How is your wife?

Compared to what. That old joke is often forgotten by people who argue against capitalism and freedom. They believe, maybe honestly, maybe not, that the state can dictate a better life for all without any costs to anyone. This fantasy is recently shown in this video:

For fairness, I am against child labor in almost all settings but certainly not 100% which will be discussed later. What the person in the video fails to understand that life is not a game of ideals, it is a game of comparisons. First he paints child labor as a 12 year old chained to her dangerous and deadly sewing machine, it might not be. For example, I bagged groceries at 15 or 16 (don't quite remember). That, technically is child labor.

That being said, let's look at the scenario this person is likely talking about. An impoverished child working long hours for little pay. This is terrible and quite said, but might be preferable to other choices. For example, some children in Africa choose to work instead of becoming children soldiers. Some children in Latin America choose work over starving.

Would I want my child to work compared to get a wonderful education, going to an Ivy league school, get a Rhodes scholarship and win the nobel peace prize? Of course not. That is likely not the choice facing most of these parents. It is the hard choices that this person willfully chooses to ignore. It is work or be sold into slavery. It is work or starve and watch your family starve as well. Lastly, it is work or be a soldier. Would I prefer my child to work in those situations? Likely yes.

Listen, I wish these tough choices didn't exist. The fact is that corrupt and ineffective governments create bad situations for a lot of people. These bad choices result in bad outcomes which are all-too-often blamed on capitalism as a whole. Also note that his solution would be for an increased role of the state. The state will take the choices away from the parents and the child. Instead of my child choosing to work so he can eat, he is unable to do so. He must start because the state has declared it so. He must become a child soldier or he must be enslaved. These people's terrible positions already leave them with few choices, and unfortunately, the person in the video wants to take away even more.

For anyone interested Peter Leeson from George Mason and University of Chicago has done some great work on this. While I disagree with some of his conclusions (I am a minarchist not an anarchist) his work is interesting and should be read. He deals with the fact that strawman arguments are put forth to defend the state.