05-25-2023, 02:53 PM
Child labor is one of the classic marks of a premodern economy. Much of the social progress of industrialized societies has been in getting kids out of the fields, mines, and factories and into school and onto the playground. Child labor does not allow children to be real children. To become genuine adults, children need to be children.
Children as young as 14 working in bars? Do you want children to work in alcohol-rich environments complete with the normalization of drinking? Good reason exists for having the drinking age at 21 (OK, 25 would be more appropriate because people are not physically adults until 25 or so even if they have the intellectual sophistication of adults long before then). Fourteen? And exposed to the promotion of booze and booze-sodden behavior? The kids are then deemed too young to drive a car!
Teenagers should have their work hours limited. Family hardships? Maybe we need more welfare and disability payments. It is wise to keep kids from full participation in the materialism of American commerce; they will get plenty of opportunity for that in adulthood. Flashy clothes and impressive electronic goodies for a teenager, or solid preparation for post-secondary schooling? Which do you think will create more prosperity in the long run?
The rest should be obvious.
Children as young as 14 working in bars? Do you want children to work in alcohol-rich environments complete with the normalization of drinking? Good reason exists for having the drinking age at 21 (OK, 25 would be more appropriate because people are not physically adults until 25 or so even if they have the intellectual sophistication of adults long before then). Fourteen? And exposed to the promotion of booze and booze-sodden behavior? The kids are then deemed too young to drive a car!
Teenagers should have their work hours limited. Family hardships? Maybe we need more welfare and disability payments. It is wise to keep kids from full participation in the materialism of American commerce; they will get plenty of opportunity for that in adulthood. Flashy clothes and impressive electronic goodies for a teenager, or solid preparation for post-secondary schooling? Which do you think will create more prosperity in the long run?
The rest should be obvious.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.