, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, June 1992, pp. 139-170.

(Tagging @MalletFace)

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Just now, Rassah said:

Let's say you want your computer fixed or your software explained. You can shell out big bucks to the Geek Squad, or you can ask — but you can't hire — a typical teenager, or even a preteen. Their experience with computers and the online world is vastly superior to that of most people over the age of 30.

As someone who actually hangs out on tech forums, the teenagers are generally the least informed and most annoying users there.  If you left your computer and credit card in the hands of a teenager, it would come back with a 1600 watt titanium grade power supply powering a single GTX 950 Ti.

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Child labor laws came into existence partly because the labor the kids were doing in the factories, and the conditions they were forced to work in, were extremely dangerous and they ran the risk of death or serious injury. Not to mention they were oftentimes malnourished, sleep deprived, and abused.

Advancements in technology were another factor because children couldn't operate the machinery.

15 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Let's say you want your computer fixed or your software explained. You can shell out big bucks to the Geek Squad, or you can ask — but you can't hire — a typical teenager, or even a preteen. Their experience with computers and the online world is vastly superior to that of most people over the age of 30. From the point of view of online technology, it is the young who rule. And yet they are professionally powerless: they are forbidden by law from earning wages from their expertise.

you can technically "hire" a teenager but because they can't enter into a formal agreement, you can't employ them.

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How many children did Rassah have to employ to write all that up?  Here's the problem as I see it, if you look at the arguments above for getting rid of child labor laws then where does it end?  Should we get rid of the minimum driving age, voting laws, and statutory rape laws?  With all of these issues you can make the case that in certain instances these laws don't work, are unfair, and have unintended consequences.  I agree that children should have the opportunity to work if they want to, but simply eliminating the laws is not in the best interest of all children whom we have established by law can not make informed decisions for their best interests.  

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I feel like this thread is spawned entirely from Rassah's disconnect from teenagers who know how to program VCRs where as he does not know how to program VCRs, and he had to find an entire libertarian based narrative about 'Underutilized Teenaged Super Geniuses' just to make himself comfortable with it.

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As a person who works for Virginia local government and works with youth in that capacity, this line: 

1 hour ago, Rassah said:

Oh, and there is one final exemption, as incredible as this may be: federal law allows states to allow kids to work for a state or local government at anyage, and there are no hourly restrictions. Virginia, for example, allows this.

is false. Yes, Virginia does allow students to work in libraries and such, but there's an hourly limit depending on what grade you are and if your school has any work requirements for graduation. Some schools in the tidewater area have a 20 hours per month work limit for Highschool students. 

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6 minutes ago, Battlechili said:

I honestly do wish I was able to work when I was younger. Would've made things a lot easier and more fun.

Be careful what you wish for.  There is plenty of time to chain yourself to a desk.  Frankly I wish I would have worked less when I was younger and learned how to live more.  There will always be more money but your time is finite, don't waste it.

-The Tao of Strongbob

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Ignoring the choice in example, and assuming for the moment that the national education system is broken, the question before us becomes "What is most valuable for our society in regards to youth and their future?"

I would say that the idea of an education system represents a belief that this time in oneis life is best spent learning. Learning takes many forms, including on-the-job learning. Would gathering job experience be the most useful means of learning at this point of their life? I don't think so; Job experience provides many benefits that schooling does not but it does not provide the kind depth and breadth of material that a properly constructed formal education without significantly more time. Job experience grows specialization and tacit forms of knowledge, while schooling compresses the time required for valuable big picture information and give greater exposure. It is in this consideration that I think makes dedicated education more valuable than working at this point in life. Even if our current specific implementation of that education is insufficient to meet that potential, that is an arguement for education reform rather than opening these people up to jobs.

As for the question of choice, it is well established that we do not believe people of this age are wholly ready to make these choices themselves. There is some flexibility to the system, allowing for special cases to apply. But, evaluating an expansion of that flexibility would be a better direction than withdraw. Whether its worth the effort to evaluate Such an expansion is another question entirely.

Sorry for the hasty and ugly reply, I'm out and on mobile. I may reply further later,

 

 

 

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Well, that was the most pointless argument I've read in a while. 

I mean, I guess I can see giving kids the freedom of choice if they really want to go out and work, but I don't see why society would possibly benefit from frickn child labor of all things. 

The example given of children being great in the tech support field "Cuz they're so smert and can work dem computer thingys" Uhhhh.... So can ALL the working-age kids, many of whom already fill such positions, and likely have more experience/knowledge than the 14yr-old who knows how to upload a GIF to tumblr. No benefit there. 

What I could see coming from this? Parents/society/peers forcing children into the workforce early, kids run ragged with both school and work, stunted childhoods, parents working less and expecting the kids to pull the weight, increased mental health issues/substance abuse/etc due to stress, the loss of knowing how to relax, the further confusion of life's priorities, and a smaller job market for all. Ech.  

It's just one bit of society that's just dumb to mess with. 

I expect better from a Rassah thread. 

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2 hours ago, willow said:

Child labor laws came into existence partly because the labor the kids were doing in the factories, and the conditions they were forced to work in, were extremely dangerous and they ran the risk of death or serious injury. Not to mention they were oftentimes malnourished, sleep deprived, and abused.

So why didn't we ban adult labor too, since adults worked in exactly the same conditions? We just banned dangerous working conditions and work abuses instead. Why couldn't we do the same for all workers, instead of not allowing some of them to work at all? And who was making children work in those factories? (Hint, it wasn't the factory owners).

In fact, if child labor laws are abolished, who do you think will make children go back to working in factories? Factory owners and big business?

2 hours ago, willow said:

you can technically "hire" a teenager but because they can't enter into a formal agreement, you can't employ them.

So, you're saying that you can still exploit teenagers for labor, but thanks to them having no legal recognition as employees, they have no legal recourse if you screw them? 

2 hours ago, Strongbob said:

How many children did Rassah have to employ to write all that up?  

None. You apparently don't know what the word "by" means. You should look up the definition. It's a pretty commonly used word.

2 hours ago, Strongbob said:

Should we get rid of the minimum driving age, voting laws, and statutory rape laws? 

For driving, yes, why not? If you have the skills and can prove it, then why does age matter? Did you know that you can get a license to fly planes at 14? Way WAY more difficult and complex than driving. But driving is 16? Makes no sense ("but that's for gliders! " you say? That's more difficult than powered).

Voting laws? Sure, why not. Most people who vote have no clue what they're voting for, so what's a few more clueless voters? It's not like votes actually influence policy.

Statutory rape? Who is the government to decide when someone is mature enough to understand and enjoy sex? Shouldn't that be between the kid and their parents to decide? Besides, they cause more harm than help, and put innocent people in jail, just based on arbitrary numbers.

So, yeah, the hell with all of them.

3 hours ago, Strongbob said:

I agree that children should have the opportunity to work if they want to, but simply eliminating the laws is not in the best interest of all children whom we have established by law can not make informed decisions for their best interests.  

I don't know how things are in whatever nonenglish speaking third world country you live in, but here children usually live with parents? Who make decisions on what their kids are and aren't allowed to do? For the same reason you claimed, that they're not good at making informed decisions, due to lack of life experience. So I think things here will be fine. I don't think we have so many parents who hate their children so much, that they'll send them to work in sweatshops, that it would become any sort of a problem.

Sorry for the tone, but, well, you started it :P

@AshleyAshes It couldn't POSSIBLY be because I was the one who fixed people's VCRs, computers, and electronics, as well as did other types of computer, engineering, and architecture work as a child, which I enjoyed but couldn't get paid for, and now that I'm grown up, am realizing that I was quite possibly deprived of a lot of opportunities, not just to make money (though, considering we were so poor that a $5 action figure on Christmas was a big deal for me, and all the toys I played with were my friends' or neighbors', money for toys would've been great), but to work and help out at some high tech businesses so I could learn stuff. No, I'm only pissed because I'm stupid and want to hire teenagers, not realizing that they're stupid children who can't make their own decisions and should be treated like babies. /s

I'm sorry I got curious and clicked to see what you wrote. It was expected. Fu.

2 hours ago, Strongbob said:

Be careful what you wish for.  There is plenty of time to chain yourself to a desk. 

No, that's what schools teach you: how to be a nice obedient little worker drone, sitting quietly chained to a desk and performing whatever tasks are given to you. You'd likely learn somewhat different skills working. Maybe even how businesses are run, relationships are built, and people are mamaged, so you could do that yourself and won't even have to be chained to a desk. Plus it's a great time to make mistakes and learn from them. "I'm just a kid" is still a valid excuse for doing stupid things at work.

1 hour ago, DrGravitas said:

...the question before us becomes "What is most valuable for our society in regards to youth and their future?"

...

Would gathering job experience be the most useful means of learning at this point of their life? I don't think so; Job experience provides many benefits that schooling does not but it does not provide the kind depth and breadth of material that a properly constructed formal education without significantly more time. 

I just want to point this out to everyone so that everyone keeps this in mind:

GOING TO SCHOOL AND LEARNING A WIDE BREADTH OF SUBJECTS FOR 12 (TWELVE!!!) WHOLE YEARS ONLY QUALIFIES YOU TO FLIP HAMBURGERS.

I don't know if that's a statement on the horrible quality of our public education, or the terrible state of our job market, but there you go.

Plus I don't think any parent would make their kid drop school and go to work. You can do both. Unless you're a high-school dropout, but in that case, at least you can do some work instead of having to do some other illegal kind of work (like join a gang or something). And even if you do need to work for a while where you can't study, you can still do it later. Adults get GEDs.

And as for choice, as the article states, the choice that it supports (and those against child labor laws were fighting for) is between parent and child. These laws take that away and male the choice entirely the state's, which has no idea of anyone's personal circumstances.

1 hour ago, Endless/Nameless said:

I mean, I guess I can see giving kids the freedom of choice if they really want to go out and work, but I don't see why society would possibly benefit from frickn child labor of all things. 

Quoting from the article:

"Kids as young as 10 can surely contribute their labors in some tasks in ways that would help them come to grips with the relationship between work and reward. They will better learn to respect private forms of social authority outside the home. They will come to understand that some things are expected of them in life. And after they finish college and enter the workforce, it won't come as such a shock the first time they are asked to do something that may not be their first choice."

Basically, kids will benefit from getting a feeling of self worth more realistic than a "Participant" trophy, will learn badly needed on-the-job social skills (like how to talk to bosses and adults, instead of just 30 other people of their own age), and may learn valuable skills about certain jobs (or which jobs to avoid) before they graduate school or college and have to start working these jobs for real. Plus there's a chance they'll establish some networking relationships with someone who can help them get a job when they're ready for one.

And society benefits by not having a bunch of entitled twits with no social skills, sitting home unemployed, because they get their feels hurt by someone at work. Really what a lot of the "Millennials" complaints are about.

2 hours ago, Endless/Nameless said:

What I could see coming from this? Parents/society/peers forcing children into the workforce early, kids run ragged with both school and work, stunted childhoods, parents working less and expecting the kids to pull the weight, increased mental health issues/substance abuse/etc due to stress, the loss of knowing how to relax, the further confusion of life's priorities, and a smaller job market for all. Ech.  

Society voted for and continues to fight hard against this kind of stuff. Why would that suddenly become the norm just because the authority gives children and society a say in the matter? Are you suggesting that government and authority are not representative of our society in general?

 

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1 minute ago, Rassah said:

So why didn't we ban adult labor too, since adults worked in exactly the same conditions? We just banned dangerous working conditions and work abuses instead. Why couldn't we do the same for all workers, instead of not allowing some of them to work at all? And who was making children work in those factories? (Hint, it wasn't the factory owners).

In fact, if child labor laws are abolished, who do you think will make children go back to working in factories? Factory owners and big business?

 

to my knowledge, adults weren't really beaten or severely neglected. or at least not to the extent that children were. at most, female miners were oftentimes raped but that's all I know. that being said, I'd honestly rather improve the working conditions and safeguards for adults than subject children to the same extensive labor with little to no education and very little pay.

and who was making children work in the factories? their parents probably but these people were often really, really poor and figured having their kids work would help. but like I've said, the kids hardly made anything so it was pretty much free labor for the factory owners

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5 hours ago, Rassah said:

I wouldn't consider working in factories or textile mills "hard work," no. I would call it what adults doing it call it: work. I was also under the impression that kids haven't done work in mines since 1700's or early 1800's at the latest. I'm sure there were some minor exceptions. But for the history and purpose of the law, I hope History channel is somewhat of a good resource (despite their current "Aliens!" bs): http://www.history.com/topics/child-labor

Quote, "This success [of anti-child labow groups passinf the laws] arose not only from popular hostility to child labor, generated in no small measure by the long-term work of the child labor committees and the climate of reform in the New Deal period, but also from the desire of Americans in a period of high unemployment to open jobs held by children to adults."

The immediate results don't actually matter compared to the intent, which was as I've stated, to clear up jobs for adults, thus improving unemployment numbers, which I'm sure the president was all for. Plus the numbers you mentioned are unreliable, since the official 2 million kids employed was being wildly understated. Also matters the end result, where children who had a chance at some work and apprenticeship experience before they were 14 losing that opportunity, and the age at which they can get employment kept growing, now effectively being up to their mid twenties, as per the OP. I'll post the article by the same guy who wrote the OP one on this topic in a new topic.

I grew up - live in - a mill town. It is really hard - ridiculously so - for me to not take offense to you claiming that textile mills were not hard work. Even more, mines have been an important part of my area since the gold rush, and that doesn't help at all.

Mills

Do you know what a doffer was? Nearly always young boys - 9-16 - doffers were the ones that replaced the bobbins on a loom. Since that required quick work, they were also usually the ones to catch the broken threads. Since that required skill, they were also usually the ones to remove broken parts and replace them. They generally did anything that required climbing onto, under, into, or around the machinery. They did this upwards of 72 hours a week through 10 to 12 hours a day, but that depended on the mill.

Do you know what happened to many of these doffers? Many lost fingers, toes, and even whole limbs to this work. If that happened, then they were probably unemployed most of their life. If they managed to stay healthy, though, they normally got promoted to work that the adults actually did, like sweeping or collecting spent bobbins from the doffers.

Remember that these were jobs that adults usually refused to do and mill-owners usually restricted them from doing anyway. Children were cheap and expendable and nobody else wanted to do it. Why work as a doffer and risk losing your arm when you go for a bobbin when you can sweep? Why work as a spinner and risk being scalped when you go for a loose thread when you can work with the dyes? In mills that adults were forced to do this work, unions tended to form, protests started to happen, and court cases began to appear. It was not wise to make the adults do such horrible work.

If you don't consider that hard work, then you haven't even lifted a finger to my relatives. They could not have heard you if you tried to speak to them about it, though. Some of them were nearly deaf from their time in the mills.

Mines

What about breakers and trappers? Have you heard of them?

Breakers sorted coal based on size and purity. They sat in front of a chute or conveyor that rushed coal and anything else that came with it by them while they sorted. Here's a firsthand account of what that meant for most of these boys:

"The fingers of breaker boys were often bloody, the flesh shredded, from spending long hours picking out sharp-edged slate from a moving conveyor belt. This condition was called red top" - Paul Roberts

Can you guess how long they worked? The answer is 10-12 hours a day, six days a week. Can you guess their pay? Usually 30-40 cents a day. Can you guess which condition most of them developed as adults that put them out of work? Black lung. Wanna know how old the average breaker was? 9-10.

The trappers, though, were less fortunate - they would have taken red top any day. Trappers were the ones that took coal up to the breakers in most cases. They were the ones - not adults or steam engines - that pulled and pushed the overflowing mining carts up from where they were being loaded. They did this through tunnels too small for the adults to fit and too dark to see. Most trapper deaths came suddenly; they would fall into chutes or be crushed if a child pulling could pull no longer.

Can you guess how long they worked? The answer is 10-12 hours a day, six days a week. Can you guess their pay? Usually 30-40 cents a day. Wanna know how old the average trapper was? 14-15.

The good thing about trappers is that their downhill work became replaced by nippers and spraggers when steel got cheap.

Compassion vs. Unemployment

You know who really felt bad for kids in mines? Adults. Wanna know what they did about it? They passed a law in 1885 making it illegal for very young children to work in mines. Wanna know why that failed? The Supreme Court Declared it unconstitutional. Unemployment now was around 1-3%. This was a period of boom.

That wasn't the only time they tried, though. In 1916, Congress passed the Keating-Owens Act. It made it so that goods from mines with children under 16 were illegal, goods from factories with children under 14 were illegal, and that children could not work more than 8 hours a day. Wanna know why that failed? The Supreme Court Declared it unconstitutional. The unemployment at this time was around 4-5%.

They tried to make it work again, though. In 1924, they created a constitutional amendment so the Supreme Court would stop blocking them from creating labor laws. The states did not ratify it. Unemployment now was around 5% - the Great Depression had barely started.

That that quote says that they also wanted kids out of their jobs did not mean there were other motivators. Unemployment was barely a factor in the previous attempts, so why is it suddenly the only factor? The FLSA only passed because the Supreme Court could not claim it was being passed only on moral grounds - unemployment was indeed a factor - but they tried to end that one, too.

By the way, here is where I am getting the unemployment. Couldn't find anything else that went as far back.

Also, here's a site that details some major events in child labor history within the U.S.

And, even more for you, here is a site that details child miners in the early 1900s. It covers things like how young boys where beaten if they did not work fast enough during their 8-10 hour shift.

29 minutes ago, willow said:

and who was making children work in the factories? their parents probably but these people were often really, really poor and figured having their kids work would help. but like I've said, the kids hardly made anything so it was pretty much free labor for the factory owners

While it was totally illegal, there were some contracts that made parents obligate their children to work in the factories, mines, and mills.

I'll respond to the Tucker article in a few hours. That he made an error in reading and interpreting federal labor law within the first paragraph confounds me. If you are going to hate something, at least understand it. Be an expert in it. If not, then your time is spent better elsewhere; you will probably never manage to end it if you don't even know how it works.

Edit:

Rassah, you called my numbers unrealistic, provided no proof, and used a History article as evidence for another point. Should I take you seriously? No. Do I? Yes. Why? Heck if I know.

Show me the proof or shut up. The unemployment numbers I cited here come from another source. This source also agrees with the U.S. government estimate of 1-2 million children employed in 1938. This source is independent. This source does not use only government data. This source is not funded by public money.

Edited by MalletFace
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56 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Basically, kids will benefit from getting a feeling of self worth more realistic than a "Participant" trophy, will learn badly needed on-the-job social skills (like how to talk to bosses and adults, instead of just 30 other people of their own age), and may learn valuable skills about certain jobs (or which jobs to avoid) before they graduate school or college and have to start working these jobs for real. Plus there's a chance they'll establish some networking relationships with someone who can help them get a job when they're ready for one.

In theory, that's a possible outcome for some individuals. But theres just no reason to push children into adulthood so early. And anyway, here in the US you can get a full-on job at 16. That's still pretty darn young. Why push for younger??

56 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Why would that suddenly become the norm just because the authority gives children and society a say in the matter?

No no no, wrong track. I foresee it being the norm if we as a society were to start pushing for child labor. 

If the government were to just drop the laws one day out of the blue, who knows how people would react (or not react). If they did drop them, it would be a great step forward for personal freedom (which I fully support), but to society it'd be like getting socks and a toothbrush for Christmas.

56 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Are you suggesting that government and authority are not representative of our society in general?

I am afraid I don't understand. :S 

56 minutes ago, Rassah said:

So why didn't we ban adult labor too, since adults worked in exactly the same conditions?

Because the work still needed to be done, but there was no reason to put children at risk. No one with half a heart would want to see a kid work in a coal mine.

56 minutes ago, Rassah said:

For driving, yes, why not? If you have the skills and can prove it, then why does age matter? Did you know that you can get a license to fly planes at 14? Way WAY more difficult and complex than driving. But driving is 16? Makes no sense ("but that's for gliders! " you say? That's more difficult than powered).

Voting laws? Sure, why not. Most people who vote have no clue what they're voting for, so what's a few more clueless voters? It's not like votes actually influence policy.

Statutory rape? Who is the government to decide when someone is mature enough to understand and enjoy sex? Shouldn't that be between the kid and their parents to decide? Besides, they cause more harm than help, and put innocent people in jail, just based on arbitrary numbers.

So, yeah, the hell with all of them.

This is more interesting. These pretty much come down to whether or not we want the government to be our protective guardian. If we do, then these seemingly arbitrary regulations are kinda necessary to keep any sort of system in place because authorities don't deal with nuances very well.

I say we should abolish mandatory seatbelt laws. 

Edited by Endless/Nameless
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2 hours ago, Rassah said:

I just want to point this out to everyone so that everyone keeps this in mind:

GOING TO SCHOOL AND LEARNING A WIDE BREADTH OF SUBJECTS FOR 12 (TWELVE!!!) WHOLE YEARS ONLY QUALIFIES YOU TO FLIP HAMBURGERS.

I don't know if that's a statement on the horrible quality of our public education, or the terrible state of our job market, but there you go.

Plus I don't think any parent would make their kid drop school and go to work. You can do both. Unless you're a high-school dropout, but in that case, at least you can do some work instead of having to do some other illegal kind of work (like join a gang or something). And even if you do need to work for a while where you can't study, you can still do it later. Adults get GEDs.

And as for choice, as the article states, the choice that it supports (and those against child labor laws were fighting for) is between parent and child. These laws take that away and male the choice entirely the state's, which has no idea of anyone's personal circumstances.

Just as a reminder, as I stated in my comment, our base assumption is that our education is not living up to its ideal. That ideal form of schooling is what I'm talking about in what you quoted, not our current system.

If our belief that this time is best spent in education, then time outside formal schooling can be put to better use learning rather than working, as well. It's not a choice between working and lazying about after school (and homework, and social time, and rest.) That we don't put that out-side-of-school time to such a use either speaks to the possibility of it being less useful to do so or a simple reluctance to do so, both of which would apply if they were working during that time instead. Dropouts are an interesting case, but I don't see why they would be any more likely to succeed in work than in school or other wise be less susceptible to illegal activities, unless you propose that there is some unique factor in schooling that drop-outs oppose that are not at all present in work.

 

I will concede the point about the choice being referred to as being between the parent and child, however I do not think it best benefits society to leave certain options open to them. I am not convinced that we wouldn't see a segment of the parent population that forces their children to drop out and work for the parent's own benefit. After all, one only has to look to Hollywood child actors to find examples...

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1 minute ago, DrGravitas said:

I will concede the point about the choice being referred to as being between the parent and child, however I do not think it best benefits society to leave certain options open to them. I am not convinced that we wouldn't see a segment of the parent population that forces their children to drop out and work for the parent's own benefit. After all, one only has to look to Hollywood child actors to find examples...

on the other hand you have trophy (kids that have some great talent like sports or music) and pageant kids. granted they're still in school but they're also being raised to be the family cash cow

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15 hours ago, Rassah said:

Statutory rape? Who is the government to decide when someone is mature enough to understand and enjoy sex? Shouldn't that be between the kid and their parents to decide? Besides, they cause more harm than help, and put innocent people in jail, just based on arbitrary numbers.

So what you're saying is, adults should be allowed to bone children as long as the kid "consents" (which is dubious as adults are authority figures over them), or they have a parental permission slip?

"Gossamer Anita Hashimoto  you fuck your uncle right now, or you're grounded for a week!"

"*sigh* GOSH mom, FINE!"

Edited by jcstinks
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like you know childrens are still developing and cant do the same things as adults right rassah?

lol at the idea factory owners wouldnt exploit the shit out of this. within a day of no child labour laws the adults'd be out on their asses and they'd have 12yr olds getting chewed up by the machinery. maybe if we roll back workplace health and safety legislation, as well as criminal law, that'd be fine too. What are a few dead kids if it means cheaper blood dough.

 

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a fun thing about employing the childs is that they dont know anything about their rights as citizens (nor will tthey because no school lmao). just throw them untrained onto the machines and let em have at it! if they fall in then boopsy doodle!! the statists brainwashed past generations into whining about trivial things like inhaling toxic fumes, refusing unsafe work, and compensation for injuries, but the nice thing about the new child economy is you can intimidate them into getting back on those machines

 

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56 minutes ago, jcstinks said:

So what you're saying is, adults should be allowed to bone children as long as the kid "consents" (which is dubious as adults are authority figures over them), or they have a parental permission slip?

And heck, if kids can consent then why stop there?  We all know animals can consent too, so we should get rid of all Sodomy laws!  Now we can all get what we really want and be happy!  Yay Libertarians!

Sorry, someone had to go there.

 

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3 minutes ago, DevilBear said:

So I just kinda skimmed this because this is a free country and I do what I want...

But from what I gathered we're trying to change the law so we can force children to work on computers and make dough then we're raping the children and the animals now?

nailed it

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20 hours ago, Rassah said:

(Article link https://mises.org/library/trouble-child-labor-laws This is a branch off topic from the Why Millennials are Stressed Out thread.)

The Trouble With Child Labor Laws

By Jeffrey A. Tucker

Let's say you want your computer fixed or your software explained. You can shell out big bucks to the Geek Squad, or you can ask — but you can't hire — a typical teenager, or even a preteen. Their experience with computers and the online world is vastly superior to that of most people over the age of 30. From the point of view of online technology, it is the young who rule. And yet they are professionally powerless: they are forbidden by law from earning wages from their expertise.

Might these folks have something to offer the workplace? And might the young benefit from a bit of early work experience, too? Perhaps — but we'll never know, thanks to antiquated federal, state, and local laws that make it a crime to hire a kid.

Pop culture accepts these laws as a normal part of national life, a means to forestall a Dickensian nightmare of sweat shops and the capitalist exploitation of children. It's time we rid ourselves of images of children tied to rug looms in the developing world. The kids I'm talking about are one of the most courted of all consumer sectors. Society wants them to consume, but law forbids them to produce.

You might be surprised to know that the laws against "child labor" do not date from the 18th century. Indeed, the national law against child labor didn't pass until the Great Depression — in 1938, with the Fair Labor Standards Act. It was the same law that gave us a minimum wage and defined what constitutes full-time and part-time work. It was a handy way to raise wages and lower the unemployment rate: simply define whole sectors of the potential workforce as unemployable.

By the time this legislation passed, however, it was mostly a symbol, a classic case of Washington chasing a trend in order to take credit for it. Youth labor was expected in the 17th and 18th centuries — even welcome, since remunerative work opportunities were newly present. But as prosperity grew with the advance of commerce, more kids left the workforce. By 1930, only 6.4 percent of kids between the ages of 10 and 15 were actually employed, and 3 out of 4 of those were in agriculture.(1)

In wealthier, urban, industrialized areas, child labor was largely gone, as more and more kids were being schooled. Cultural factors were important here, but the most important consideration was economic. More developed economies permit parents to "purchase" their children's education out of the family's surplus income — if only by foregoing what would otherwise be their earnings.

The law itself, then, forestalled no nightmare, nor did it impose one. In those days, there was rising confidence that education was the key to saving the youth of America. Stay in school, get a degree or two, and you would be fixed up for life. Of course, that was before academic standards slipped further and further, and schools themselves began to function as a national child-sitting service. Today, we are far more likely to recognize the contribution that disciplined work makes to the formation of character.

And yet we are stuck with these laws, which are incredibly complicated once you factor in all state and local variations. Kids under the age of 16 are forbidden to earn income in remunerative employment outside a family business. If dad is a blacksmith, you can learn to pound iron with the best of 'em. But if dad works for a law firm, you are out of luck.

From the outset, federal law made exceptions for kid movie stars and performers. Why? It probably has something to do with how Shirley Temple led box-office receipts from 1934–1938. She was one of the highest earning stars of the period.

If you are 14 or 15, you can ask your public school for a waiver and work a limited number of hours when school is not in session. And if you are in private school or home school, you must go ask your local Social Service Agency — not exactly the most welcoming bunch. The public school itself is also permitted to run work programs.

This point about approved labor is an interesting one, if you think about it. The government doesn't seem to mind so much if a kid spends all nonschool hours away from the home, family, and church, but it forbids them from engaging in private-sector work during the time when they would otherwise be in public schools drinking from the well of civic culture.

The legal exemption is also made for delivering newspapers, as if bicycles rather than cars were still the norm for this activity.

Here is another strange exemption: "youth working at home in the making of wreaths composed of natural holly, pine, cedar, or other evergreens (including the harvesting of the evergreens)." Perhaps the wreath lobby was more powerful during the Great Depression than in our own time?

Oh, and there is one final exemption, as incredible as this may be: federal law allows states to allow kids to work for a state or local government at anyage, and there are no hourly restrictions. Virginia, for example, allows this.

The exceptions cut against the dominant theory of the laws that it is somehow evil to "commodify" the labor of kids. If it is wonderful to be a child movie star, congressional page, or home-based wreath maker, why it is wrong to be a teenage software fixer, a grocery bagger, or ice-cream scooper? It makes no sense.

Once you get past the exceptions, the bottom line is clear: full-time work in the private sector, for hours of their own choosing, is permitted only to those "children" who are 18 and older — by which time a child has already passed the age when he can be influenced toward a solid work ethic.

What is lost in the bargain? Kids no longer have the choice to work for money. Parents who believe that their children would benefit from the experience are at a loss. Consumers who would today benefit from our teens' technological knowhow have no commercial way to do so. They have been forcibly excluded from the matrix of exchange.

There is a social-cultural point, too. Employers will tell you that most kids coming out of college are radically unprepared for a regular job. It's not so much that they lack skills or that they can't be trained; it's that they don't understand what it means to serve others in a workplace setting. They resent being told what to do, tend not to follow through, and work by the clock instead of the task. In other words, they are not socialized into how the labor market works. Indeed, if we perceive a culture of sloth, irresponsibility, and entitlement among today's young, perhaps we ought to look here for a contributing factor.

The law is rarely questioned today. But it is a fact that child-labor laws didn't come about easily. It took more than a hundred years of wrangling.(2) The first advocates of keeping kids out of factories were women's labor unions, who didn't appreciate the low-wage competition. And true to form, labor unions have been reliable exclusionists ever since. Opposition did not consist of mining companies looking for cheap labor, but rather parents and clergy alarmed that a law against child labor would be a blow against freedom. They predicted that it would amount to the nationalization of children, which is to say that the government rather than the parents or the child would emerge as the final authority and locus of decision-making.

To give you a flavor of the opposition, consider this funny "Beatitude" read by Congressman Fritz G. Lanham of Texas on the US House floor in 1924, as a point of opposition to a child-labor ban then being considered:

In every way, the opponents were right. Child-labor laws were and are a blow against the freedom to work and a boost in government authority over the family. The political class thinks nothing of legislating on behalf of "the children," as if they are the first owners of all kids. Child-labor laws were the first big step in this direction, and the rest follows. If the state can dictate to parents and kids the terms under which teens can be paid, there is essentially nothing they cannot control. There is no sense in arguing about the details of the law. The critical question concerns the locus of decision-making: family or state? Private markets or the public sector?

In so many ways, child-labor laws are an anachronism. There is no sense of speaking of exploitation as if this were the early years of the industrial revolution. Kids as young as 10 can surely contribute their labors in some tasks in ways that would help them come to grips with the relationship between work and reward. They will better learn to respect private forms of social authority outside the home. They will come to understand that some things are expected of them in life. And after they finish college and enter the workforce, it won't come as such a shock the first time they are asked to do something that may not be their first choice.

We know the glorious lessons that are imparted from productive work. What lesson do we impart with child-labor laws? We establish early on who is in charge: not individuals, not parents, but the state. We tell the youth that they are better off being mall rats than fruitful workers. We tell them that they have nothing to offer society until they are 18 or so. We convey the impression that work is a form of exploitation from which they must be protected. We drive a huge social wedge between parents and children and lead kids to believe that they have nothing to learn from their parents' experience. We rob them of what might otherwise be the most valuable early experiences of their young adulthood.

In the end, the most compelling case for getting rid of child-labor laws comes down to one central issue: the freedom to make a choice. Those who think young teens should do nothing but languish in classrooms in the day and play Wii at night will be no worse off. But those who see that remunerative work is great experience for everyone will cheer to see this antique regulation toppled. Maybe then the kids of America can put their computer skills to use doing more than playing World of Warcraft.

1.See EH.net's "Child Labor in the United States" by Robert Whaples, Wake Forest University.

2.For a fascinating history, see "The Child Labor Amendment Debate of the 1920s", by Bill Kauffman, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, June 1992, pp. 139-170.

(Tagging @MalletFace)

TOO MUCH WORDZ D,:

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If we're going to talk about laws that suck, let's talk about how I can't buy a machine gun unless it was registered before 1986, I pay 200 dollars for a tax stamp, and I wait 8 months after filling out paperwork. Maybe combine child labor and machine guns? Kids like those things right? Playing soldier with their friends? Oh! Let's have child soldiers! One- kids have endless energy. They can run for days. Two- they dont fully understand the emotional and psychological repercussions of ending another life. Three- the enemy would be less likely to shoot a child.

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5 minutes ago, DevilBear said:

If we're going to talk about laws that suck, let's talk about how I can't buy a machine gun unless it was registered before 1986, I pay 200 dollars for a tax stamp, and I wait 8 months after filling out paperwork. Maybe combine child labor and machine guns? Kids like those things right? Playing soldier with their friends? Oh! Let's have child soldiers! One- kids have endless energy. They can run for days. Two- they dont fully understand the emotional and psychological repercussions of ending another life. Three- the enemy would be less likely to shoot a child.

DevilBear for President!

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Now, I'm not saying you should vote for me, but I am saying if I get elected I will make america marginally acceptable again.

We'll build a wall between us and Utah, then round up all undesirables and place them behind that wall.

Then I'll bring the fight to Isis the only way I know I can- Bully them.

And child soldiers. Because kids need to work.

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24 minutes ago, DevilBear said:

So I just kinda skimmed this because this is a free country and I do what I want...

But from what I gathered we're trying to change the law so we can force children to work on computers and make dough then we're raping the children and the animals now?

If we're going to encourage children to start working at a young age, and also to bone grown adults with greater frequency, may I perhaps suggest we encourage children to engage in prostitution?

Your average middle schooler will earn more money by boning a 40-year-old man for an hour than he will by flipping burgers for two weeks. Not only will he earn some pocket money, but he will also gain valuable work experience and networks in the adult world. It's win-win, really.

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5 minutes ago, DevilBear said:

Now, I'm not saying you should vote for me, but I am saying if I get elected I will make america marginally acceptable again.

We'll build a wall between us and Utah, then round up all undesirables and place them behind that wall.

Then I'll bring the fight to Isis the only way I know I can- Bully them.

And child soldiers. Because kids need to work.

 

You have my full support Mr. Bear!  Can we make the furries pay for the wall?

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I mean, don't get me wrong I'm against diddlin the kiddy fiddle, but you make a pretty strong argument @jcstinks

Just now, Strongbob said:

 

You have my full support Mr. Bear!  Can we make the furries pay for the wall?

I was thinking the mormons or even like, Guatemalans. Get enough furries together and they can't get anything done besides a giant yiffpile.

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1 hour ago, DevilBear said:

If we're going to talk about laws that suck, let's talk about how I can't buy a machine gun unless it was registered before 1986, I pay 200 dollars for a tax stamp, and I wait 8 months after filling out paperwork. Maybe combine child labor and machine guns? Kids like those things right? Playing soldier with their friends? Oh! Let's have child soldiers! One- kids have endless energy. They can run for days. Two- they dont fully understand the emotional and psychological repercussions of ending another life. Three- the enemy would be less likely to shoot a child.

It will be so awesome since Kids love Call of Duty and Halo. :V

1 hour ago, PastryOfApathy said:

Are we seriously at the point where Rassah is defending child rape?

holy shit lmao

#RaukenGrowlithe2016

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On 3/18/2016 at 6:58 PM, willow said:

to my knowledge, adults weren't really beaten or severely neglected. or at least not to the extent that children were. at most, female miners were oftentimes raped but that's all I know.

So, again, why didn't we simply outlaw beating children? (Actually, why haven't we outlawed that still? Sounds like a missed opportunity...) Why force teens to not be able to work at all?

Quote

that being said, I'd honestly rather improve the working conditions and safeguards for adults than subject children to the same extensive labor with little to no education and very little pay.

Subject who's children? You don't have any children to subject, do you?

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and who was making children work in the factories? their parents probably but these people were often really, really poor and figured having their kids work would help. but like I've said, the kids hardly made anything so it was pretty much free labor for the factory owners

That doesn't make much sense. If the labor was pretty much free, then the parents wouldn't have benefited from their children working there, as opposed to staying home to help with chores and such. And if the parents were really really poor, to the point that they needed their children working in order to provide for food and housing, then preventing their children from working only makes everyone's situation worse. Why not focus on improving the parents' financial situation instead? (Which is what was a;ready happening, anyway, and what happened in India, where as parents became more well off financially, mainly from being able to work in sweatshops, they were able to send their kids to school so their children never have to work in sweatshops like them).

On 3/18/2016 at 7:18 PM, MalletFace said:

Mills

 

Do you know what a doffer was? Nearly always young boys - 9-16 - doffers were the ones that replaced the bobbins on a loom. Since that required quick work, they were also usually the ones to catch the broken threads. Since that required skill, they were also usually the ones to remove broken parts and replace them. They generally did anything that required climbing onto, under, into, or around the machinery. They did this upwards of 72 hours a week through 10 to 12 hours a day, but that depended on the mill.

 

I'm sure doffers had some injuries, as many people working in factories around heavy or dangerous machinery did, but, reading the wiki article, it doesn't sound as bad as you describe

"When the bobbins on the spinning frames were full, the machinery stopped. The doffers would swarm into the mill and, as quickly as possible, change all the bobbins, after which the machinery would be restarted and the doffers were free to amuse themselves until the next change-over. On the newer and taller frames, the doffers often had to climb to reach the bobbins.

In Lancashire the doffing boys were free to do what they liked once they had completed a doffing, as long as they stayed within earshot of the "throstle jobber," who would whistle when they were next needed. They were motivated to do the work as fast as possible, since this gave them as long as possible to play.

In the United States in the first part of the 19th century, although the day was long the doffers only worked for about four hours each day.

By 1900 in Crown Mills, Whitfield County, Georgia, the average doffer was fourteen years old. A doffer in North Carolina in 1904 would earn $2.40 per week, while a head doffer would earn $3.50. Skilled workers would earn more. The working week would be ten hours a day from Monday to Saturday. In 1907, a doffer in North Carolina only had to work about half the time, being able to play baseball, swim in the local river or otherwise relax until the whistle of the head doffer called them back to the mill. If a rural mill depended on a water wheel for power, a drought could provide more free time as the mill would only run a few hours each day."

So, sounds like the work was simple, and while a work day may be long, as you described, most of it wasn't spent doing actual work, but just waiting for a whistle to call them in to swap the bobbins. Also, even more important:

"After World War I ended in 1918, the US textile industry was left with surplus capacity and went into a slump, not recovering until after the 1930s Great Depression. In response, mill owners cut wages and laid off workers, or put them on short hours, while mechanizing further to improve efficiency. New laws made child labor more expensive, and children could not handle the new machinery. The practice of using child labor in the mills declined, finally ending completely when the NIRA Cotton Textile Code was adopted in 1933."

Seems like child labor was declining already. If not for laws, it simply would have been "mechanized" away, where machines are more efficient than children, and children couldn't figure out how to operate them. Incidentally, the same thing happened to adults in many factories too, where adults were replaced by complicated robots, and only those with enough skills and knowledge to operate those robots were left working them.

 

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Mines

What about breakers and trappers? Have you heard of them?

Yeah, that one is pretty horrible. I wasn't aware that that was going on until 1920's. Glad that it was eventually automated and legislated away. Though I would point out that public condemnation of this type of job has been around since almost the beginning of the practice in 1860's. One wonders how desperate the parents were that they would send their own children to do this type of job, even going so far as to forge birth certificates to make it seem as if their children were older and thus legally qualified for the job. Would the parents' and children's condition be better without the extra income?

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Compassion vs. Unemployment

You know who really felt bad for kids in mines? Adults. Wanna know what they did about it? They passed a law in 1885 making it illegal for very young children to work in mines. Wanna know why that failed? The Supreme Court Declared it unconstitutional. Unemployment now was around 1-3%. This was a period of boom.

That wasn't the only time they tried, though. In 1916, Congress passed the Keating-Owens Act. It made it so that goods from mines with children under 16 were illegal, goods from factories with children under 14 were illegal, and that children could not work more than 8 hours a day. Wanna know why that failed? The Supreme Court Declared it unconstitutional. The unemployment at this time was around 4-5%.

They tried to make it work again, though. In 1924, they created a constitutional amendment so the Supreme Court would stop blocking them from creating labor laws. The states did not ratify it. Unemployment now was around 5% - the Great Depression had barely started.

That that quote says that they also wanted kids out of their jobs did not mean there were other motivators. Unemployment was barely a factor in the previous attempts, so why is it suddenly the only factor? The FLSA only passed because the Supreme Court could not claim it was being passed only on moral grounds - unemployment was indeed a factor - but they tried to end that one, too.

Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional many times, and rightly so, with opponents fighting those child labor laws not because they wanted to hire children, but because these laws would put government as the owner of the child and give the government the last word on what the child can or cannot do, instead of the parent or the child himself. Which set up a very dangerous precedent, where the government could tell a person what they are or aren't allowed to do based on some arbitrary age, and eventually even without an age. Which is pretty much what happened eventually. Instead of wasting their time on fixing the issue through legal means, and creating such an awful result where government basically claims the right to control our lives until we are 18, and to a point control it until we die, those opposing child labor should have focused on other means, such as increasing social awareness, creating boycotts, inventing ways to automate the work, help parents financially so they don't have to rely on their children to survive, etc.

But, thanks for supporting my claim that child labor laws were only eventually passed to boost unemployment numbers. Also, thanks for the links and the history lesson. I definitely needed it and I appreciate it. And it actually also substantiated my claim that, if we were to abolish child labor laws today, we WON'T have the horrible claimed outcomes of children working in mines and textile firms. Our technology is way beyond that, and our working conditions have improved pretty much universally. So, why is getting rid of, or at least greatly reducing restrictions on, child labor be a bad thing now, in today's environment and economy?

Quote

Rassah, you called my numbers unrealistic, provided no proof, and used a History article as evidence for another point. Should I take you seriously? No. Do I? Yes. Why? Heck if I know.

Show me the proof or shut up. The unemployment numbers I cited here come from another source. This source also agrees with the U.S. government estimate of 1-2 million children employed in 1938. This source is independent. This source does not use only government data. This source is not funded by public money.

Sorry, I'm too lazy to get actual numbers (I'm really not worthy of your extensive work in debates), but this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_boy claims this "but the law was poorly enforced; many employers forged proof-of-age documentation, and many families forged birth certificates or other documents so their children could support the family" which is cited with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_boy#cite_note-Derickson-3 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_boy#cite_note-Pencak-13 and which suggests that any numbers would at most be estimates, and the real numbers, as opposed to official ones, would be way bigger. It's simply impossible to cound the number of employed children, if a bunch of them have forged birth certificates saying they're adults a few years older than they really are.

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On 3/18/2016 at 7:31 PM, Endless/Nameless said:

In theory, that's a possible outcome for some individuals. But theres just no reason to push children into adulthood so early. And anyway, here in the US you can get a full-on job at 16. That's still pretty darn young. Why push for younger??

Allowing to doesn't mean pushing. Seriously, that's a common trait among pro-government types who freak out whenever someone suggests more freedom or anarchy, thinking that being given the freedom to choose something means they will be forced to do that thing. Stop thinking that way. And if someone wants to work at a younger age, why stop them?

On 3/18/2016 at 7:31 PM, Endless/Nameless said:

No no no, wrong track. I foresee it being the norm if we as a society were to start pushing for child labor. 

I guess maybe that would be true. But it really depends on what we consider labor. It might actually become the norm for children to learn responsibilities, how to follow business authority, how to earn and manage their money, and how to deal respectfully with others of all ages. That wouldn't be so terrible. And we still subject children to quite a bit of labor right now. I would consider school and homework to be pretty difficult labor.

On 3/18/2016 at 7:31 PM, Endless/Nameless said:
Quote

Are you suggesting that government and authority are not representative of our society in general?

I am afraid I don't understand. :S 

The laws that we have on the books, including child labor laws, are - or at least supposed to be - representative of our society's beliefs. Basically, the morals and ethics in our legal code represent what society already believes to be moral and ethical, and are NOT some sort of religious edicts that FORCE those morals and ethics on society (though, admittedly, legislated ethics always lag behind society's ethical improvements, whether it's segregation, sexuality, etc.). So, basically, my point was that if we were to get rid of the laws, it won't change what society already believes about child labor and child exploitation (as the laws on the books already reflect that reality), and thus won't result in the types of terrible scenarios people propose. Society in general will still continue to frown on exploiting children or forcing them to do hard labor, and thus kids will only be allowed to do what society deems "acceptable" for children to do (such as fix computers, or scoop ice cream, as in Jeffrey's examples).

On 3/18/2016 at 7:31 PM, Endless/Nameless said:

Because the work still needed to be done, but there was no reason to put children at risk. No one with half a heart would want to see a kid work in a coal mine.

But we still forced changes in adult working conditions. It just seems unfair that adults were given an improvement, and children were simply completely deprived.

 

On 3/19/2016 at 9:28 PM, DrGravitas said:

Just as a reminder, as I stated in my comment, our base assumption is that our education is not living up to its ideal. That ideal form of schooling is what I'm talking about in what you quoted, not our current system.

If our belief that this time is best spent in education, then time outside formal schooling can be put to better use learning rather than working, as well.

Do note that both Jeffrey in his article, and I, are emphasizing that work IS a form of education (skills such as how to deal with authority, socialize with those of different age than you, get a feel for one's self worth, manage money, learning skills related to the actual job), and that this education is one that is severely lacking in our kids, since schools don't teach it, and may be one of the reasons millenials are having such a hard time right now.

I have mentioned one of my friends a few times on this forum, but I'll mention his case again, simply because it fits so well into this discussion. He is VERY well off, as he used to be a personal financial adviser to billionaires and deca-billionaires. As that level, you don't charge them a percent for the funds you manage, since, for example, 1% fee from a billion dollar account would be $10 million, but you charge them a huge fixed fee. Anyway, point is, he doesn't need money. He has a kid, who I think is 7 at this time. He is raising and teaching him to work and run a business, even at that young age. At this point, the kid came up with an idea for selling mugs with a specific design, borrowed $100 from his dad, hired a designer to draw up the design he had in mind, ordered a few mugs from a print site, and sold them online (http://bitmugs.com/) and in person at various conferences, using the money he earned to order more mugs. Eventually he earned enough to pay off the initial loan, pay off all the inventory costs, pay all his employees (7 year old with employees!), still have a bunch of mugs left over, and had enough to buy himself a laptop so he can start learning to code. He even by himself waited at a conference to speak with and caught CEO Patrick Byrne approaching him on his own, and got him to agree to sell his mugs on his site (7 year old doing business deals with a well established CEO!). So, this kid is learning quite a bit by doing all this work, with his dad just helping him a bit, but mostly just spurring him on and leaving him to do things on his own. And the education is stuff like how to manage money and resources, how to talk to (instead of not talking or or being afraid of) adults and strangers, how to market and sell, and how to be independent (his dad, my friend, is also a total nerd, so teaches him many of these skills through D&D too).

I would frikin love it if more kids had THAT kind of education!

 

On 3/19/2016 at 4:46 AM, WileyWarWeasel said:

Is it me or does almost every Rassah thread begin with announcing a bunch of problems (occasionally some legitimate ones) but the "solutions" always boil down to throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

If by "baby" you mean government, authority, and stupid busybodies who should mind their own business, then yes? :)

 

On 3/19/2016 at 10:18 AM, Pignog said:

lol at the idea factory owners wouldnt exploit the shit out of this. within a day of no child labour laws the adults'd be out on their asses and they'd have 12yr olds getting chewed up by the machinery.

If you truly believe this, then we have WAY WAY WAY bigger problems with parents who don't love or care about their children, then pretty much any other issue out there.

Fortunately, I think you are very wrong about this one.

 

On 3/19/2016 at 9:39 AM, jcstinks said:

So what you're saying is, adults should be allowed to bone children as long as the kid "consents" (which is dubious as adults are authority figures over them), or they have a parental permission slip?

At the risk of derailing this thread, let me ask you a question on this topic: Do you believe that whether someone is allowed to have a relationship with someone else be up to people like Bernie Sanders, Rick Perry, and Mitch McConnell? Or up to the people actually involved in the relationship and possibly their parents? That's the real question here.

On 3/19/2016 at 11:15 AM, jcstinks said:

If we're going to encourage children to start working at a young age, and also to bone grown adults with greater frequency, may I perhaps suggest we encourage children to engage in prostitution?

You joke, but, ironically, that is EXACTLY what people who were fighting against child labor in India were inadvertently promoting. Families there were so poor and desperate for money that they had their children work as prostitutes. When factories and sweatshops came around, children finally had other options besides prostitution, and anti-child labor movements from more privileged countries, who had no f'in clue what the situation actually was in that place, were fighting child labor, thinking that children will be saved from labor and, I don't know, stay home or go to school or something (parents couldn't afford school), when in actuality, had they succeeded, they would've just sent kids back to being prostitutes. There's an excellent documentary called Born into Brothels I suggest people watch.

 

On 3/19/2016 at 11:56 AM, Machine said:

This thread is horrible and you should feel horrible.

Do you need me to provide you with a safe space? Sorry if I triggered you.

 

Anyway, sorry for the huge reply. Was away busy for a while and didn't have time to catch up replying to everyone till now.

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9 minutes ago, evan said:

yeah honestly i'm not going to throw a word in anymore. this is genuinely some of the worst arguing i've ever seen.

I'm not trying to argue. I'm trying to express how ridiculous I think this idea is.

But then again,  I don't even know who you're referring to (finally came to this thread)

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