In Defense of Child Labor
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
"When youth factory work was restricted by an unholy combination of upper-class bleeding
hearts and socialists, it was the kids who suffered. Since they had to live, and since
they would do anything to avoid the social workers, the youngsters were forced to look
for usually lower-paying and more dangerous work in the countryside."
Legal Child Abuse
by Wendy McElroy
"In Third World countries, parents often cannot provide the basics of life for their
children, who must trade their labor for sustenance. The greatest act of benevolence
is to recognize their right to contract and to work in the same manner as adult rights
are respected. Anything that interferes with the self-sufficiency necessary for their
survival is child abuse."
Paid and Unpaid Labor
July 30, 2009
by Art Carden
"Legislation has outlawed "child labor" in the United States in various manifestations
for decades, yet child labor persists for several reasons and through many different
channels."
Protest! (For No Good Reason)
by Walter Block
"Why did Western Europe allow child labor during medieval days? It is easy to
understand, even for those now in the process of attaining a college education.
Societies that allow these practices are simply too poor to afford to prohibit them.
To deny children the right to work in fifteenth-century England or in
twenty-first-century Chad is to consign them to death. Not very 'progressive.'"
The Trouble With Child Labor Laws
February 11, 2008
by Jeffrey A. Tucker
"In the end, the most compelling case for getting rid of child-labor laws comes down to
one central issue: the freedom to make a choice. Those who think young teens should do
nothing but languish in classrooms in the day and play Wii at night will be no
worse off. But those who see that remunerative work is great experience for everyone will
cheer to see this antique regulation toppled. Maybe then the kids of America can put
their computer skills to use doing more than playing World of Warcraft."
Sweatshops: Look for the INS Label
July 1, 2000
by Wendy McElroy
"Papers proving a worker’s eligibility for employment became mandatory in the United
States under the Immigration Reform Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. IRCA requires employers
to complete an I-9 Form for “new hires” in order to record the documents that establish
the worker’s employment eligibility. Immediately, undocumented workers became vulnerable
to abuse. For example, if an undocumented employee protests a breach of contract,
he (or members of his family) can be reported to the INS."
The Labor Market
by Ludwig von Mises
"What makes the worker a free man is precisely the fact that the employer, under the
pressure of the market's price structure, considers labor a commodity, an instrument
of earning profits. The employee is in the eyes of the employer merely a man who for
a consideration in money helps him to make money. The employer pays for services
rendered and the employee performs in order to earn wages. There is in this relation
between employer and employee no question of favor or disfavor. The hired man does not
owe the employer gratitude; he owes him a definite quantity of work of a definite kind
and quality."
Labor Standards or Liberty?
September 28, 2009
by Art Carden and Joshua Hall
"International labor standards are going to make things worse, rather than better, for
the world's poor. If you want to help poor people, restricting their options and
opportunities is not the answer."
The
Gambling-Stakes Paradigm for Loans and Labor Contracts
by Roy Halliday
Slavery contracts of all kinds, including voluntary slavery contracts,
should not be enforced in libertarian courts. Instead, libertarians
should adopt the gambling-stakes paradigm as the basis for labor contracts,
loans, and other contracts about future events.
Labour Day: What Are We Celebrating?
by Jason Clemens and Patrick Basham
"Human labour, imagination, and the right institutions, have given us a previously
unimaginable prosperity and standard of living."
Labor Relations
by Dr. Mary Ruwart
The good doctor answers the question, "Would a free market produce the bad
conditions commonly associated with the Industrial Revolution, such as low wages
and monopolies?"
Liberty and Labor
October 1998
By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
"What would happen if we scrapped the entire apparatus of federal
labor law and allowed relations between workers and bosses to be
governed solely on the basis of contract, like any other market
transaction?"
Liberty for Labour
by George Howell
"The multiplication of laws is perilous; each new Act, almost of necessity, creates the
need for further. legislation; it propagates itself, until newer circumstances arise to
render it obsolete or useless. We have too much law, and too little justice. Additional
law will scarcely tend to augment equity, in the true sense of the term. Therefore,
instead of increasing the bulk of statute law, or extending it in newer directions, of
bringing it to bear upon labour, in the manner proposed by its recent advocates, the
object rather should be to curtail it, to simplify it; to codify that which is useful and
approved; to repeal what is bad and mischievous, and to give a fuller freedom to the
faculties of man in all that is noble and good."
Politicians’ Abuse of the Working Class
August 30, 2000
by Paul Craig Roberts
"Most hunters and gun owners are people in the working class. Thanks to public education,
their children no longer respect them. Abortion and "sex education" have brought them the
shame of promiscuous daughters. Feminism has made it possible for their wives to walk
out on them at will and dispossess them in the process. Racial minorities favored by
Democrats have gained preferments at their expense. The payroll tax and income tax
prevent them from saving and leave them dependent on the very government that
undermines them."
Why Not Deregulate Labor?
by John A. Davenport
A favorable review of Deregulating Labor Relations by Manuel Johnson,
James T. Bennett, and Dan Heldman.
Workers and Robots
by Hans F. Sennholz
"We may at times despair about our political institutions that are feasting on and
squandering our economic substance. Governments may be laboring diligently to maintain
the status quo by erecting obnoxious barriers to change at every turn. And politicians
who are aware that children have no votes may want to burden them with our debts. But
the computer revolution, this incredible achievement of American inventors and
entrepreneurs, is nourishing an imperturbable faith in a brighter tomorrow."
Sweatshops and Third World Living Standards: Are the Jobs Worth the Sweat?
September 27, 2004
by Benjamin Powell and David Skarbek
"In this paper we compare apparel industry wages and the wages of individual firms
accused of being sweatshops to measures of the standard of living in Third World
economies. We find that most sweatshop jobs provide an above average standard of
living for their workers."
Sweatshops: Look for the INS Label
July 1, 2000
by Wendy McElroy
"When New York Governor George Pataki signed path-breaking anti-sweatshop legislation in
1996, he stated, “In no small measure, this bill is going to be signed this afternoon
because Kathie Lee Gifford and Frank Gifford made this a personal crusade.” The
legislation holds liable manufacturers and retailers who knowingly purchase, ship, or
deliver goods produced by sweatshops. Such legislation will do nothing more than drive
labor practices further underground where abuse can flourish unseen."
Third World Work in the Apparel Industry: No Sweat?
June 7, 2005
by Benjamin Powell and David Skarbek
"economists point out that alternatives to working in a sweatshop are often much
worse; oftentimes scavenging through trash, prostitution, crime, or even starvation
are the other choices workers face."
Why the World Needs More Sweatshops
by Dr. Michael Walker
"Sweatshops bring investment, which is the key that will unlock the chains of poverty in
which billions of the world's poor are ensnarled."
A Primer on Jobs and the Jobless
by Walter Block
"But as a society, we can insure that everyone who wants to work has a chance to do
so by repealing minimum wage laws, comparable worth rules, working condition laws,
compulsory union membership, employment protection, employment taxes, payroll taxes,
government unemployment insurance, welfare, regulations, licensing, anti-peddling laws,
child-labor laws, and government money creation. The path to jobs that matter is the
free market."
Unemployment
by Ludwig von Mises
"Unemployment in the unhampered market is always voluntary."
Unemployment by Legal Decree
by Bettina Bien
"Modern politicians, who try to legislate high wages, should realize that such laws
help cause unemployment among the workers “covered.” It is a basic economic truth that
goods or services priced higher than the market warrants must inevitably remain
unemployed."
Bastiat and Unionism
by Charles W. Baird
"Although unionism was a new phenomenon in the first half of the nineteenth century,
Bastiat saw that it was nothing special. It could and should be subject to the few
simple rules of classical liberalism. That it wasn’t made generations of workers
worse off than they otherwise would have been."
Can Labor Unions Restrict Wages in a Free Market?
by Murray N. Rothbard
"Whereas wage rates on the nonunion labor market will always tend toward equilibrium
in a smooth and harmonious manner, its replacement by collective bargaining leaves the
negotiators with little or no rudder, with little guidance on what the proper wage rates
would be."
Is There a Right to Unionize?
by Walter Block
"My opposition is not merely to violence, but, rather, to "violence, or the threat of
violence." My position is that, often, no actual violence is needed, if the threat is
serious enough, which, I contend, always obtains under unionism, at least as practiced
in the U.S. and Canada."
Labor Relations, Unions and Collective Bargaining: A Political Economic Analysis
by Walter Block
Labor's Day Is Over...
September 6, 2009
by Daniel Griswold
"Labor leaders blame the decline on union-busting corporations, years of hostile
Republican rule in Washington, and a flood of imports from low-wage countries such
as China, but the main reason behind the decline of private sector labor unions in
recent decades is the anti-competitive nature of unions themselves. Like a virus,
labor unions have been slowly sapping the lifeblood of the very industries and
companies that employ their members."
Labor Unions
by Ludwig von Mises
"If unions were really bargaining agencies, their collective bargaining could not
raise the height of wages above the point of the unhampered market. As long as there
are still unemployed workers available, there is no reason for an employer to raise
his offer. Real collective bargaining would not differ from individual bargaining."
On Freedom of Association
July 2002
Charles W. Baird
"The NLRA violates individual workers’ freedom of association in two ways: forced
representation and forced payment of agency fees. First, under the principle of exclusive
(monopoly) representation, when a union has been approved as bargaining agent by a
majority of workers on a job, that union also becomes the bargaining agent for those
workers who voted against the union, as well as for those workers who didn’t vote.
Individual members are even forbidden to represent themselves. Other freedoms guaranteed
by the First Amendment, such as freedom of religion and freedom of speech, are not
subject to majority rule. Neither should freedom of association be subject to majority
rule."
On Labor Unions
by Percy L. Greaves, Jr.
"In a free society, labor unions, like other organizations, would be voluntary groups
trying to advance the interests of their members. They would abide by the laws and seek
no special privileges or immunities. Unions that offered employers the most competent
and reliable workers, who were willing to work for competitive free market wage rates,
would grow and prosper. Labor unions that offered incompetent workers, insisted on
featherbedding, or other unnecessary or costly conditions and demanded higher wage rates
than competent non-union members would willingly accept would soon fade away. Certainly,
in a free society no group should or would resort to violence, coercion or special
privileges to obtain what it seeks."
The Philosophy of Strikes
by William Graham Sumner
"If a man is dissatisfied with his position, let him strive to better it in one way or
another by such chances as he can find or make, and let him inculcate in his children good
habits and sound notions, so that they may live wisely and not expose themselves to
hardship by error or folly; but every experiment only makes it more clear that for men to
band together in order to carry on an industrial war, instead of being a remedy for
disappointment in the ratio of satisfaction to effort, is only a way of courting new
calamity."
Public Sector Unions
by Walter Block
"If the state is so wonderful as all that, why the need for a public sector union, all
of whose members have the benevolent government as their boss?"
Strikes and the Industrial Organization
by William Graham Sumner
"There is no rule whatever for determining the share which any one ought to get out of
the distribution of products through the industrial organization, except that he should
get all that the market will give him in return for what he has put into it."
The True Line of Deliverance
by Auberon Herbert
"The workman has simply to care about the increase of the product, leaving the market
to arrange the proportions that come to him. They will be increasingly in his favour. It
is indeed to the workman more than to any other person that free-trade is of vital
importance. The man who wants to be protected is the second-rate employer, with backward
methods, who feels that he is being squeezed out by the better methods. One can only be
very sorry for his position, which is often a hard one; but to protect him is to
sacrifice general prosperity."
Unionism II
by Walter Block
"When the rapist orders the victim to carry out his commands, this is illegitimate
hierarchy. When the conductor orders the cellist to do so, this is an aspect of
legitimate hierarchy. I oppose unions not because they are hierarchical, but
because the scabs have never agreed to carry out their orders."
Unions and Violence
by Morgan O. Reynolds
"We cannot declare that this is a free society until everyone is free to accept the
best available offer for his or her labor, best in that person’s own opinion, free from
threat, regardless of how much these decisions supposedly harm the higher-income-people
represented by union officials. The benefits of unionism do not outweigh the costs of
union violence. There are no benefits from unionism for the great mass of working people,
only costs. Unions are not public servants that offset the excesses of capitalism, but
sectional interest groups with coercive privileges."
Workers and Unions -- How About Freedom of Contract?
by George C. Leef
"If we restored the market process to labor relations, workers would be able to contract
for just the representation services they wanted with organizations competing for their
favor. That would be the most pro-labor piece of legislation imaginable. It would
probably lead to an abrupt reversal of those declining union fortunes. It would usher
in a new era of cooperation and prosperity. And most importantly, it would restore to
American workers a long-lost freedom -- the freedom to make their own choices."
The Yellow Dog Contract: Bring It Back!
by Walter Block
"The Yellow Dog Contract is an honorable contract. It states that one of the conditions
of employment is that the worker agrees not to join a union. It is no different, in
principle, from the requirement that if you come visit someone in his house at his
invitation, you must wear a funny hat, or agree not to associate with anyone he
specifies, say, an enemy of his. In each case, that of the firm, and the private home,
the one making this "demand" is exercising his rights of free association."
EXTRA! CEOs Earn More Than Us
Winter 1999
by Wendy Shalit
"Instead of squashing CEO earnings so that they're closer to the level of ordinary
workers, why not declare that everybody be paid CEO-level salaries? Why not make the
minimum wage $1,000 per hour, so that everybody can be a millionaire? Oops, now there
are no more jobs around. All the minimum wage does is tell us that it's illegal to
employ anyone whose services are worth less than the minimum wage. Raise it, and you
simply increase the number of workers whom companies are forbidden to hire."
The Forgotten Man on the Minimum Wage Issue
by Michael Hayes
"The minimum wage provides a classic instance of what William Graham Sumner
called "the forgotten man" in his classic work, What Social Classes Owe to Each
Other:
The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and
B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice
of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice
in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate
effects on society through C’s interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the forgotten
man."
Ideology and the Minimum Wage
November 01, 2006
by Pete Geddes
"Laudable intentions, however, won’t alter one simple fact: minimum wage laws can
set wages, but they cannot guarantee jobs. Those who ignore this are the genuine
ideologues."
The Illusion of Living Wage Laws
October 15, 2009
by Bill Barnes
"Many residents of Athens have been trying to implement a living wage in the community
for some time. These efforts are largely supported by the faculty, staff, and students
at the University of Georgia, in Athens. Focusing on some of the least-skilled workers,
I show why the living wage would not have any positive impact on the poor in Athens and
why a higher mandated wage could further impoverish them."
Inhumanity of the Minimum Wage
April 1955
by Paul Poirot
"If a minimum wage is set high enough to have any effect, that effect must be a closing
of the market to those persons least capable of earning a living. For the minimum wage
denies such persons the right to offer their services for what they are worth."
The Justice of Pay Discrimination
by Michael Tennant
"If A and B each agreed to work at the wages they were being paid, then there is no
injustice in paying A more than B for equal work."
The Madness of the Minimum Wage
June 21, 1996
by Robert Higgs
"Some have resorted to demagoguery by comparing the earnings of minimum-wage workers
with those of corporate CEOs. But can we justify kicking a kid off the bottom rung of
the job-experience ladder because corporate executives make millions? Do we really
display compassion for the poor by outlawing the jobs some of them hold? Is it better
for a person to hold a low-wage job or to live on welfare or drug-dealing?"
Maximum Confusion over Minimum Wages
October 28, 2009
by D.W. MacKenzie
"Common sense and a few basic concepts can guide most people through economic
issues — provided that our thoughts overshadow our emotions."
Minimum Wage Hike Won't Solve Poverty
by Sylvia LeRoy
"Activists may claim that a "living wage" of $10 an hour is needed for Ontario workers to
begin to escape poverty, but their analysis is faulty."
Minimum wage laws are immoral.
Socialism finds home in Santa Fe
July 22, 2003
by Tibor Machan
"It is morally and should be legally
wrong for anyone to intrude on people doing trade with each other. And that
holds even when some are very well off and others aren't. Coercion isn't
supposed to be the way to remedy economic inequality, hard work and prudent
deals are."
Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly
by Walter Williams
"Unfortunately, some of Oprah's facts on minimum wages are wrong."
Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly
March 2007
by Walter E. Williams
"Mandated wages are one of the most effective means of pricing one’s competition out of
the market, and historically, mandated wages have been one of the most effective tools
in the arsenal of racists everywhere."
Minimum Wage—Maximum Nonsense
June 21, 2006
by Benjamin Powell
"Minimum wage laws hurt the low-skilled workers they are intended to help. Raising the
minimum wage hurts these workers even more. No matter how many ways economists say it,
politicians, even those supposedly sympathetic to free markets, are content to peddle
this harmful policy again and again."
Minimum Wage, Maximum Stupidity
July 13, 2009
by Peter Schiff
"The only way to increase wages is to increase worker productivity. If wages could be
raised simply by government mandate, we could set the minimum wage at $100 per hour and
solve all problems. It should be clear that, at that level, most of the population would
lose their jobs, and the remaining labor would be so expensive that prices for goods and
services would skyrocket. That’s the exact burden the minimum wage places on our poor
and low-skilled workers, and ultimately every American consumer.
Since our leaders cannot even grasp this simple economic concept, how can we expect
them to deal with the more complicated problems that currently confront us?"
Minimum Wage Means Minimum Jobs
July 29, 2009
by John Stossel
"The media are never better at displaying their economic illiteracy than when they
report on the minimum wage."
Minimum Wages For Women Only
April 5, 2001
by Clifford F. Thies
"This paper reviews the experience of the first-in-the-nation Massachusetts minimum
wage law, which applied to women only, in light of contemporary minimum wage theory,
and using the heretofore underutilized annual survey of manufacturing then conducted
by the state. Consistent with contemporary minimum wage theory, the law is found to
have reduced employment of women, increased employment of men and of capital, and
eliminated "slack time" for women workers. Examining changes in the distribution of
wages in several industries subject to wage decrees from 1914 to 1922, in four, where
the wage decrees clearly raised wages, the wage decrees were followed by substantial
losses of jobs for women workers, ranging from six percent in the laundry industry,
to 14 percent in the brush industry. Results varied in the other two."
Mother's 'Work' Doesn't Warrant Paycheck
May 9, 2006
by Wendy McElroy
"When you define the value of family meals in terms of cold cash, then you've lost the
importance of what's really going on. When you convert acts of love into acts for
profit, you've lost at life itself."
Outlawing Jobs
by Murray N. Rothbard
"In truth, there is only one way to regard a minimum wage law: it is compulsory
unemployment, period. The law says: it is illegal, and therefore criminal, for anyone
to hire anyone else below the level of X dollars an hour. This means, plainly and
simply, that a large number of free and voluntary wage contracts are now outlawed and
hence that there will be a large amount of unemployment. Remember that the minimum wage
law provides no jobs; it only outlaws them; and outlawed jobs are the inevitable result."
Power to Which People?
December 6, 2004
by Allen R. Sanderson
"In a free society shouldn’t one be allowed to offer his or her services to a labor
market for under some specified minimum or living wage, including $0.00 per hour? There
are real advantages in acquiring on-the-job training, work experience, and developing
personal habits like punctuality, motivation, dependability and interpersonal relations."
The Price is Right
October 3, 2005
by Allen R. Sanderson
"People who are uneasy about relying on prices and market mechanisms—"This is too
important an issue to be left to the marketplace."—fail to understand and appreciate
the beneficial effects of prices and the full costs of relying on alternatives. In
fact, the opposite case is generally more compelling—the more important something
is (the environment, education, health, catching a criminal), the better to leverage
the power of prices and self-enforcing incentives. The fault is generally not that
we resort to price, but that the price is too low."
Repeal The Minimum Wage
October 16, 2009
by Art Carden
"It wastes resources and hurts the poor."
Should Profits Be Shared with Workers?
June 1, 1997
by Dwight R. Lee
"Unless workers are willing to take the losses that are inevitable in business activity,
as well as the gains, the argument that fairness requires that workers share in the
profits of their firms is an empty one. Many workers, and their representatives who call
for sharing profits with workers, seem to believe that fairness means Heads I win, tails
you lose. All workers are better off, and treated more fairly, when most profits are
retained by firms to expand the production of goods and services that consumers are
communicating with those profits that they want more of."
The Ugly Truth About the Minimum Wage Law
by Jim Cox
"If raising the minimum wage from, $4.25 to $5.15 is so good for low-income people, why
stop there? Why refrain from an even greater generosity, an even more livable wage, and
an even greater fight against poverty? Why not raise the minimum wage to $10 or even $100
an hour, so everyone can be well-off!"
Wage Gap Reflects Women’s Priorities
September 22, 2004
by Wendy McElroy
"The inequality of outcomes is not an indication of injustice, because justice resides
in every individual receiving what he or she deserves. Employees who compete with
equality of opportunity deserve whatever they can negotiate from an employer based on
their merits and his needs. That’s justice."
Wages
by Ludwig von Mises
"Man deals with other people’s labor in the same way that he deals with all scarce
material factors of production. He appraises it according to the principles he applies in
the appraisal of all other goods. The height of wage rates is determined on the market in
the same way in which the prices of all commodities are determined. In this sense we may
say that labor is a commodity. The emotional associations which people, under the
influence of Marxism, attach to this term do not matter. It suffices to observe
incidentally that the employers deal with labor as they do with commodities because the
conduct of the consumers forces them to proceed in this way."
Wages, Unemployment, and Inflation
May 1958
by Ludwig von Mises
"Businessmen are under the necessity of turning out what the consumers ask for and they
must sell their wares at prices which the consumers can afford and are prepared to pay.
A business operation is a manifest failure if the proceeds from the sales do not
reimburse the businessman for all he has expended in producing the article. Thus the
consumers in buying at a definite price determine also the height of the wages that are
paid to all those engaged in the industries."
Why Wages Rise
by F.A. Harper
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This page was last updated on November 5, 2009.