Child labour better than Poverty?

[JMeganSnow]

However more fertile the Arabian Peninsula may have been back then, I still think it was more difficult to live there "then say North America."

You are aware that nearly all of North America was considered inhospitable terrain by the European colonists? The first colonies on most of the continent starved. New England in particular is TERRIBLE terrain, FULL of granite rocks that make farming a nightmare.

The value and livability of a given stretch of land depends a lot more on applied intelligence and work. Africa is poor because a lot of the culture and government on that continent militates against both applied intelligence and invested work.

 

[Zer_]

However more fertile the Arabian Peninsula may have been back then, I still think it was more difficult to live there "then say North America."

You are aware that nearly all of North America was considered inhospitable terrain by the European colonists? The first colonies on most of the continent starved. New England in particular is TERRIBLE terrain, FULL of granite rocks that make farming a nightmare.

The value and livability of a given stretch of land depends a lot more on applied intelligence and work. Africa is poor because a lot of the culture and government on that continent militates against both applied intelligence and invested work.

Didn't they actually learn from the local Indians on techniques at better farming the local lands? I think they did, I mean farming corn aside.

They simply considered it inhospitable because they didn't have any experience in farming the land to begin with. Bringing crops from Europe to America and expecting it to be all fine and dandy is like trying to get a goat to live underwater.

 

[JMeganSnow]

You are aware that nearly all of North America was considered inhospitable terrain by the European colonists? The first colonies on most of the continent starved. New England in particular is TERRIBLE terrain, FULL of granite rocks that make farming a nightmare.

The value and livability of a given stretch of land depends a lot more on applied intelligence and work. Africa is poor because a lot of the culture and government on that continent militates against both applied intelligence and invested work.

It also helped when they got some real organizers (John Smith) instead of well-meaning dipheads, too, but large portions of the continent really couldn't be settled until the 1900's, heck, large portions (most of Canada) still aren't; it's just too damn cold.

The *desirable* land used to be full of mosquitoes and yellow fever, too. Turning wilderness into habitable territory is no joke, and every step along the way is fraught with incredible difficulty. If companies or individuals are willing to invest, they should be lauded, not condemned.

Didn't they actually learn from the local Indians on techniques at better farming the local lands? I think they did, I mean farming corn aside.

They simply considered it inhospitable because they didn't have any experience in farming the land to begin with. Bringing crops from Europe to America and expecting it to be all fine and dandy is like trying to get a goat to live underwater.[/quote]

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Never mind the Timurids, Mongols, Sejuluk and Ottoman Turks, Sassnids, Fatmids, hell, even Rome itself was built directly next to a marsh with little in the way of resources. Greece and Macedonia have piss-all in terms of resources. Japan has few. The UK has few. Most of Europe has few. Overseas Empires do not emerge from nations with resources, but generally from those without.


And while I agree with JMeganSnow (for once) that even corporates have the right to make money to stay in business, I would stipulate that there are certain moral codes that we live by that supercede the profit motive. I would stipulate that fraud is considered unacceptable by most people, so we do not permit fraudsters to commit fraud to make a profit. Likewise, we regard paying people barely enough to survive and employing children as unacceptable, in particular when said company recently recorded some of the most obscenely high profits in the world.

This is not a matter of intervention threatening the strangle private enterprise. This is not a matter of companies being 'forced' into these practices. This is a matter of inefficent, nepotisitc management, coupled with unreasonable, unethical greed. That's all it is. Gluttony of the highest order. There is no 'need' for them to operate in other nations, nor to employ child labour. What there is is a 'want' to sustain absurdly high profits without regard for the long-term consequences. And what is this?

(In a voice booming from the heavens, bringing fire and destruction to all) MARKET FAILURE


And once again, I begin to see communism as not a bad idea. Thank you, multinationals. You just set my economics back by several years.

 

[742]

sweatshops and assembly line? no.
an apprentice system that gives kids a chance to DO something and feel useful, keeps them off the streets/battlefield and gets them money while teaching them? yeah sure why not. but if all the adults are out of work then clearly, they should be working instead.

also, corporations dont have rights. people have rights, animals have rights, corporations do not. but i actually agree: if they cant support the kids, they shouldnt fucking have them.

 

[odatnarat]

i think it would be better to just let children work than suffer in poverty haha at least children are working, there will be no hunger, maybe just give them what they deserve and not abuse the children..

 

[Mursam]

Question: If the working conditions are so bad (which it's fair to say that they are), then why do the children work there?
Answer: Because the alternative (starving) is infinitely worse

 

[Alex_P]

Question: If the working conditions are so bad (which it's fair to say that they are), then why do the children work there?
Answer: Because the alternative (starving) is infinitely worse

That's a false dilemma.

Especially since it's the "first world" that is creating some of the conditions for child labor in the first place.

-- Alex

 

[EzraPound]

As for Nike: companies have to make money to stay in existence and they probably can't afford the bad PR of associating with child labor--even if it's the only thing keeping those kids from starving. They were intelligent enough to cut their losses; that's hardly a black mark against them. The only wrong in this situation is the people who condemn a practice without bothering to understand what it is or why it comes about.

Yes, except it's hard to solely assess the matter as being as simple as those irresponsible activists causing kids who work for Nike to starve - if the orthodoxy of the post-Reagan capitalistic structure, for example, leads the IMF and World Bank to pressure countries to reduce social provisions which curtail their immediate living standards in order to procure loans vital to development (and I concur that Laissez-faire economic approaches can sometimes help build a country, but nonetheless) then the inevitable result - for example, child labour laws being relaxed - can be often chalked up to the retarding of social stability where it wasn't necessarily required.