should child labour be legal?

[A18]

You just defended child prostitution, you sick bastard.

[opebo]

You just defended child prostitution, you sick bastard.

Sure.  It is the highest and best use, as determined by the Market.  Wasn't this in your economics class?

[Rob]

Sure.  I know one way they could make a hell of a lot of money.

That actually made me laugh.

As for whether or not child labor should be legal, I would say yes, with reasonable restrictions on work hours.

[Bono]

Uh, no.  At age 5 you should playing with your friends, not going off to work eight hours a day.

Oh yea? Go ask a poor child what he prefers?
Playing?
Or food?

If a child's family is so impoverished that the child cannot be fed, are you honestly suggesting that you think that sending the child to work for a living at age 5 is the best option?

Hopefully you think it's better than letting the child starve to death?

See, here's where the libertarians and I part ways: if a family is so impoverished that they can't feed their child, I honestly don't really think that it's overly intrusive to ask those who do have money to spare a few bucks to ensure that the child doesn't have to choose between having to starve to death and having his childhood ruined, perhaps beyond repair, at least until the family can get back on its feet.  Would I want to fund every single thing the family does?  No, of course not.  But I can't see what would be so horrible in simply allowing them to have food, especially if they're honestly trying to get out of their poverty.

If a child earnestly wants to get a paper route to earn a few extra bucks, fine.  But sending a child to an 8+ hour per day job, likely against his will - I refuse to believe that this can ever be necessary when we live in such a wealthy part of the world.  Call me a dirty communistic Stalin lover if you will, but I would be able to sleep a lot better at night if the above scenario occurred than if the scenario occurred in which I knew I was forcing a family to send their child into child labor.

Ok, dirty communistic Stalin lover.

[Max Power]

Good Lord no. No, no, no, no, no. Child labour is evil.

Tell that to Kathy Lee.