It is impossible in the near term. One only needs to look at what happened when protest against child labor resulted in companies no longer using child labor in their supply chains. Ideally, those children should've been cared for by welfare, but in many places thew welfare system either wasn't there, wasn't able to handle the change, or it was too slow to aid. Many of those children ended up in a worse situation; some even changing to even worse illegal professions to survive.
Now, in the long run, that will be better than just keeping the status quo. But we should remember that a quick change can be significantly worse in the short term, especially one where the focus is incorrectly applied (in these cases, the focus is on goods being produced by a child labor instead of the conditions that result in children working to begin with; ending the child labor does not end the conditions and will sometimes make things much worse).
This is an important lesson. Even the most noble of intentions come with unintended consequences.
It's one thing if the situation was a matter of children being forced to work. If a kid finds work on purpose to help himself or his family eat and you suddenly make it illegal without removing the NEED for him to have to work to help his family then you've made the situation worse while instituting a policy to make yourself feel better.
My view on politics as I've gotten old has gone squarely to the singular point: No complaints. No rules. Solutions or shut up.
If generations are exploited and then we decide we can no longer carry the ethical burden of exploitation, then we have a responsibility to help them recover as well (or hell, reparations).
But in these "We must keep the slaves so they don't starve" arguments, there's always a nasty whiff of condescension - the implication that they cannot care for themselves, without handouts. Given freedom and sufficient resources, most people will choose to better their circumstances. Humans fed themselves for a long time before they were enslaved. Getting back to feeding themselves may not be easy, but it's certainly not impossible.
I poked at a different part of this post, but I'm glad you replied with tihs. You've isolated a big problem with the rhetoric in this thread. Kipling would be nodding at a whole bunch of it.
The problem in the responses is the logical inconsistency.
In my reply, I said if they were being forced to work (aka - slaves) it was not okay but if they went out and choose to work it was another story.
In your response you cited a "we must keep the slaves so they don't starve" argument...which is not at all what I said. That's the logical disconnect that happens in many political discussions of these types. You're arguing with something I didn't say unless I'm misreading you, because it partially looks like you're agreeing with me as well regarding people choosing to better their circumstances.
They're slaves because they are prohibited from bettering their circumstances. Now, if you abolish the slavery and then say "You're free now! Go better yourself!" without giving them any resources with which to do so - if they lack the tools to feed themselves - they'll starve, yes.
To better themselves, they need to be able to make something where they're at, or be able to go somewhere else. If they're sitting on ruined land, unable to leave, that's a problem that can't be solved with mere hard work. But that's a problem that would not have happened without the slavery in the first place.
> My view on politics as I've gotten old has gone squarely to the singular point: No complaints. No rules. Solutions or shut up.
This is a really good way to make sure that important things aren't talked about (and, it should go without saying, disproportionately hurts already marginalized people even further). Complaints about a situation are step one of finding a collaborative solution. It may take time to get there, and the process might be annoying (heaven forfend). But I would suggest considering the circumstances you find yourself in that allows you to find them annoying, and being charitable about the search for a solution instead of decreeing from on high.
I expect people who are not in positions of decision making power to talk about things and complain about things.
I expect people who are campaigning on the basis of those complaints to be able to explain why the problem is a problem and exactly how they plan to solve it along with the expected ramifications of their solution.
Campaigning on complaints without being able to extrapolate those details is essentially nothing more than pandering.
> Complaints about a situation are step one of finding a collaborative solution.
Can parties opt-out of your definition of a collaborative solution, or does your definition of collaborative include forcing people to participate, whether they wish to do so or not?
Of course you can opt-out. But rejection goes both ways: we live in a society, and there are consequences to being asocial and antisocial, and depending on the problem, and the solution, that might be a thing. But you can always leave if something's so untenable, if you can find somewhere with rules more to your liking.
Can I choose not to leave, if I respect other people's natural rights?
My issue about leaving is that if I have done nothing wrong, I shouldn't have to flee from others who wish to violate my rights. Instead, they should respect my right to be unmolested.
Interested in your thoughts, if you wish to expand on this topic.
I tend to fall in line with Rousseau in that "natural rights" are not relevant in a societal context and that what we conceive of as rights exist only in the context of the society that grants them--basic social-contract stuff, subordination to the general will rather than subordination to the will of other citizens being as close to optimal as a practical society is likely to become. I think that the notion of "rights" as something sacrosanct is frankly hilarious and that jurisprudence should not rely on them, but rather build upon the notions of the body politic (and in practice this is what happens; see the contortions in many SCOTUS rulings that are a legalistic form of "yeah, we get it, the zeitgeist has spoken"). This has its drawbacks--demagoguery is a threat, for one--but I contend that there isn't a better method that doesn't enshrine one particular group of people as being Special Enough to enjoy a place of permanent privilege.
To that end, there is no "right to be unmolested", and I would underline that particularly for--given the context of this thread--conceived-of rights that effectively serve to provide legal supremacy over other people. (Of which we have many.) "Done nothing wrong" can mean very different things to very different people, and while I am not in favor of ex post facto convictions or anything of the like, I am in favor of amending the rules to the game to be more equitable and, I hold, thus better for the aggregate of humanity--and enforcing them to that end.
So, no. The general will sets the rules of the road, and dissenters can comply (and seek to change that general will if they so choose; part of the societal privilege to try to change that general will is the societal responsibility to obey it when it breaks against you), accept the consequences of civil disobedience (the abrogation of the aforementioned responsibility in hopes of demonstrating injustice to encourage a change in that general will), or leave (fold your hand). As it happens, there are cases where I'd do the second and a couple where I'd do the third.
Source? I have a hard time believing that. If companies really stopped using kids in their supply chains, common sense would be for more adults to find jobs, which would result in better conditions for other kids.
In other words focusing on "conditions" misses the whole point: child labor is anticompetitive because it's all about lowering prices by exploiting the weak and the defenseless. Thinking about the "conditions" won't move the needle, not as long as child labor remains competitive. Child labor would happen near you if the law would allow it, because it makes economic sense to hire children instead of adults for half the price and there are always poor people to exploit.
Also, have you ever considered that some of those exploited children were born because child labor is a possibility?
One should not forget that an economy is a very complex beast, any changes have far reaching consequences and that doing the right thing is never easy.
Basic income is easy and would solve all of these problems. Just ensure everyone has the capital to satisfy their basic needs. Then if child labor emerged near me I'd know it was inspired by self-discipline or ambition and not poverty. I wanted to work when I was 14 but I wasn't allowed to. Apparently my employment was caught in the crossfire of the rich people exploiting poor kids and the regulators trying to stop them. You can't just ban the employment of poor kids. That's certain to fail politically. So ban the employment of all kids? Ugh. It doesn't have to be like this. Just make it impossible to be poor. You can say that it just changes what it means to be poor. In fact that's essential. When someone with food, shelter and the unsatisfied desire for an Xbox can't see themselves as poor it is only because there is someone poorer. I can't compete with this poorer person's desperation for security. They would do anything for food and shelter. Despite being a member of this new poor class I'm totally secure. I just want an Xbox. I won't enter a job market that is merely good enough for the desperate until I am also sufficiently desperate. Like much of America is becoming. The only solution to this problem is to extinguish the status quo of insecurity. The poorest of the poor need to be secure or soon none of us will be.
"Are you seriously suggesting that a humane system of production is impossible?"
I am reminded of Joseph Campbell:
“Life lives on life. This is the sense of the symbol of the Ouroboros, the serpent biting its tail. Everything that lives lives on the death of something else. Your own body will be food for something else. Anyone who denies this, anyone who holds back, is out of order."
No, there is not going to be pure and blameless system of production and consumption.
"Pure and blameless" need not be our standard for "humane". At the least we can accept that a system of production better than the one we have is possible; let's start there. For example, enforcing the existing debt slavery laws and having labeling laws indicating this status would be a great start.
