Chapter 32. The Employer of Child Labor.
High on the list of the enemies of society, one can always find the employer of child labor.
Cruel, cold-hearted, exploitative, cunning and evil.
In the public mind, child labor is almost equivalent to slave labor,
and the children's employer is no better than the slave owner.
It is important to correct this view. Simple justice demands it, for the majority opinion on this question is completely fallacious.
The archetypical child labor employer is as kindly, benevolent and filled with the milk of human kindness as anyone else.
Moreover, the institution of child labor is an honorable one with a long and glorious history of good works.
and the villains of the piece are not the employers, but rather those who prohibit the free market in child labor.
These do-gooders are responsible for the untold immiseration of those who are thus forced out of employment.
Although the harm done was greater in the past when great poverty made widespread child labor necessary,
there are still people in dire straits today.
The present prohibitions of child labor are thus an unconscionable interference with their lives.
The first plank in the defense is that the employer of child labor has not forced anyone to join his employ.
Any and all labor agreements are completely voluntary.
As such, unless they were thought to be mutually beneficial, they would not be agreed to.
But in what sense can a labor contract with a child be completely voluntary? Does not complete volunteerism imply an awareness that a child is not capable of?
To answer this question, consideration should be given to a proper definition of what a child is.
This is an ancient question, which has never been fully resolved.
Nevertheless, we shall consider several ages which have been suggested as dividing the
child from the adult, analyze them, and then offer an alternative.
Among the earliest ages for the cut-off point between childhood and adulthood are those
proposed by the various religions.
The age of confirmation into the religion, which usually occurs in the very early teens
is the age at which many religions define adulthood.
But the person, child, at, for example, age 13, also is, except in rare instances, still
immature, relatively helpless, and ignorant of the skills necessary to care for himself.
So it must be rejected.
The next candidate for adulthood is age 18.
We may start off by questioning whether or not fighting in wars is an adult action.
All too often, going to war is virtually the opposite of behavior usually indicative of
adulthood.
Also, merely following orders, the be-all and end-all of the enlisted soldier, cannot
be considered an adult paradigm.
In addition, there is the problem that the draft, an involuntary institution if ever
there was one, serves as the very basis for the order-taking that follows.
At least if the original decision to obey orders was made on a voluntary basis, such
Such as the decision to join an orchestra, and then to follow all musical orders of the
conductor, there might be some adult-like behavior involved in the draft.
However, based as it is on original involuntarism, even so much cannot be said for the 18-year-old
draftable age.
Another problem with the 18-year cut-off point is that the original reason for our search
was the fear that a mere child would be unable to make voluntary contracts on his own.
How then can we base such an age on a patently involuntary institution such as the draft?
Perhaps the latest candidate for adulthood is the voting age, 21 years old.
But even this is open to harsh criticism.
There is, first, the problem that several, if not many, ten-year-olds have a greater
grasp of political, social, historical, psychological and economic factors, presumably the factors
that enable one to vote wisely than do many people over the age of 21.
One would then think that if this were true, there would be some recognition of the fact
in the form of a movement to enfranchise all bright 10-year-olds, or rather, all bright
children of any age.
But this would defeat the original goal of allowing only adults to vote.
Through this circularity of reasoning, we can see that the age of 21 is only an arbitrary
cut-off point.
We can likewise see all other arbitrary definitions of adulthood to be without merit.
What is needed is not an arbitrary age limit which will apply to all people regardless
of ability, temperament and behavior, but rather a criteria which can take all these
qualities into account.
Moreover, the criteria should be consistent with the libertarian principle of self-ownership
of property, namely homesteading.
What is wanted is an application of the principle of homesteading, which establishes self-ownership
and ownership of property, but applied now to the perplexing problem of when a child
becomes an adult.
Such a theory has been put forth by Professor Murray N. Rothbard.
According to Rothbard, a child becomes an adult not when he reaches some arbitrary age
Age Limit, but rather when he does something to establish his ownership and control over
his own person, namely when he leaves home and becomes able to support himself.
This criteria, and only this criteria, is free of all the objections to arbitrary age
limits.
Moreover, not only is it consistent with the libertarian homesteading theory, it is but
The Theory has several implications.
If the only way a child may become an adult is by picking himself up and establishing
It should be noted that this theory of the passage from childhood to adulthood is the
only one consistent with the problem of mental deficiency.
According to the specific arbitrary theories of adulthood, a mental incompetent aged 50
ought to be considered an adult, even though he manifestly is not.
These theories then come up with further arbitrary ad hoc exceptions to fit the case.
But the mental incompetent is no embarrassment to the homesteading theory.
Since he has not been able to seize ownership and adulthood of and for himself, the mental
incompetent of whatever age is simply not an adult.
The most important implication of the homesteading theory of adulthood is, of course, the one
regarding the prohibition of so-called child labor, where a child is defined as someone
with less than a certain arbitrary number of years.
For this prohibition of so-called child labor, as in the case of parental interference with
the child's decision to leave home, will effectively remove the possibility of voluntarily becoming
an adult.
If a person of tender years is effectively prohibited from working, the option to leave
home and to support himself is removed from him.
He is then excluded from homesteading his own adulthood and must perforce wait until the
arbitrary number of years defining adulthood has been reached.
However, the adult homesteading theory does not require employers to hire young persons
who are trying to establish their adulthood.
It is of course true that unless some employer hires such a person, he will find it as difficult
to Become an Adult as in the case where his parents forbade his departure, or the government
prohibited it.
But the key difference is that the voluntaristic nature of the passage from childhood to adulthood
will not be infringed upon by employers refusing to hire young people.
This is so because true voluntarism requires voluntary action on the part of both parties
to an Agreement.
The employer as well as the employee must agree.
In any case, since there can be no positive obligations unless the individual himself
contracts for them, and the employer has made no advance commitment to employ the youngster,
there is no moral obligation on the part of the employer.
Teachers will, of course, employ young people when they feel it is to their advantage to
do so, as they have always done when not prohibited by law.
Not only is it important to end prohibitions of employment of children for the sake of
their peaceful and voluntaristic transition into adulthood, it is also of overriding importance
to the small but growing kid liberation movement.
The prohibition against job opportunities will have to be ended if children are to be
truly liberated from their parents while in residence in the parental abode.
Of what value is the right to leave the family household and seek a living outside if a youngster
is prohibited from supporting himself?
The right of every kid to fire his parents if they become too onerous is completely compromised
by the Laws Against Child Labor.
Can a labor contract with a mere child be truly voluntary, given his tender years, lack
of experience, etc.?
The answer is yes.
A person, any person who has had the ability to leave home and to attempt to earn his own
living is mature enough to enter into a contract on a voluntary basis, since such a person
Man is a child no longer.
The opposite answer, as we have seen, would effectively bar young people from striking
out on their own and becoming adults through homesteading.
Their only alternative would be to wait until they have reached whatever arbitrary number
of years society in its infinite wisdom has determined to be necessary for adulthood.
There are other objections, however, to the legalization of child labor.
It will be said that a destitute youngster, even though an adult through homesteading,
will be taken advantage of by employers, that the employer will make profit from the plight
the youngster happens to find himself in.
But it would be far more harmful if his one source of support, however bleak, were legislated
out of existence.
Despite the fact that the employer might be cruel, the job menial and the salary low,
it would be far more injurious to forbid him the opportunity.
If there are other, more favorable alternatives, the young person will avail himself of them,
even if the law allows the choice of accepting or rejecting the unfavorable job.
If there are no other opportunities, the laws prohibiting child labor will take from him
this one opportunity, however unfavorable.
In a free market society, the employer will not be able to take advantage of the misery
of the young worker, if by this it is meant that he will not be able to pay him less than
his marginal product.
As we have seen in the chapter on the capitalist pig employer, there exist powerful forces
on an open market which will tend to force all wages up toward the level of productivity
of the worker in question.
However destitute and helpless the youngster who is looking for work may be, it is not
the fault of the potential employer.
Even if the destitution and lack of bargaining power of the worker were very extreme, and
even if the employer were able to take advantage of this, as we have seen is not the case,
it would still not be the fault of the employer.
If anything, the unfortunate situation would have to be blamed on the background of the
ex-child.
The question arises as to what degree the parent is obligated to support the child.
As a general principle, the parent has no positive obligations whatsoever in regard
to the child.
The argument to the contrary, that a parent does have some positive obligations toward
the child, based upon the supposed contractual nature or voluntary decision on the part of
1. All children are equal in rights due them from their parents, regardless of the way
in which they were conceived. 2. Specifically, the child who is a product of rape has as
many obligations due him from his female parent as any other child. We assume that the male
Well parent, the rapist, has gone.
No matter what views we have on rape, the child who is a product of such rape is entirely
guiltless of this crime or any other crime.
3.
The voluntary nature of child-rearing and conception does not apply in the case of rape.
4.
Therefore, the argument that the parent owes some obligations to the child, which arise
is out of the voluntary nature of the conception, or out of an implicit contract, cannot apply
in the case of rape.
That is, in the case of rape at least, the female parent owes no positive obligation
to the child because she did not consent to its inception.
Five, all children being equally guiltless of any crime in spite of any theory to the
and the contrary, such as original sin, have equal rights due them from their parents.
Since all such rights supposedly flow from the voluntary nature of conception, and the
children born of rape manifestly lack this voluntary aspect, they at least have no rights
due them from their female parent.
But their rights are equal to those of all other children.
Therefore, no child whosoever has any positive obligations due him from his parents.
Nor is it immediately or intuitively obvious that there are any other grounds for establishing
any parental duties to children.
Given then that nothing but a voluntary agreement on the part of the parent could establish
No positive obligations to children, and that this argument fails, it is obvious that there
are no positive obligations incumbent upon parents toward their children.
No positive obligations implies that the parent has no more of an obligation to feed, clothe
and shelter his own child than he has to serve the children of other people, or for that
matter than to serve other adults who are completely unrelated to him by birth, agreement,
etc.
This is not to suggest, however, that the parent may kill the child.
Just as the parent has no right to kill the children of other parents, he has no right
to kill his own children, or rather children he has given birth to.
The parent, when he assumes the role of parenthood, is a sort of caretaker for the child.
If ever the parent wishes to relinquish this role that he or she has voluntarily adopted,
or not assume this obligation in the first place, she is completely free to do so.
She can offer the baby for adoption, or, in the old tradition of the natural law, leave
Leave the baby on the steps of a church or charitable institution specializing in the
care of children.
But the parent may not secret the baby in a hidden corner of the house without food,
or refuse to offer it for adoption and wait for it to die.
To do this would be equivalent to murder, a crime which must always be severely condemned.
The parent who keeps the child hidden while starving it so as not to actually commit violent
murder upon it has renounced his caretakership or the parental relationship others might
be willing to assume.
Perhaps the parental caretaker role may be made clearer by entering it into a hierarchy
of homesteading.
The child falls into a realm between that of another adult and that of an animal.
If one adult helps another, he cannot, by that help alone, come to be the owner of the
other person.
If an adult domesticates an animal and, through his own efforts, brings the animal into productive
use, productive for mankind, he can thereby come to own it.
The child, an intermediate case, can be owned through homesteading, but only on a caretaker
for example, be an absentee landlord or animal owner.
If he discontinues his homesteading operations with the child, he must then either offer
it for adoption if it is too young and helpless to fend for itself, or he must allow it to
run away to set up its own life if it is able and willing.
If the parent brought up the child with just enough help and aid to qualify as a continuance
of Homesteading, but no more.
And if the child is in a relatively deprived background, this cannot be laid at the door
of the prospective employer.
Prohibiting an employer from hiring such a youngster will in no way improve his lot.
It can only worsen it.
True, there are parents who make unwise decisions concerning children, unwise from the vantage
The State, too, makes unwise and even unhealthy decisions concerning children, and a child can much more easily leave his parent than leave his government, which rules us all.
It does not follow, however, that the welfare of children will be raised by placing them in the hands of the State apparatus.
The State, too, makes unwise and even unhealthy decisions concerning children, and a child can much more easily leave his parent than leave his government, which rules us all.
We must conclude then that all labor contracts concerning young people are valid as long as they are voluntary, and they can be voluntary.
Either the young person is an adult, whatever his age, who has earned his adulthood and hence is able to consent to contracts,
Or else, he is still a child and is able to work on a voluntary basis through the intermediation of parental consent.