Child labour better than Poverty?

[facaldo]

Some years back Nike stopped doing business with a big Nigerian firm because its labor consisted of children.The company went through a huge loss as it was solely dependent on Nike for its manufacturing and has still not recovered.Many of its workers have gone jobless as a result.Considering the economic health of that country , was Nike justified in doing that?

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Child labor is better than poverty - What are your views keeping in mind the economic situation of a poor country?

 

[Logan Keller]

It breaches a right that children have.

 

[hellthins]

The issue is it sounds good in theory, but child are not very capable of defending their own rights and corporations are built around making a profit. If that means significantly reducing the pay of those children, they'll do it, and the children haven't lived long enough to properly understand that. It's like dropping the minimum wage, it sounds like it'd work in theory but corporations are going to do everything to cut costs.

 

[Pseudonym2]

1st of all, the children are almost always treated badly. As in working well over twelve hour days while chained to their desk, beaten, and patrolled with armed guards with dogs badly.

2nd They're payment is minimal. They're still starving and in poverty, it's just that they are able to eat, let's say, two cups a day of rice instead of one.

3rd, Why can't international, multi-million dollar company pay a decent adult wage?

 

[PatientGrasshopper]

Some years back Nike stopped doing business with a big Nigerian firm because its labor consisted of children.The company went through a huge loss as it was solely dependent on Nike for its manufacturing and has still not recovered.Many of its workers have gone jobless as a result.Considering the economic health of that country , was Nike justified in doing that?

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Child labor is better than poverty - What are your views keeping in mind the economic situation of a poor country?

As far as child labor goes, I think it is better than poverty. However before all you people start attacking me I do think there should be some sort of regulation on it as dead children doesn't help the situation either. As far as Nike goes I think the bigger problem is the fact that companies like that are more concerned with outsourcing their business so so much that it negatively effects the American economy.

 

[Maet]

As in working well over twelve hour days while chained to their desk, beaten, and patrolled with armed guards with dogs badly.

Depending on how war torn the area is, that's a good thing. It means children are for the most part out of the line of fire. Would you rather be couped up inside, or playing the most important game of minesweeper of your life on a daily basis?

Armed guards and attack dogs? They're just protecting their interests.

A job is a job, and these children should be lucky to have it. Slave labour is a hell of a lot better than drug addiction, prostitution, crippling diseases, or death. It's not much, but it's the best most of them have.

 

[MissShortosity]

I don't believe child labour is better than poverty. For most the part, child labour exacerbates poverty in the first place. I agree with Cheeze-Pavillion; children are unaware of their rights when it comes to the workplace and wouldn't know that 50c an hour is akin to slavery, as they don't understand profit margins and economical issues. An adult trying to work in such a factory in Nigeria would know how much money they need for daily expenses such as food and water, and know that, say, 50c/hour would not even come close. They would expect a better pay rate for what doesn't require vast amounts of skill, and when Nike could hire naive children to do the same job for less, they would (and did). This means that the company's profit margin rose but the local income earnings would have decreased. Less jobs would have been available for adults with decent wages, and the wages earned by children would be insubstantial.
Despite the fact that child labour does nothing to alleviate poverty, shouldn't young children be in SCHOOL or at least in some form of informal education so they can escape unskilled labour and hope to earn at least slightly more substantial wages?

 

[Pseudonym2]

As in working well over twelve hour days while chained to their desk, beaten, and patrolled with armed guards with dogs badly.

Depending on how war torn the area is, that's a good thing. It means children are for the most part out of the line of fire. Would you rather be couped up inside, or playing the most important game of minesweeper of your life on a daily basis?

Armed guards and attack dogs? They're just protecting their interests.


One more thing, A few others mentioned the children not knowing their rights. They don't have any so not knowing is not a problem.

A job is a job, and these children should be lucky to have it. Slave labour is a hell of a lot better than drug addiction, prostitution, crippling diseases, or death. It's not much, but it's the best most of them have.

The attack dogs and guards are to keep the kids from escaping, not to protect them anyone else trying to kill them. The work is often dangerous so they are more likely to have their fingers torn off. If this happens then they're fired and stuck where they once were only now they're crippled.

A few people mentioned the problem of the kids not knowing their rights. This is not a problem because the kids don't have any.

 

[Zer_]

I don't believe child labour is better than poverty. For most the part, child labour exacerbates poverty in the first place. I agree with Cheeze-Pavillion; children are unaware of their rights when it comes to the workplace and wouldn't know that 50c an hour is akin to slavery, as they don't understand profit margins and economical issues. An adult trying to work in such a factory in Nigeria would know how much money they need for daily expenses such as food and water, and know that, say, 50c/hour would not even come close. They would expect a better pay rate for what doesn't require vast amounts of skill, and when Nike could hire naive children to do the same job for less, they would (and did). This means that the company's profit margin rose but the local income earnings would have decreased. Less jobs would have been available for adults with decent wages, and the wages earned by children would be insubstantial.
Despite the fact that child labour does nothing to alleviate poverty, shouldn't young children be in SCHOOL or at least in some form of informal education so they can escape unskilled labour and hope to earn at least slightly more substantial wages?

Milton Freidman, an economist disagrees.

Something to ponder:

"Fifty years ago it might have been assumed that, just as child labour had declined in the developed world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so it would also, in a trickle-down fashion, in the rest of the world. It's failure to do that, and its re-emergence in the developed world, raise questions about its role in any economy, whether national or global."

Something else to ponder:

According to Thomas DeGregori, an economics professor at the University of Houston, in an article published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank operating in Washington D.C., "it is clear that technological and economic change are vital ingredients in getting children out of the workplace and into schools. Then they can grow to become productive adults and live longer, healthier lives. However, in poor countries like Bangladesh, working children are essential for survival in many families, as they were in our own heritage until the late 19th century. So, while the struggle to end child labour is necessary, getting there often requires taking different routes -- and, sadly, there are many political obstacles."

Although child labour seems exploitative (and it is certainly borderline). Most children working in child labour do it because they need to. To understand child labour you must fist understand what it is like to live in a 3rd world country, and I can say with utmost certainty that the majority of those in 1st world developed countries have nigh a clue about what it is like to live in a 3rd world country.

Go to a 3rd world country and it's like going back in time. Go back to the 1600s and you'll see children working. They work because it is necessary. In a developed country we have large machines that actually require a decent education to run. These machines operate in our factories. In a 3rd world country there are no such machines.

Yet Friedman's theory posited that the absence of child labour is a luxury that many poor states cannot yet afford, and that to prohibit it is to prevent the overall economic growth necessary to eventually relieve a society of the need for child labour. In poor societies he claimed that children will be put to work by their families by whatever means necessary. Moreover, in addition to possibly increasing family costs on a depleted family income, in the absence of a public school program, parents may have to forego potential labour time and income, to care for their children.

One only needs to look at basic geography to understand why an undeveloped country has not developed. These geographical locations are more difficult to live in. The climate is such that fulfilling the basic needs of survival require more time and resource then say North America. The Industrial Revolution came to us because we had a solid society with a good economic foundation to support such a revolution. Other areas like Nigeria does not have the economic foundation to support an Industrial Revolution. Contrary to what some people think the Industrial Revolution was not a global affair.

Shutting down child labour in 3rd world countries will only make it worse. It will make it more difficult for families to meet their needs, and would prove detrimental to the local economics.

People like Norman Borlaug (He develops Genetically Modified crops) shares his knowledge with third world countries so they may more efficiently grow crops and food in more difficult environments. He is someone who is actually doing something relevant that helps third world countries progress and increase their chances of reducing child labour.

 

[Aardvark]

As long as fat, stupid white people with internet connections and email addresses exist, I don't see the economy of Nigeria failing anytime soon.

 

[MissShortosity]

Cheeze-Pavillion, you are my twin. Saves me a lot of time replying

Another point I would like to bring up is the role that Nike plays in the part of child labour...

Nike stopped doing business with the Nigerian firm after the public realisation that their associates (the Nigerian Firm) used child labour. Nike's official story is that they were 'unaware' of this, however there are several factors that make this story seem sketchy:
1. Surely knowing the economic climate in Nigeria, Nike would have formed some sort of contractual agreement to enforce their age standards (the minimum being 16). If this contract were breached by the Nigerian firm, Nike would allow this to become public knowledge to ensure their image would not suffer. To the best of my knowledge this didn't occur, suggesting that there was no agreement in place to avoid child labour. Even if Nike was naive enough to think that the Nigerian company wouldn't use child labour, in my opinion they are still partially responsible.
2. Nike would have agreed on a set amount to pay them for production. Nike would also know how much the raw materials cost, and were most likely informed about the amount of employees the company has. Given all this knowledge, Nike could have figured out roughly how much their employees were being payed. Given that most of the production 'staff' would have been children, earning around $5 a DAY, there is absolutely no way Nike could not have known that the production staff were earning pathetic wages, regardless of age.
3. Repeat offenses: Pakistan, Cambodia and Bangledesh all have Nike factories where children are employed. Need I say more?

The point I'm trying to make is that western economic giants are taking advantage of third world countries such as Nigeria. The greed of Western companies such as Nike prevent these third world companies from developing and freeing themselves from child slavery. How can Nike justify selling top of the line joggers for $150-$300 when the cost of production (minus raw materials) is probably something like twenty cents? Nike has the money to provide decent wages to their production staff, yet they choose to exponentially increase their profit margin.

Herein lies the greatest flaw of economists such as Thomas GeGregori; the prohibition of child labour does not prevent the sort of economic growth that would lead to the cessation of child labour. Were this true, child labour would be declining. Greedy western corporations such as Nike prevent economic growth substantial enough to cease child labour by at the worst encouraging, at the very best, turning a blind eye to child labour.

 

[Zer_]

*an* economist. Not *the* economist. Indefinite vs. definite article.

These quotes look like the kind of fairy tale versions of history that conservatives make so they can then have a straw man to beat up on in making their arguments. Political change--as opposed to technological and economic change--were pretty important in getting children out of the workplace in the developed world.

Both had some factors, but in our world, Politicians look at the overall situation and make changes based on that situation. In the mid 1800s technology started to support more educated workers and thus the need for cheap labour (and child labour) diminished. This is a fact, you can't just refute it as fairy tales. Without proper economic backing politicians have no power to make world changing decisions.

The families of those children in the 1600s also lived better than the families of those working children today. That's why child labor today is exploitative: because it differs fundamentally from the labor done by children in the 1600s. Children in the 1600s had no less bargaining power than adults, and therefore were not more easily exploited than adults. The reason child labor is exploitative is because it is able to target a more vulnerable class of workers.

Are you serious? Are you trying to make me believe that the common peasants from the 1600s lived better then the poor countries of today? Oh I'm sure making a house out of cow dung is all fine and dandy. Fact is most of these peasants had barely any money or food for themselves because they were highly taxed by their "King" not unlike many of the third world countries. It is you who seems to have a fairytale vision of our past. Maybe you didn't consider that it's the child's parents that send their kids into child labour out of necessity?

That's because the machines that don't require a decent education have been shipped overseas. Go back to the 50s and early 60s and you'll find a lot of countries where there were plenty of factory jobs for the uneducated, yet little child labor.

The underlying point of what I said was that it was more useful to have kids with at least a high school education for the overall well being of the industrialized economy. The revolution gave us the means to mass produce products that we needed to survive, thus we spent less time and money on simply surviving and more time on technological growth. I'm surprised you didn't get my point.

And that will ensure the profit of that work is kept in the country. The problem Friedman ignores is that when, say, Mitre hires a child worker, most of that economic growth happens in the countries where the owners of Mitre are located. Anyone else see that RealSports documentary about soccer ball manufacture in India?

The sweat shops are funded by the companies like "Mitre", they are payed by them too. Unfortunately, if the wealth of the world was spread evenly between everyone we wouldn't anything close to our current technology. The same technology that could potentially solve the problems with worldwide poverty wouldn't exist. The world would probably be far worse off as a whole should the world's wealth have been spread evenly throughout the course of history.

Also, Friedman ignores the fact that if children are working and can't go to school, you'll never have real economic growth. Think the Celtic Tiger could have happened if the Irish weren't as well educated as children as they were?

Oh right, so that's how the uneducated masses of the developed countries fueled the Industrial Revolution. It only took a handful of educated people to bring our first world society to where it is, the rest are just laborers that learned to use technology that was already developed.

That's like saying 'sorry--you can't have this cure because you'd need another medicine to counteract the side effects'. Why not just give both medicines--bans on child labor AND a public school program?

Yeah let's all share the wealth and the overall condition of the world would be worse then it is. The population growth wouldn't slow down, in fact it would most likely increase. The overall problem of starvation would get much worse and then NO ONE would be able to solve the issue. I'd much rather have scientists with a solid backing researching things like GM crops at a pace that could actually have a hope of alleviating a starving world.

No, one needs to look at basic history. At the same time Belgium was developing, the Belgian Congo was being run as one big slave plantation by King Leopold. While the Great Potato Famine was going on, England was getting imports of beef from Ireland. England would have been glad to benefit from slavery in the Southern U.S. if not for the Civil War/Reconstruction.

Undeveloped countries have not developed because of colonialism--the reservation of any sort of development for the metropole, and the use of the peripheral territories as little more than markets to dump the production of the metropole in unequal exchange for the raw materials of those regions. That legacy of colonialism also meant that decolonization left these countries with broken or non-existent political institutions. Look what happened even in a 'developed' country like the former Yugoslavia when political order broke down.

The only reason England had the power to colonize other countries in such a way was because they came from a geographically superior location. If we just looked at history, then the US as a colony wouldn't have rebelled because they were being exploited just like the many other colonies at the time. Also, countries at the time colonized other parts of the world in search of more resources, not because they needed them but because they just wanted to wave their E-Peen around saying they found a continent that has an abundance of beavers to be made into furry little hats. It was all about power.

I'm pretty sure Sweden is a difficult place to live, yet they seem pretty developed.

Sweden is an export-oriented market economy featuring a modern distribution system, excellent internal and external communications, and a skilled labour force. Timber, hydropower, and iron ore constitute the resource base of an economy heavily oriented toward foreign trade. Sweden's engineering sector accounts for 50% of output and exports. Telecommunications, the automotive industry and the pharmaceutical industries are also of great importance. Agriculture accounts for 2 percent of GDP and employment.

Why would a drop in the supply of labor lead to a drop in price if demand remains constant?

Our prices would go up, but that's not important. The fact is the economic situation wouldn't get any better if we just left these countries alone. When a sweat shop is opened, the person who reaps the most profit in the third world countries are the rich. The workers in the sweat shops make money to live, but they're still very poor.

The solution to this problem doesn't lie in giving all these undeveloped countries money. That money just ends up back in the hands of the rich. The solution lies in giving the people the means to first be able to supply their own food and housing, and giving them the means then to develop their economy on their own.

There are those scientists like Norman who are going out there and giving these people the means to be self sufficient. Through the research they do in our first world countries they learn of better methods in supplying the basic needs of survival, and they then pass on those capabilities to the third world countries.

 

[Zer_]

*snip*

And do you think a global ban on child labour will end poverty? Do you seriously think that?

In the 1600s farmer's children didn't go to school, they stayed home to learn the trade of their father, usually it involved farming. Child labour existed in our undeveloped worlds, much like it does in Yugoslavia's undeveloped world. Such is the main point I was trying to get across.

And your right, reproduction does decrease in richer societies. But spreading the wealth doesn't change the overall reproduction rate of the world, it just evens it out. Another fact that you seem to have ignored is that should the world's wealth be evenly spread, the base problem of starvation would still be there. Child labour would then exist abroad instead of being generally restricted to third world countries.

Also, we can't feed the world's population. Currently we can only feed about 2/3rds of the world's population.

Also, the subject of giving money to undeveloped countries is wholly relevant the the issue, because children work in sweat shops because they don't have a choice. 1+1 is also 2. Some people have argued that the solution would be to give third world countries money to fund development, except that would just be a quick fix that would not solve the underlying problem.

I'd much rather have all the children in the world going to school instead of being essentially forced into child labour, but I don't see child labour as the real problem. It isn't, child labour is an effect of the real problem, which is essentially a countries inability to sustain itself.

A countries' inability to sustain itself is mostly caused by the lack of local resources to fund economical growth. That comes down to geography. The very planet we live on is the absolute source of the overall issue, of course there's no way we could have realistically prevented this without making it worse. The reason a country like England is able to exploit another is because the former has a better economical backing then the latter.

The question of weather child labour is better than poverty when applied to our current global situation just doesn't work. Child Labour is caused by the need for child laborers to support a poor economy. Fact is, families send their children into child labour because the alternatives are much worse. Could we pay these laborers more? Yeah sure, we could, but the problem would still be there. It wouldn't change much, though because these people still wouldn't have the ability to sustain their own economy.

 

[johnman]

A few people mentioned the problem of the kids not knowing their rights. This is not a problem because the kids don't have any.

The problem over here is now kids have to many rights.