> Imagine making the same argument for 7 year old chimney sweeps in Victorian England
That's quite an extreme example you got there, but as a former child worker myself I feel qualified to push back. I did hard physical labor at a warehouse at the age of 13. [1] This was a key opportunity in my life. With the money I earned from this hard labor I bought my first computer that helped solidify my computer science career. I could then spend a lot more time [2] on computer contract work, which meant I moved up the class system significantly with my finances.
So whenever I hear of these think of the children arguments, I think back to my own origins and how these protections are also mechanisms for preserving class hierarchy and making sure that children of less well off parents don't make any progress during their earlier years. To force the children to accept the lifestyle and means of their parents as a reality of their own lives.
That said, normalizing full time working instead of school isn't great either. I personally only worked summers (3 months of school break where I'm from) and so working didn't impede my school education. Thus I think better child labor laws would allow working when it doesn't interrupt school work. Unfortunately the child labor laws that I encounter are always blanket statements based on age.
--
[1] The local child working laws didn't allow this back then already. I was lucky enough to be matched with a warehouse manager who didn't care too much about child working laws.
[2] I had already started my computer contracting work before I ever got my first computer. I used public computers to do this work, e.g. a public free internet point at the local hospital. Not ideal and very limited usage time, but when there aren't other options it's great.
From a certain POV, most great people in tech engaged in a lot of child labour. However, we should be careful with such an argument.
Yes, high walls (like minimum wage, child labour laws, etc.) prevent the most extremely poor from competing with everyone else. Those are probably worth building though, if social welfare programs exist.
The natural tendency of competitive processes is to throw away all values in pursuit of the win; in the end, someone has to set a floor.
That's quite an extreme example you got there, but as a former child worker myself I feel qualified to push back. I did hard physical labor at a warehouse at the age of 13. [1] This was a key opportunity in my life. With the money I earned from this hard labor I bought my first computer that helped solidify my computer science career. I could then spend a lot more time [2] on computer contract work, which meant I moved up the class system significantly with my finances.
So whenever I hear of these think of the children arguments, I think back to my own origins and how these protections are also mechanisms for preserving class hierarchy and making sure that children of less well off parents don't make any progress during their earlier years. To force the children to accept the lifestyle and means of their parents as a reality of their own lives.
That said, normalizing full time working instead of school isn't great either. I personally only worked summers (3 months of school break where I'm from) and so working didn't impede my school education. Thus I think better child labor laws would allow working when it doesn't interrupt school work. Unfortunately the child labor laws that I encounter are always blanket statements based on age.
--
[1] The local child working laws didn't allow this back then already. I was lucky enough to be matched with a warehouse manager who didn't care too much about child working laws.
[2] I had already started my computer contracting work before I ever got my first computer. I used public computers to do this work, e.g. a public free internet point at the local hospital. Not ideal and very limited usage time, but when there aren't other options it's great.