How Fiscal Conservatives Justify Child Labor, and How the Rest of Us Ignore It

Benjamin Powell is director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University and Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute libertarian think tank. In an interview he not only defends but promotes sweatshops and child labor, claiming that children are more likely to turn to prostitution if better jobs aren't available to them.

It almost sounds noble when framed as a lesser-than-two-evils scenario. Powell neglected to mention that before sweatshops came to undeveloped countries, most families lived off of subsistence farming, not child prostitution. Third world urbanization is largely influenced by multinational corporate interests, pushing agricultural economies toward manufacturing. So in many cases, Powell's claim is simply not true. And in the cases where it is true, it's a false dilemma.

There's a third option: Higher wages. If companies paid adults enough to provide for themselves and their children, then there would be no need for anyone to turn to desperate means of income. The only downside to this option—the one so many capitalists carefully ignore when making a "moral" argument for child labor—is that corporations and shareholders won't make quite as much money. Their prices would increase marginally. And that's it. That's the cost of minimizing child labor. Less profit.

A suggestion: Ask the children what they want. Ask their parents. Ask their community. Don't ask a dispassionate economist who's only analyzed data from afar.

Another argument making the rounds is that countries need to go through a child labor phase because that was the history of modern industrialized nations. False equivalence. That was before a globalized economy. That was before multinationals searched the world over for the cheapest labor. At no point did massive foreign corporations build, own, operate, or import almost exclusively from sweatshops in the United States to sell petty goods like athlete-endorsed sneakers and pop star t-shirts.

Of course, none of this applies to the anti-globalization capitalists. But mom and pop stores have been in steady decline. If the "Made in America" brand of capitalists were supporting small local businesses, there can't be very many of them. Unless, that is, they don't practice what they preach.

Ignorance is probably the greatest contributor of all. Do we consider the conditions of the workers who make the things we consume? Do we care? Because if we do, we need to be conscious of the companies we support. We need to educate ourselves about their business practices and regard for human rights.