tolerating unequal outcomes

lordbt · Feb 22, 2013

JustABit said:
How about both?

Making child labor illegal increases the cost of child labor to business, reducing demand. Having adequate shelter and food as well as better opportunities for future wealth, like through public education, gives families less incentive to let children work.

The decision as to whether or not a child should work should belong to the childs guardian, not the state.

If you believe in free markets, then you understand that many businesses seek to maximize profit. Human ingenuity is pretty much boundless, too. Being illegal at present, child labor is not something businesses need to spend much time worrying about. If that restriction was lifted, I trust business would try to maximize their benefit from this 'resource'.

What is wrong with that? But again, there is very little that I can see of value to most companies in an untrained, unskilled , inexperienced child laborer. I know it sounds great to be against child lobor, but there is no substance to it.

Rant of the day.

Well thank you. Its not easy working in a Hansel and Gretel reference you know.

I like capitalism. Really. I even agree with you that capitalism is a huge enabler. The wealth it has created has helped humanity in so many ways. Child labor? If it weren't for the wealth that capitalism created, I can't imagine it could have ever disappeared. The luxuries that we enjoy, including this exchange on the internet - thank you capitalism ( and Al Gore ).

So far so good.

But reality isn't as simple as you make it out to be. At the same time that capitalism emerged, we also gained political freedoms that we've never before enjoyed.

You have that backwards. It is our political and economic freedoms that led to capitalism, not the other way around.

As much as I appreciate capitalism, the society that we presently enjoy is also a product of us exercising that political freedom to solve problems.

And the limits to what the state and society can do has to be limited or it will be tyranny. The proper objective limits are individual rights. Society and/or the state can do what it likes so long as they dont violate the rights of the individual.

The issue for me is, because political freedom and capitalism arose at the same time, I can't really separate their influences and so I can't determine precisely where each is positive and negative - there are just too many variables to consider. You think you have the answer, and that it's always "free markets are good, collective will is bad". I'm not so sure and I accept points of evidence that contradict your assertion.

Communists thought they understood the world. They credited collective will and blamed capitalism for everything. This seems to have been a big mistake. You seem ( and I could be mistaken, so correct me if I'm wrong ) to want to go the other way, blaming collective will for everything and crediting everything to the individual. This scares me as much as communism does. It feels just as extreme. Especially given we don't have clear examples of laissez-faire societies.

I am open to being persuaded, I'm not opposed to the idea that you could be right. But when you base your ideas on things like, "leftists want to stamp out our freedoms" and "you're just envious" - let's just say these aren't persuasive arguments. They strengthen my view that you're an extremist. I'm not willing to risk political freedom for that.

At the end of the day, I am not interested in what works, I am interested in what is right. And I determine what is right by holding the concept of individual rights and human liberty as a primary. My opposition to collectivism is based upon the idea that the collective will is somehow superior to the rights of the indivdual. Collectivism can only be brought into being and its will enforced at the point of a gun. It is the involuntary nature of collectivism and collectivists that I oppose. Criminal activity in any sane society is defined by the initiation of physical force. It does not become less a criminal act because the collective engages in it.

kermit · Feb 22, 2013

lordbt said:
The decision as to whether or not a child should work should belong to the childs guardian, not the state.

This ignores the economic coersion of child labor in this country.

Poor families had little choice about having their children work because it was the only way to feed the family. Because children would work for less it drove down the wages for adults. This caused a vicious cycle that hurt families and children while a very select few grew rich off their misery.

Lordbt, you are all to willing to trade coersion from an institution in which you have a voice for coersion from institution in which you have no voice.

Redac · Feb 22, 2013

lordbt said:
Nonsense. How did those children get in those factories in the first place? Were they chained to the machines by the evil owners? No, children worked because children always worked. It was only the introduction of free markets that gave children the opportunity escape therkforce.

Factory owners used to lock the doors so no one could get out all day, so you're not that far off.

Are there really that many industries out there today that would actually "benefit from child labor?'

Industries all over the world are currently benefitting from child labor.

Right. Do you want to know why leftists and statists hate capitalism so much?

Yes, I'm sure you know better than we do.

Also unless you're an anarchist it's not really helpful to throw around the term "statist" like it doesn't apply to you.

And no, it goes way beyond envy. For all of human history, the state has been the oppressor of mankind. Then along comes the moral concepts of individual rights, liberty and capitalism that frees man from the stagnation and poverty of tyrannical government. The statists cant have that so they attack the concept of innate rights, they ridicule liberty and they blame capitalism for the evils of the state. What we get now is the bizarre spectacle of the liberated turning to their old master to free them from their liberators. Not to worry though, this time the state is going to nice; you know, kind of the way the witch was nice to Hansel and Gretel. At first.

It's odd that you talk about the state like its some sort of ahistorical, independent entity that just came along at some point to oppress people.

lordbt · Feb 22, 2013

kermit said:
This ignores the economic coersion of child labor in this country.

Poor families had little choice about having their children work because it was the only way to feed the family. Because children would work for less it drove down the wages for adults. This caused a vicious cycle that hurt families and children while a very select few grew rich off their misery.

The coersion you are referring to here goes by another, more common name: reality. No one coerces by the manufacturers to bring their children along to work. If was, as you rightly point out, necessary to feed the family. That is not the fault of the industrialist, but the reality of the conditions at the time. That you are 'forced' to take a job to feed yourself or your family is not evidence of coersion on the part of your employer, but of the demands of reality. to say that I had no choice but to take this crappy job or starve is all the evidence you need to be thankful that that crappy job exists.

Lordbt, you are all to willing to trade coersion from an institution in which you have a voice for coersion from institution in which you have no voice.

I cant think of an example in my life where I have been coersed by a company to do anything. Government coersion is everywhere and my voice has done nothing to keeep it from growing. Plus a business does not wield a gun and cannot throw me in prison or confiscate my property like a state can.. That makes the state far, far more dangerous.

lordbt · Feb 22, 2013

Redac said:
Factory owners used to lock the doors so no one could get out all day, so you're not that far off.

But that doesnt answer how they got in there in the first place,

Industries all over the world are currently benefitting from child labor.

And children all over the world are benefitting from the existence of industry.

Yes, I'm sure you know better than we do.

Also unless you're an anarchist it's not really helpful to throw around the term "statist" like it doesn't apply to you.

Statism: In political science, statism (French: étatisme) is the belief that a government should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree.

So, no, the term does not apply to me.

It's odd that you talk about the state like its some sort of ahistorical, independent entity that just came along at some point to oppress people.

No, I am pretty sure I labeled the state as an entity that has repressed mankind throughout his entire history. It was the concept of individual rights that changed that.

kermit · Feb 22, 2013

lordbt said:
The coersion you are referring to here goes by another, more common name: reality. No one coerces by the manufacturers to bring their children along to work. If was, as you rightly point out, necessary to feed the family. That is not the fault of the industrialist, but the reality of the conditions at the time. That you are 'forced' to take a job to feed yourself or your family is not evidence of coersion on the part of your employer, but of the demands of reality. to say that I had no choice but to take this crappy job or starve is all the evidence you need to be thankful that that crappy job exists.

The reduction of wages due to the ready availability of child labor reduces the economic choices of laborers.

I cant think of an example in my life where I have been coersed by a company to do anything. Government coersion is everywhere and my voice has done nothing to keeep it from growing. Plus a business does not wield a gun and cannot throw me in prison or confiscate my property like a state can.. That makes the state far, far more dangerous.

I have always found your understanding of liberty to be very childish. In fact, I find that of most libertarians. There are many forms of bondage and bondage by the state is merely one. People can also have their liberty reduced by poverty, family situations, mental illness, drug addiction, crime and others in addition to being reduced by the state. Libertarianism only ever seems to look at one form of bondage and their ideals tend to support the expansion of the others.

Let's take the classic example of someone who as water in the desert and someone who is dying of thirst. This is really an example of economic coersion. The person who is dying of thirst has very little liberty because their choices have been reduced to live or die. The person with water knows this and knows that he can make the other do pretty much whatever he wants as most will choose life over death.

Redac · Feb 22, 2013

lordbt said:
But that doesnt answer how they got in there in the first place,

A combination of economic necessity and a society in which business was legally permitted to use child labor. B

And children all over the world are benefitting from the existence of industry.

So I take it you recognize that there is indeed industry that benefits from the use of child labor?

Statism: In political science, statism (French: étatisme) is the belief that a government should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree.

Very selective quoting, I see.

Here's the rest of that:
In political science, statism (French: étatisme) is the belief that a government should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree.[1][2][3][4] Statism is effectively the opposite of anarchism.[1][2][3][4] Statism can take many forms. Minarchists prefer a minimal or night watchman state to protect people from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud with military, police, and courts.[5][6][7][8] Some may also include fire departments, prisons, and other functions.[5][6][7][8] Totalitarians prefer a maximum or all encompassing state.[9][10][11][12][13] Limited government, welfare state, and other options make up the middle territory of the scale of statism.[14][15]

So, no, the term does not apply to me.

It really does. Like I said, unless you're an anarchist, then you are also a statist by virtue of the fact that you support the existence of the state in some capacity, however limited it may be.

No, I am pretty sure I labeled the state as an entity that has repressed mankind throughout his entire history. It was the concept of individual rights that changed that.

Technically not the entire history of mankind, but okay.

variant · Feb 22, 2013

lordbt said:
There is one thing all kids have in common--parents. Why is it you blame the free market for everything including the decisions of individuals to send their children into the labor force? Did it ever occur to you that economic conditions of the world dictated such behavior and not evil capitalists?

Well the parents of children who need to work are usually also impoverished so, were talking about some intergenerational coercion here. The type that most people are not going to easily find a way out of. That is why child labor is so insidious it doesn't increase economic freedom of the child, it limits their options and leaves them vulnerable to themselves and their children to be coerced.

The problem is that the companies can and will exploit children if it suits them to and that it doesn't need to happen.

Farms it out to where? Places where children would otherwise be roaming through garbage dumps for their next meal. But industry is evil and exploitive. You cant be serious, yet you are.

The point is that the free market as you put it has no qualms about exploiting people who are desperate, to use their downtrodden economic position as leverage to increase profits.

The states role is to secure individual rights, not enforce some arbitrary standard of goodness.

Not arbitrary so much as commonly agreed to standards.

I despise mob rule as much as any other form of tyranny. Government should be answerable to the people, on that we agree, But following the mob to do injustice to the the individual or violating the rights of some to the benefit of others is just as much a moral crime as a king or emperor doing it.

What you don't seem to understand is that all rights weighed against other rights and not to mention just good sound reason.

An absolutist view of economic freedom is good in your mind but it makes for terrible policy.

The abuses of capitalism that result in rights violations should be heandled by the state. That is what the state is there for. The abuses of the state, as you call them, are properly described as those actions that violate the rights of idividuals. Its just that you dont mind that happening.

You can grind people under your thumb without having to violate any specific rights. That's the point.

I abhor states tyrannizing individuals, I just don't necessarily agree with you on the definition of tyranny being any incursion into someones property rights. The market does in fact act as a check against state tyranny in our system just as it did during the founding of our country and as a force that effects our political system to secure the rights of businesses. Which can get out of hand too.

Make no mistake I do not say that the market does no good, it does plenty of good. I just don't worship at it's feet as if it decides well always. Markets are just associations of people and prone to the abuses people.

JustABit · Feb 22, 2013

lordbt said:
At the end of the day, I am not interested in what works, I am interested in what is right. And I determine what is right by holding the concept of individual rights and human liberty as a primary.

If you will, answer these very simple questions. A wealthy businessman has a *cough* penchant for 5 year olds. He finds a single parent willing to sell her daughter's *cough* "services" for $1000 for the evening. The mother asks her daughter, she says "no". The mother then offers her daughter a cookie, and the daughter consents to the transaction.

Is this a valid market transaction to you? Is this permissable in your libertarian world? Everybody had a free choice, nobody was coerced. I am curious about how you logically oppose this transaction.

bricklayer · Feb 22, 2013

JustABit said:
If you will, answer these very simple questions. A wealthy businessman has a *cough* penchant for 5 year olds. He finds a single parent willing to sell her daughter's *cough* "services" for $1000 for the evening. The mother asks her daughter, she says "no". The mother then offers her daughter a cookie, and the daughter consents to the transaction.

Is this a valid market transaction to you? Is this permissable in your libertarian world? Everybody had a free choice, nobody was coerced. I am curious about how you logically oppose this transaction.

Anarchy is not liberty.
The above is a very good example of the very extreme sort of things that should be prohibited.

Only those very, very few things should be prohibited that maximize what is voluntary.

JustABit · Feb 22, 2013

bricklayer said:
Anarchy is not liberty.
The above is a very good example of the very extreme sort of things that should be prohibited.

Only those very, very few things should be prohibited that maximize what is voluntary.

On what basis should it be prohibited? What right is it violating?

Vylo · Feb 22, 2013

bricklayer said:
It is my experience that the vast majority of those I have personally encountered who have a low tolerance for unequal outcomes are also the least able to produce quality outcomes.

Is one's tolerance for unequal outcomes a good measure of that one's ability to produce quality outcomes?

When hiring, it is one of the "telling" things I attempt to get a feel for.
I have taken it as a baseline assumption for years, and it has never failed me.

What do you think?

There is some missing data here, but I can feel what your are saying.

If someone can't tolerate that a person working overtime makes more then them, or that a person who spends more time working on something does better work or gets better pay.

On the flip side, if I am managing people I want more consistent outcomes, and am not likely to tolerate unequal outcomes in productivity or performance for long.

lordbt · Feb 22, 2013

kermit said:
The reduction of wages due to the ready availability of child labor reduces the economic choices of laborers.

That is not grounds to exclude them from the workforce, because the same argument could be made for excluding others.

I have always found your understanding of liberty to be very childish.

That would be because you dont understand what liberty means. See my signature below for more details. Unless, of course, you see Jefferson as childish as well, in which case we have nothing further to discuss.

lordbt · Feb 22, 2013

Redac said:
A combination of economic necessity and a society in which business was legally permitted to use child labor.

I raked leaves, shovelled snow, cleaned pools, delivered newspapers starting at about 10 years old. When I was 16--still technically a child by the way, I worked at McDonalds. So child labor exists to this day. It has always existed even prior to industrialization.

So I take it you recognize that there is indeed industry that benefits from the use of child labor?

Some, not too many any more. Children have zero skills, little education and arent particularly productive. Technology is what doesw in child labor, not the benevolent state.

Very selective quoting, I see.

Here's the rest of that:
In political science, statism (French: étatisme) is the belief that a government should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree.[1][2][3][4] Statism is effectively the opposite of anarchism.[1][2][3][4] Statism can take many forms. Minarchists prefer a minimal or night watchman state to protect people from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud with military, police, and courts.[5][6][7][8] Some may also include fire departments, prisons, and other functions.[5][6][7][8] Totalitarians prefer a maximum or all encompassing state.[9][10][11][12][13] Limited government, welfare state, and other options make up the middle territory of the scale of statism.[14][15]

It really does. Like I said, unless you're an anarchist, then you are also a statist by virtue of the fact that you support the existence of the state in some capacity, however limited it may be.

To claim that everyone from Ayn Rand to Joseph Stalin are statists is just a way to render the term meaningless. When I use the term statist, I refer only to the part I quoted.

lordbt · Feb 22, 2013

variant said:
Well the parents of children who need to work are usually also impoverished so, were talking about some intergenerational coercion here. The type that most people are not going to easily find a way out of. That is why child labor is so insidious it doesn't increase economic freedom of the child, it limits their options and leaves them vulnerable to themselves and their children to be coerced.

You, like kermit, keep throwing the term coersion around with regard to the employer when the employer uses no coersion whatsoever. What compelled children to work was the demands of reality, not coersion on the part of evil capitalists.

The problem is that the companies can and will exploit children if it suits them to and that it doesn't need to happen.

So you say. As I mentioned earlier, I have a 14 year old daughter that I want to work and I am perfectly capable of making sure she is not 'exploited.' I dont need the government to babysit my child, I want my child to get real world work experience, but that is impossible because people like you think you know what is best for me and my family. Well, you dont.

The point is that the free market as you put it has no qualms about exploiting people who are desperate, to use their downtrodden economic position as leverage to increase profits.

If you are desperate and I offer you steady work and a means for survival, how am I exploiting you?

Not arbitrary so much as commonly agreed to standards.

Agreed to by whom?

What you don't seem to understand is that all rights weighed against other rights and not to mention just good sound reason.

You are right, I dont understand that. Explain to me what my rights to life, liberty and happiness is weithed against.

An absolutist view of economic freedom is good in your mind but it makes for terrible policy.

So you say.

You can grind people under your thumb without having to violate any specific rights. That's the point.

Give me an example of me grinding you under my thumb where no rights of your have been violated.

I abhor states tyrannizing individuals, I just don't necessarily agree with you on the definition of tyranny being any incursion into someones property rights.

Of course you dont. that is because you require the confiscation of the property of others to achieve your ends. You cant get what you want through voluntary means so you resort to government force. the difference between you and the tyrant is only in degree. You both use the same methods.

The market does in fact act as a check against state tyranny in our system just as it did during the founding of our country and as a force that effects our political system to secure the rights of businesses. Which can get out of hand too.

Actually, the market has demonstrated itself to be remarkable ineffective at limiting tyranny. Large companies are often all too willing to cozy up to statist thugs. Their wealth enables them to buy political favors and absorb regulations that will strangle their smaller competitors. So if you are looking for capitalist CEO's to save you from tyranny, you are in for a major disappointment. If you want to fight it, you have to do it.

Make no mistake I do not say that the market does no good, it does plenty of good. I just don't worship at it's feet as if it decides well always. Markets are just associations of people and prone to the abuses people.

Yes, and the proper role of the state is to secure the rights of the individual. if some evil capitalist tramples your rights, you turn to the state for a remedy. When the state tramples your rights, there is nowhere for you to turn.

lordbt · Feb 22, 2013

JustABit said:
If you will, answer these very simple questions. A wealthy businessman has a *cough* penchant for 5 year olds. He finds a single parent willing to sell her daughter's *cough* "services" for $1000 for the evening. The mother asks her daughter, she says "no". The mother then offers her daughter a cookie, and the daughter consents to the transaction.

Is this a valid market transaction to you? Is this permissable in your libertarian world? Everybody had a free choice, nobody was coerced. I am curious about how you logically oppose this transaction.

Seriously?

JustABit · Feb 22, 2013

lordbt said:
Seriously?

Yes. I should have added, "and if you're against it, can you provide the logic behind why you're against it".

*Edit, just to make the question simpler. If you're against the transaction, which right is being violated, in which way is it being violated, and what's your solution to the issue.

lordbt · Feb 22, 2013

JustABit said:
Yes. I should have added, "and if you're against it, can you provide the logic behind why you're against it".

I would first hope that you recognize the differnce between paying some kid to push a broom and pedophilia. The difference has to do with the one issue I have prefaced every remark I have made on this thread with--individual rights. The role of a parent is to be the guardian of a childs rights. Knowingly turning a child over to a pedophile violates that childs right in a way normal emplyment does not.

But you would have to give me the rationale for it being legal for my daughter to babysit for a neighbor but not work at McDonalds. She is certainly old enough to spend money, so how can it be illegal for her to earn it?

JustABit · Feb 22, 2013

lordbt said:
I would first hope that you recognize the differnce between paying some kid to push a broom and pedophilia.

Of course. I'm not trying to equate the two.

lordbt said:
The difference has to do with the one issue I have prefaced every remark I have made on this thread with--individual rights.

"Individual rights" is a broad term. Which individual right, specifically, is being violated here.

*edit, I know my answer to this question. People have the right to be free from sexual exploitation and the state has a role in protecting that right. I'm not sure that's going to be your answer, though. So I'm asking.

lordbt · Feb 22, 2013

JustABit said:
Of course. I'm not trying to equate the two.

"Individual rights" is a broad term. Which individual right, specifically, is being violated here.

*edit, I know my answer to this question. People have the right to be free from sexual exploitation and the state has a role in protecting that right. I'm not sure that's going to be your answer, though. So I'm asking.

Right. Children have the same rights as adults and sex with a child is rape. So the same right that makes a rape of you immoral is the same one that makes it so for a child.

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