United States Heading towards a Depression?

Dude, that's several hundred kids. We're talking about a workforce that numbers in the millions.

 

Work conditions are often not ideal in China.

It was the same in the US and England when they were industrialized.

The Chinese system has just as many faults as any other.

 

Exactly.

I love how some expect other countries to be up to par with that as ourselves 'the US' even when they are behind us as many countries are.

We had child labor last I heard, workers in dreadful conditions when we industrialized.

 

The chinese run educational labor programs through middle and high schools that use child labor in factories.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/12/03/china17461.htm

I don't think that the child labor is a significant part of the econony. The rural areas are quite poor and most people only get by on a couple of dollars a day.

 

Not saying they are.

This is propaganda.

Without a doubt. Maybe more. Personally, I get a kick out of how they have to do everything with massive amounts of labor because they don't have the capital goods after years of Communism.

I called this propaganda up post. Apparently, child labor was declining long before the industrial revolution in the west. It is/was most prevalent in agrarian society. The reason why we have been taught to believe child labor was another evil the New Deal fixed is strictly propaganda. It was already being worked out of society naturally. The New Deal brought in regulation which improved the unemployment #s, driving kids who worked (willingly) out for adults who were on the unemployment rolls.

It's a lot like "the gold standard caused the Depression" when Ben Bernanke admitted to Milton Friedman that the FED caused the Depression. But if you ask Johnny on the street, 99 out of 100 will say it was the gold standard or something else.

 

I thought some of you may like this.

http://www.pickensplan.com/

 

smatts, look how sophisticated they are with their marketing. They even have a social component for the Pickens Plan (in footer)

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@ GRIM / Hon Daddy Dad, here is some more info on child labor
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/whaples.childlabor

Excerpt

Of course, no one is allowed to say that capitalism, industrialization and technological advance brought child labor to an end. Nope, only the government can do it! Pass a law to change something that was already changing! Now that's legislative redundancy!

 

I don't believe that is entirely true. And what's with this effort to justify the cruelty in China by comparing apples to oranges?

 

I didn't intend to mean that the government was needed to solve it, simply that we did have child labor problems in our country as well was my only point

Sort of like the argument others have against other countries for not allowing woman to vote, we ourselves didn't for much of our history. Not all nations are on the same advancement period as we are.

 

Most of the children have lost their jobs to outsourcing and illegal aliens

 

I think the difference is that in our country, we not only recognized these issues, but solved them, much faster than anyone else.

We've come a long way in 232 years IMO. Never perfect, but always moving forward.

I was watching "John Adams" last night and you could see as then, President Adams and his wife were entering the still under construction White House; being built by slaves.

It was an interesting social commentary that I am sure the writers intended to reflect upon the viewer. It was easy to see the anachronism in a "WHITE" house, being built by BLACK SLAVES, for a newly "FREE" nation.

Abigail Adams made a comment (though I'm not sure it was necessary as again, if you did not feel what went unsaid - there is likely something wrong with you) to the very fact that the White House was being built by slaves.

I wonder if she really did say that, or if the writers used artistic license in that regard to further nail home that point. I wonder if any of the founders of the "Constitution" recognized that obvious and ironic point?

Whatever the case, my point being - it took a very short time in our overall history to overcome a lot of unjust and inhumane behaviors. What's the crime in helping others to see the err of their ways? Would you do the same with your child? Blow it off and say, oh well, I did it too... Just let them find out on their own and it will correct itself? Or would you at the very least make a concerted effort to afford them the common courtesy of a little advice, prodding and help?

 

Point made GRIM. Sorry, it seems like I'm arguing with you lately. I'm just a little frustrated, and it's a problem on my end.

@Mia,

The reason why we have advanced? It's not democracy because we're a Republic. It's not government, because there are and have been more heavily bureaucratic countries.

In my opinion, it's capitalism, a sense of laissez-faire, and an opportunity, perhaps the greatest one so far in the history of mankind, to allow the free market to wipe out social injustice and crime, and replace it with growth, prosperity and innovation. For too long, the market, capitalism and free enterprise have been the bad guys by the Marxist New Dealers.

Those of us who know, know that a hand up doesn't come from welfare. It comes from the explosive combination of opportunity and hard work.

 

And that same capitalism has spread amongst China as well... The problem is, their government is anything but a Representative Republic. They claimed and claim to be... First Republic, then the People's Republic, both of which are far from the truth.

The only thing missing in China's advancement is a change from the tyrannical communist dictatorship into a country where the people choose their elected officials.

Without that, no amount of capitalization or industrialization will ever make a difference in their social development.

 

I would argue that the advancement is happening regardless, as capitalism, and private property ownership is slowly starting to take hold. Voting is a joke. The Soviets held open elections. The party always won. The CPC holds elections, the party always wins. Here, we have party A and party B, both do the same stuff, there is no difference. The party always wins.

Being able to own the fruit of your labor, that is the key. The more the Chinese people produce and own, the quicker their social advancement will be, and I forsee them overtaking us in a couple generations.

 

No problem, if you disagree with something I say, or I am wrong I'd prefer you say something

 

I disagree. The richer a population becomes the less prone it is to cruelty such as child labor. These types of actions are driven by a scarcity mentality which becomes less prominent when people become richer.

That's why you have more things like child labor, slavery, terrorist acts etc in poor countries compared to rich countries.

 

I hope you realize that not all child labor was coercive in origin. In many cases, it was a matter of practical survival. As people became more prosperous, and innovation occurred along with the increase and accumulation of capital goods, the need for child labor is reduced.

You should better define "poor". I consider socialist systems poor. Public ownership of the means of production usually means that those capital goods fall into disrepair and are not replaced with respect to their value to the economy because a socialist centrally planned economy cannot calculate market prices (supply and demand).

 

There are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today - more than any other time in history. Most of these are children who are sold to other 'rich' families who have them work in the house and out on the farm.

I wasn't referering to the New Deal but the time when American and England went from Agrarian economies to Industrial economies - hence industrialized.

This was more the late 1700's to early 1900's.

Even though there are technologies that are available to Chinese citizens that didn't exist back in those times China and India are going through a similar transition now. As I understand it even though these countries have massive cities the majority of the populations are still rural.

Child labor seems to be less of a problem than India but who really knows what goes on in China.

 

Poor is someone living off less than $2 per day. Terms such as socialism and capitalism become meaningless when you're in that situation.

 

Democracy is not necessary for capitalism to operate well. Just look at Dubai and Singapore. The only suck thing about a dictatorship is you might be unlucky and get somebody who has no clue about the types of policies to implement like Mugabe.