The power of Labor unions has faded since those dark days, and few people (outside of university economics departments) believe in Marxist exploitation theories anymore, but we are still saddled with anti-work laws that stunt young people’s lives.
Instead of harassing small businesses, I have a better idea. Let’s raid the Department of Labor and toss the slothocracy out on the street. Maybe they can get some real jobs in fast-food restaurants. . . as long as they’re willing to compete with America’s young people newly enfranchised by the repeal of all child-labor laws.
34 comments
Because it's not the children of business owners and corporate types who will have to go to work.
I don't know how anyone can advocate repeal of all child labor laws and still sleep at night. They must have a cold, black heart.
*cough, hack, wheeze* When I was your age, sonny, I wasn't allowed to go to work. My parents had to support me until age sixteen. *cough cough* And even then, I could only work certain hours because of them durn lawmakers.
Oh, it's Ayn Rand's lovechild, Lew Rockwell! Hey Lew, everyone who's ever heard of you regards you as a massive douchebag. Why not get one of those burger-flipper jobs you're so anamored of and leave the commentary to someone (anyone!) with half a brain.
The power of Labor unions have indeed faded, but that's because people today take the rights, that the early union workers fought and died for, for granted, and they fail to realize that you have to keep fighting for them, if you want to keep them.
It's not about harassing small businesses - that's not where the huge problems are - it's about forming an equally powerful opponent against conglomerates, who'd like to chew up young and strong workers, push them til they break, spit them out again and leave them to fend for themselves, only to chew up new young and strong workers.
I've had a real job in a fast-food restaurant, and I was a member of the restaurants' workers' union. Now I have a real work as a transport planner, and am a member of an office workers' union.
Repeal all child-labor laws? You really want nine year olds grilling Big Macs and deep frying Fillets O' Fish? What will the fifteen year olds be doing, slaughtering the poor spent dairy cows?
Giant corporations already use children in less developed countires as they please to make as much profit as they can. And they already work their "peons" and clerks into the ground. Like harassing small businesses is even the issue.
Maybe they can get some real jobs in fast-food restaurants
I thought those weren't "real jobs" and were just "stepping stones", hence why conservatives are against giving fast food workers enough to live on. Can you fuckers at least keep your talking points consistent?
the repeal of all child-labor laws
Why don't you take your child labor laws and fuck off to the Victorian era! Oh, and have fun with all of the syphilis and smog (no pollution regulation: it's a conservative's dream!).
I think you'll find that Marxists in universities are seldom found in economics departments; you're more likely to find monetarists.
@Frank
Newt Gingrich did advocate "reform" of child labor laws in his presidential campaign.
If this were still the early days of truck, scrip and company towns Lew here would be Ayn Rand's bootlicker, stopping only occasionally to join the Pinkertons in dropping dynamite from biplanes onto union protestors.
anti-work laws that stunt young people’s lives.
Yeah, 'cause that durn schoolin', that don't do them no good 't all!
For people that continuously bitch about immigrants coming and 'taking their jobs' they sure are quick to demand young children do them instead.
These idiots think that labour laws stopped people from working during the Great Depression when they came about because what few people who had work during the depression were so badly mistreated that risking losing those jobs and starving to death became a more attractive option than keeping their heads down and starving to death anways.
Oh fuck me I read the whole quote. Factory owners of th 1700's the great 'emancipators' of children through labour? Welfare was 'abusive' and not toxic factories with no safety standards, constant fires, daily injuries, goons hired to beat up the kids, and various other crimes against humanity all for laughable pay? Put them to work at age 3?! Fuck the cluebat I'm using the wood kind!
You know what? Set up a paper mill with zero OSHA compliance: rip out the guard rail, no protective equipment, unlabeled chemicals lying around with no MSDS books or proper training, round these assholes up and put them to work for a very generous 2 dollars an hour minus penalties for breaking floor rules (such as losing an entire hour's pay for going to the bathroom too long or too often. Or letting a machine jam or wear out. Or shutting the machines down for any reason i.e. maintainence. Or giving lip. Or pausing to drink water. Or being dirty.) With an old-time taskmaster to literally brain them with a truncheon any time they slow down or slack off and dock them pay for time spent being beaten or limbs trapped in the machines. After about the first dozen maimings/deaths and $40 paycheck for an entire week with all the penalties adding up they might start to see things from a more realistic perspective.
Wait, so to fix the horrible job market you want to put kids to work, thereby shrinking said job market even further? Are you high, or just stupid?
There is such a thing as working too hard. But I bet you're not in any way aware of that because your brain's doing quite the opposite.
This quote and DiLorenzo's quote inspire me to create a new metric for faith in humanity: The rousseau (rou). Everyone starts with 1 rou of faith in humanity and 1 rou of disgust with humanity. The formula for faith in humanity (F) and disgust (D) is FD=1. Of course, ln F could be the logarithmic value as faith and disgust could be considered to be logarithmic. This is the F/D scale. Another metric is strength of attitude toward humanity (A), which is simply F+D. As the F/D scale approaches infinity from both sides, A approaches infinity. At the midpoint (at birth), A=2, its lowest point.
For example, if I have 48 rou of faith in humanity, I have 1/48 rou of disgust with humanity, a score of ln48 on the F/D scale, and an A-value of 2305/48.
If I have 1/e rou of faith, I have e rou of disgust, a score of -1 on the F/D scale, and an A-value of e+1/e.
This is the scale I propose for rating faith in humanity. The quote itself reduced my F/D number by 4. Anyone think their faith in humanity was more adversely affected than mine was?
>Instead of harassing small businesses, I have a better idea
No, but how about this instead: you stop using "small businesses" as a euphemism for fortune 500 companies, and us non-retards will agree to continue to ignore you all the same.
Honestly though, both parties in the US do this. They drone on and on about helping small business, and then support legislation and policies that strangle them, while propping-up the big corporations.
@Hasan Prishtina
"Newt Gingrich did advocate "reform" of child labor laws in his presidential campaign."
Yeah. And look what happened to him. The whole idea of child labor is abhorent to any civilised society so for these people to advocate it puts them outside of civilised behaviour.
This may sound Marxist to you but it really isn't.
I wish you people would just say that you hate unions and labor laws because you can't easily exploit people for extra profit the way that you would like.
I mean you cannot exploit people to the extent that you would like.
Few people IN economics departments believe in Marxism idiot...Sure there may be a few but they're mostly either Neoliberals/Friedmanites etc. or Keynesians. Marxism has more influence over other aspects of universities sure, but not in economics, and even then it's much less influential that it was in the 70s.
Let me get this straight. This fuck is actually supporting this (which BTW I see daily in my city and even in my middle-class neighborhood)?
image
"When the people are ruined to such an extent that there is always a large number of unemployed in the towns and villages, when the factory owners amass huge fortunes and the small proprietors are squeezed out by the millionaires, the individual worker becomes absolutely powerless in face of the capitalist. It then becomes possible for the capitalist to crush the worker completely, to drive him to his death at slave labour and, indeed, not him alone, but his wife and children with him. If we take, for instance, those occupations in which the workers have not yet been able to win the protection of the law and in which they cannot offer resistance to the capitalists, we see an inordinately long working day, sometimes as long as 17-19 hours; we see children of 5 or 6 years of age overstraining themselves at work; we see a generation of permanently hungry workers who are gradually dying from starvation."On Strikes , 1899.
Yeah, great idea, put the kids to weork, eliminate benefits and reduce wages and then everything, hamburgers, cars, rent will cost less.
Like Hell they bloody will. Not one consension to the rich has resulted in lower prices or employee benefit. Look at the Papa Johns Scrooge, he won't give health benefits, he won't raise salaries but he's gone right ahead on raising prices, gotta support mansions and football teams donchaknow.
Trickle down has never worked and never will andputting kids on adult jobs is step one on the way back to serfdom of the masses to benefit the few.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
To post a comment, you'll need to Sign in or Register . Making an account also allows you to claim credit for submitting quotes, and to vote on quotes and comments. You don't even need to give us your email address.
