Dear do-gooders, you can't get rid of child labour just by banning it I think we'd all agree that we'd like the world to be a better place. And I think most of us would, if it didn't take too much effort, support attempts to make it such a better place. There's even some more energetic than I who go out there and do in fact make it a better place: and well done them. However, we do need to, …
Where are all the sensible micro-economists actually advising GovtsG of this?
There are none. Politicians and their evil half twins, the civil service bureaucrats love to impose their structures and ideas, and the job of their "advisers" is to support whatever misbegotten schemes and rules the elite want to push through. In the UK, look at HS2, as a perfect example, but elsewhere it can be well meaning laws and rules as the intended output, because those passing them aren't really concerned with the underlying issue, but want (eg) to claim compliance with some UN treaty that intends to forbid child labour: "Look, we did something to protect the poor".
You can substitute any 1st world country for the UK. The real problem is programs designed to make the promoters feel good rather than actually addressing the problem. The problem the destitute of the world face daily is having enough money (or equivalent) for food and rudimentary shelter. Address the true causes solves the problem. Feel good ideas, as pointed out in the article, almost always do the opposite but the program makes the "do-gooders" feel good about themselves.
What's the point of advising governments of this, since as Tim points out the money doled out by central government disappears due to corruption in such low wage countries (here in the US that doesn't happen, because Newspeak refers to this theft as privatization, lobbying and campaign contributions)
So I wonder if you can go beyond providing dinner and pay kids (or rather, their family) for the kid to attend school? That's great if it removes the incentive for parents to allow their children to work, but may have the unintended side effect of parents having more children simply to collect more checks from the friendly volunteers for the charity providing this.
Perhaps you accomplish this by offering progressively less money the more kids in a family? Ideally you offer them birth control to help them accomplish this goal, but if you want to have the maximum range of charities available for this very expensive undertaking, you probably can't do that as some of the religious ones would not support it.
Children are a huge parental investment, the lost productivity of heavily pregnant females/nursing mothers has a huge economic impact on the family well in excess of any family allowance/child benefit paid.
When you pay your NI or contribute to your private pension, they don't put your money into a pot for you to plunder when you get old, they invest it in the future (via children), the dividends of which will pay for your care, all the money in the world will be no use if there is no one available to wipe your arse when you are incapable.
UK TFR is 1.9, you do the math.
For some reason, I have been pondering on the attitudes of my friends - of the Left and Right persuasion, to discover how they arrive at fundamentally opposing worldviews - or so it seems.
In fact, as far as motivations go, there is no argument. Everyone agrees - left and right - that poverty, lack of education and lack of access to medical care are bad things, as are wars, terrorism and religious and cultural intolerance etc etc.
But its what happens after that, that marks the difference between Left and Right. The Left seems to naively believe that just supporting someone in a position of authority who is against all that stuff, is what will make it all go away. Or ban it, or something.
The right tries forlornly to point out that humanity achieves its population density by organization, and that organisation is almost always a hierarchy, and in a hierarchy some people are always a helluva sight more equal than others, and it doesn't really matter if you have a selective meritocracy or a self sustaining aristocracy, some people need to be trained in running things, and the concept of social equality is rubbish in a hierarchy.
This is the lesson that the Left leaning person never seems to be willing to grow up enough to learn: It is not enough to (be seen to) have your heart in the right place, you also need to have a realistic head on your shoulders, too.
To vote to reintroduce selective education and grammar schools is not to deprive working class children of an education, its to educate the ones capable of absorbing it better than the ones who probably can't, because society needs them, and we cant afford to do it for everyone.
'Socialism' seems to assume a society that is unconstrained by any resource limits. Whatever is desired may be achieved by taxing someone else (who deserves to be taxed of course) channelling it through a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy, and then delivering the appearance of a solution, sufficient to fool enough of the electorate...Or simply by 'passing a law' that makes work for the police and the legal profession, but seldom makes any difference at the street level.
Yes, we need 'socialism' to define what's wrong with society, and where we should be heading, but what we don't need are its 'solutions' because they are naïve, childlike, and utterly impractical for the most part. And usually peddled by cynical men with ulterior motives.
As you say, the key to child labour is to make something else more attractive. Parents don't willingly send kids out to work, they do it because it's the lesser of two evils. Legislation is the tool to counteract a seriously antisocial minority activity that has no place - not to counteract an arguably socially constructive activity that has majority penetration, and definitely has a place, but would be abandoned in a moment if only those who engaged in it felt they had an alternative..
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In theory, grammar schools ought to be a variation on "setting" (separate teaching of children according to ability) within a school year in a school. Seems to be generally acceptable for maths and English. However that's within a school, while there may be differences in the provision of resources in the school between top set and bottom set there are mechanisms in place - head of department, head of year, head teacher, governing body - which ought to mitigate that. Once you set a population of children in a community across schools, the checks are reduced - the LEA and the inspectorate are what stands between equal treatment and "nature red in tooth and claw". Academisation further reduces such checks. Teaching differentials arise, would you rather turn out students with A's or with C's (ignoring that without your help they might have been B's and E's respectively. And thus sink schools.
That sounds a bit like the BS that merged grammar schools with low performing secondary moderns and dragged the brighter students down to that level thus depriving a generation (or two) of brighter working class children from dragging themselves up in society.
And did that action specifically improve the education of the rest? No. But it reduced competition for the output of the "independent" schools.
"....Wilson....." What is it with Lefties and their inability to stay on topic? Wilson and the UK grammar school system is completely irrelevant to Third World poverty and child labour. Instead of looking at the real issue you prefer your staple class war whining.
I also firmly disagree with the idea advanced education is going to save the Third World kiddies from either poverty or child labour as there first needs to be the economic development that provides the jobs for them to use that education in. Outside of the ivory towers of academia - where an unadulterated love of pure education befuddles senses - there is a realisation that has been growing for years that the 3Rs are fine, but teaching Third World kids effective agriculture, animal husbandry and fishing is much more beneficial than advanced algebra and the works of Shakespeare (or Marx). The primary requirement of Third World families is to get out of subsistence farming - where they have to send their kids out to work - and get the economic base established that can then evolve and lead to the next or following generation actually requiring advanced education.
"As you say, the key to child labour is to make something else more attractive. Parents don't willingly send kids out to work, they do it because it's the lesser of two evils. Legislation is the tool to counteract a seriously antisocial minority activity that has no place - not to counteract an arguably socially constructive activity that has majority penetration, and definitely has a place, but would be abandoned in a moment if only those who engaged in it felt they had an alternative.."
But at the same time social hierarchies and what you describe tend to produce momentum that in turn pulls the "haves" and "have-nots" apart. Which eventually causes all the ladders up to either fill or be pulled up, so no more upward mobility. The "haves" become the "have everythings" while the "have nots" become the "have nothings". The "have everythings" can circle their own little pocket of civilization around themselves, permanently cutting off the "have nothings" and leaving them to fester.
And if one has the audacity to say, "Well, that's just how life is. Deal with it," eventually enough people will reply, "Deal with THIS!" and you end up with uprisings, political instability, and shades of anarchy. Which will eventually beg the question, "What's the bloody point of civilization in the first place?"
social hierarchies and what you describe tend to produce momentum that in turn pulls the "haves" and "have-nots" apart.
1/. Is that really so?
2/. So what?
Serious questions. In the Peter Principle the concept that some sort of class (or glass) ceiling was useful in preventing total incompetence in the hierarchy.
There is a point there.
Secondly, the 'class barriers' have always been somewhat permeable, since the days when a good warrior got to be knighted, and got given his land, on the basis he could and would defend it on behalf of the king or queen who gave it to him.
Arguably the class barriers are less permeable today as a direct result of egalitarianism having removed the access to privilege granted to the few on merit, it now being the sole province of those who are part of the monumental public sector gravy train or happen to be born with silver spoons in their mouths.
There is a rather interesting proposition going around in the right wing circles:That in a resource rich society a particular type of social organisation flourishes, namely one that stuffs the system with as many rabbits (so to speak) as possible.
When resources become constrained, a different type of social organisation succeeds - one more disciplined and more socially cohesive. The wolves.
http://anonymousconservative.com/
I leave you to form your own conclusions..
"Yes, we need 'socialism' to define what's wrong with society, ..."
Surely, a 'capitalist' would say, "Look at all these poorly educated children. They are a wasted resource and an indication that more investment is needed in the education system. See all those people who are ill due to smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise; a small amount of money invested in a public education programme would greatly reduce these problems and increase national productivity." Etc.
We need sensible and intelligent people to see and understand what's wrong with society. They seem to be in short supply at the 'top'.
"See all those people who are ill due to smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise; a small amount of money invested in a public education programme would greatly reduce these problems and increase national productivity."
As a comedian once said, "You can't fix stupid." Yet societal sensibilities demand we try to save what lives we are capable, else we be denounced as heartless. So how do you deal with the rejects of society who don't want to learn while maintaining society's good image?
Citizens' income (maintains the image, as well as making lives more bearable), and some kind of incentive towards effective long-term contraception; perhaps pay the equivalent of the benefits they'd be given per-child, times half the average family size, to anyone who has been sterilized? This is on the assumption that they will bring up their offspring to be like themselves, and that not many of those offspring will make the effort to get out of it for themselves.
To take an analogy from the commercial world. The well-educated, fairly health masses who generally work, take a holiday abroad, pay fair bit of tax etc are your successful products. So long as you keep up maintenance of the production equipment, spend a bit on marketing every now and then and generally keep quality control in hand they need no more attention.
The poorly educated, poorly served masses are your low cost but difficult products. You've been making them for years, quality is variable, but they seem to be wanted and it's as more force of habit that keeps you making them. If you spent money on marketing, new production line equipment, followed up with good after-sales service they'd be as good as the rest. But they don't bring in a lot value most of the time so with limited funds it's hard to get the directors* to agree to spend that much on improvements to develop the opportunity.
While reasonable business sense, it's rubbish societal sense. Not that I believe even the baby-eating right-wing arch-capitalists actually think like that. (I hope not.)
* in this analogy - probably the electorate. Obviously the analogy starts to fall apart there.
Of course enlightened self interest is some form of social conscience.
The problem is when you set in motion a system that practices mushroom management from the cradle to the grave, you don't get good people at the top.
Not until democracy - universal equivalent suffrage - is destroyed, anyway.
>what we don't need are its 'solutions' because they are naïve, childlike, and utterly impractical for the most part.
Indeed. What a failure free school dinners, the NHS, affordable social housing, and free schooling have been.
And free university education, when we still had that - before those kehrayzee right wingers told us it was naive, childlike, demanding, and utterly impractical, and we couldn't afford it. (Unlike most other developed countries, which - inexplicably - seem to be able to afford it just fine.)
>'Socialism' seems to assume a society that is unconstrained by any resource limits.
That's bollocks. It's capitalism that believes in the holy creed of infinite never-ending growth, isn't it?
>abandoned in a moment if only those who engaged in it felt they had an alternative
Which is what socialism really is - freedom of choice. Not the fake non-choices defined by so-called free-market capitalism - also known as "Should I starve my student daughter or should she go on the game to pay her fees?" - but genuine, open, freedom of opportunity.
Why else bother making education and school meals free?
@ TheOtherHobbes
"Indeed. What a failure free school dinners, the NHS, affordable social housing, and free schooling have been."
It takes a tough person to accept it but well said. Not that the NHS, social housing or free schooling is a bad idea, just that they get so corrupted that they demand money regardless of the financial availability and then rally against any idea of sustainability as it might cost cosy jobs. The service to the people becomes corrupted to the service of those who can leech 'free' money. The cost to the people is huge in both cost and service.
"And free university education, when we still had that - before those kehrayzee right wingers told us it was naive, childlike, demanding, and utterly impractical, and we couldn't afford it."
That seems to be a revision of history. As I recall it was the centre left labour gov who insisted that a degree was the new baseline for a job (to the detriment of and then realised that every electorate bribe comes at a cost. So pointless degrees (just to get one) were created, tuition fees imposed (although Blair promised they wouldnt) and kids wanting to avoid work do so while racking up debts they dont understand.
"That's bollocks. It's capitalism that believes in the holy creed of infinite never-ending growth, isn't it?"
Socialism assumes infinite resources (or dragging everyone down to the lowest point while corruption lives well) while capitalism assumes infinite ideas. Resources are limited but we have yet to find limits to creativity.
"Which is what socialism really is - freedom of choice."
Since when? Freedom as long as it is acceptable to those in power (no matter what they do behind the scenes) is not freedom. Socialism always seems to turn into an assault on those deemed 'evil' because someone has to pay for the bloating corruption with the expanding size of the state provider because they would never accept cuts to their budget.
As with this article- capitalists provided the means for families to survive. Socialists banned child labour making it harder to survive without more child labour. A charity not the gov provides a capitalistic incentive to send the kid to school instead of work and appears to be working based on the figures in the article.
*Obviously capitalist/socialist is used as exclusives but in the real world we have capitalist with social conscience and the grey areas between the 2 extremes
As an anarchist, I object most vehemently to that sweeping generalisation. I don't "follow" anyone, I'm not a fucking sheep, and there's things where I seem to be the only one who can see the problems (the NHS for example - I have a MASSIVE problem with the NHS. And NICE (permanent holder of the award for world's most ironic acronym)) and this gets me labelled a 'conspiracy theorist' (actually, that's not COMPLETELY accurate, there are many GPs who've massive problems with the NHS and NICE, but they have to keep their yaps shut if they want to continue GPing (the more I read - and learn - about the GMC, the more convinced I am that it's run/controlled by a mafia).
That said, congrats Tim on writing the first article I actually understood - and almost entirely agreed with (though points deducted for the mention of that cunt - him, he who is Jinormously Obese. If you want to try to understand WHY I have a bit of an issue, to put it mildly,with the NHS, then look no further (not that looking further is possible, the twat's so fat he practically eclipses the Sun) - why the fuck the NHS thought that soliciting the advice of someone who owns a chain of Italian restaurants on how to tackle childhood obesity is unfathomable, Italian is probably the most obesity-causing cuisine there is; no, I'm not talking about the butter-and-cream-heavy sauces (that's the healthy bit) I'm talking about all the grainy shite; the pasta, the pizzas, the breads - NOTHING piles on the pounds faster than grainy stodge. The fact that the NHS thinks this wanker is the best person to advise them on how to stop us becoming the most obese nation on Earth says all you need to know about the NHS - it's not serious on tackling (childhood) obesity, because it needs fat kids to become obese adults, to keep 'em drugged for life. If it started feeding kids a healthy high-fat/low-carb diet, they'd not grow up to be adults at risk of developing heart disease, which would mean they wouldn't require statins, which would mean all those at NICE, and within the NHS who are basically nowt more than sales-droids wouldn't get their big, FAT, Brucie Bonuses.
Cholesterol DOESN'T cause heart disease, eating fat DOESN'T make you fat, ALL carbs are sugar, INSULIN causes OBESITY - four truisms the NHS doesn't want you to know.
That's why they need Jowly Wobliver - who better to convince kiddies that a bowl of birdseed is the perfect start to the day…?
No idea what you're talking about but enjoyed the rant so have an upvote.
I consider myself to be an AnarchoSyndicalist, apparently 'we' have a magazine http://syndicalist.us/ I find the tale of hijack by vultures and destruction by fire to be particularly heartrending. (I only discovered the mag by googling my speeling)
What do you think of SEMCO in Brazil and Mondragon in Spain ?
When discussing provision for children, perhaps one should take the trouble to distinguish between actual children, and strapping teenagers classed as children under first-world laws and conventions. I understand the Indian law mentioned applies to kids below 14.
Do we still have child labour in Blighty? Or have we banned things like the paper-round and the weekend work at the market garden that my generation did to earn a bit of pocket-money? As you say, the real consideration is yes-to-school rather than no-to-work, and there are valid questions around how much of each are healthy and indeed mutually compatible.
As for dealing with poverty, the one thing that really matters is to bring birth rates down.
"As for dealing with poverty, the one thing that really matters is to bring birth rates down."
Last I checked, birth rates are a symptom, not a cause. Third-world countries have more children to have more hands for labor as well as raise the odds some of them survive to care for the parents in their old age. In first-world countries, neither are such a concern, so the idea tends to be to concentrate on a small number of children to give them better attention.
In the Philippines poorer urban families would like to limit their number of children - particularly so they can afford to send some to school, Beyond a certain number they become an uneconomic burden on the family. However the Roman Catholic bishops have blocked a Government scheme to provide free reliable contraceptives. Even the Pope on his recent trip said that they should limit their families and not "breed like rabbits". However his idea of an ideal number of children is a minimum of three - and more is better as long as the mother doesn't die prematurely. He avoided the question of how those families limit their size when their dogma approved methods are already failing.
Young people, on average, can't curb their instincts. It doesn't really matter why or whether they should. On a large scale, birth control through abstinence is a dismal failure. The people who push it, Pope included, are driven by ideology. Pragmatically, it's a failed policy, it should be scrapped, and frankly I don't know how anyone could think it could work. We can't even get people not to get drunk.
"Anyway, once you get out to the provinces and more agrarian areas, the convention comes back into play."
The worldwide trend is migration from rural areas to urban ones. As the rural farming practices are modernised then fewer people are needed - and the chance of employment in new industries is in the cities. Japan is resorting to all sorts of incentives to stop some farming from dying out with the current elderly generation who are left in some rural areas.
That is what happened in the UK with the Industrial Revolution. The enclosures, and efficient machines like Jethro Tull's seed drill, were a push factor. Heavy industry and its satellite services in the city were the pull factor. The same has been happening in China for a while now - and in much of the developing world.
"Why can't young people curb their instincts?"
Erm, BECAUSE they're teenagers who almost by definition will (a) want to experiment with new things (b) are even more attracted to stuff that you tell them is forbidden and (c) are raging hormone-storms.
Also, to put a more scientific point on it, the part of the brain where self-control comes from is not fully developed until around age 25. So this type of behaviour is inbuilt and hardwired.
More pertinently, why should they?
One thing that is quite strongly correlated with falling birth rates is rising female education rates, so it looks like school dinners could be the answer all round.
When I went back to the university, my introduction to econometrics class' professor was working on determining best predictors for a child's future income. The single best predictor turned out to be mother's education level. There's all sorts of why's can attach to why that is depending on your particular discipline and branch/theology within. I just noted these kinds of things as my faculty adviser's specialty was development.
This is a generational investment problem. Yep, big strapping boys are good tomorrow and in your (peasants') interest. However, if you are really concerned about the grandchildren's prospects, gotta think about the girls (and the girls your big strapping son might marry).
We also need to figure out what we mean by Labour - as in Child Labour.
We'd certainly view it as wrong to send pre-pubescent kids down the mines or working the spinning jenny, but what about other activities?
Consider the six- to ten year old herd boys of Africa who spend a whole day out tending the cattle. Are they child labour?
Or here in NZ, and likely in most European countries, the thousands of children who live on farms and help out with various farm work from gorse cutting to tailing lambs.
Finding the right place to draw the line is pretty difficult.
>As for dealing with poverty, the one thing that really matters is to bring birth rates down.
You are putting the cart before the horse. I'd refer you to the excellent Han Rosling lecture from last week:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5JiYcV_mg6A
Haven't checked the YouTube clip linked here but the ultimate conclusion of the lecture when it was shown on BBC2 was that ending what the UN define as extreme poverty seems to be the tipping point in lowering birth rates to sustainable levels. It also pointed out that this was potentially achievable at comparatively low cost.
Before I reached the words in the article, I'd thought of a permutation on the theme. It probably counts as market distortion and therefore wouldn't work, but here goes.
Free school meal means that the cost to the subsistence family of sending a child to school has to be at least net neutral. Calories "earned" by child at school = calories they would have generated scratching dust in a field or stopping goats wandering off. the education is an as yet intangible return but as pointed out education has to be good so parents accept that. What if - and we'll call it an incentive to encourage take up/compensate for the energy expenditure of the journey to school - we add a bonus by sending child home at end of school day with a handful of the local carbohydrate of choice? Would this 'profit' get banked and increase survival chances at times of crisis and therefore accelerate progress away from subsistence.
That's an intervention that has been tried. I want to say in Peru but that's only from memory.
Works very well too. Here's your family benefit, continues only if the school attendance record does. Addressing the same trade off for the parents and solving it, even if in a different manner.
Do note though, Peru is hugely (6x or so) richer than most of Africa. Don't know whether that is important to this or not but wouldn't surprise if it were.
@BobRocket
Why food instead of cash? Corruption.
If you pay cash, how do you know some of that isn't bribing whoever takes the register to say the kids are there when they're out working? If you have to be there to eat, well, you have to be there, so you might as well learn a thing. If we assume all calorific needs are met by school attendence, not just a single meal, then you have to be there at the start, the middle, and the end of the school day.
In the 1920/30s the school leaving age in England was 14 - unless you were bright enough to pass the school certificate a year early at 13. This meant that it was intelligent working class children who were most likely to be put into menial work at that age. See the opening chapters of James Hanley's 1931 novel "Boy" for a harrowing description.
In some cultures as household income rises it is the father who gets more leisure time and the money to finance his pleasures. Household wealth may also be accumulated in order to provide a dowry to effectively sell off their daughters who are regarded as a liability. One daughter is often retained as an unpaid servant to her ageing parents - a practice common in the UK until about the 1970s.
Back in the early '90's when I was studying for economics, micro-lending by the Grameen bank to women was interesting in just that manner. Women were far more likely to invest the returns into the family, not spend it on their own leisure. [Which speaks volumes about sex differences even if that is politically incorrect.] Women invested in the household, usually not in their leisure which is one of the aspects that caught my attention. Degreed in economics, never did complete graduate school (health collapsed), but the sex-linked differential in to what was done with the proceeds was striking, which was why your post caught my eye. Definitely 'politically incorrect' but I've always had a blind spot there.
At the time, micro-lending was shiny, shiny. Besides, I like systems that you can instrument (systems engineer before econ) and that was why micro-lending caught my eye.
I tend to argue that this is also something that happens as a result of development, not as a cause of it. Poor societies have two features: high child death rates and the economy runs on human muscle power. Thus women need to have many children and they are severely disadvantaged in the economy by both that and the lack of muscle heft.
A more developed economy has much lower child death rates and also jobs that aren't reliant upon muscle power (even basic textiles and sewing machines provides this). Agreed, it's not all one way but I do generally argue that it is economic development which allows female emancipation and education.
When it comes to that area, especially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you have to cautious about generalizations. The internal economy of the household can, and often is, strikingly different from the public facing economy. In a way, the striking contradictions about the way they separate the two (conflicting) economies is what fascinates me about their society. [Mom's being an anthropologist certainly didn't help when it comes to my academic eye.]
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