Re: e$: The Demographic "Transaction"

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

Before I get started, let me point out that the "demographic transition" is
standard fare in sociology classes. Lots of stuff on the Web about it (do a
search of that string with Alta Vista, for example, and you'll see 1000
hits).

At 7:37 PM 7/29/96, Bart  Croughs wrote:
>At monday 29 july, Arun Mehta wrote:
>
>
>>As I see it, having more children makes sound economic sense when
>>you have child labor. You feed the child for 4-5 years, after
>>which it contributes financially to the family for the rest of
>>its short life. More stringent enforcement of anti child-labor
>>legislation would help. Increase in life expectancy is also good,
>>because then you need fewer children as insurance.
>
>The only effect of more stringent enforcement of anti child-labor
>legislation is to harm the children involved. You may think that the
>millions of families in Third World countries who are too poor to provide
>for their children, will be magically become rich enough to send their
>children to school once the anti child-labor legislation will be enforced.
>This is not the case. When the

(end quote...Bart, your lines are apparently way longer than 72-80 characters!)

What I want is for the world's billions of children to have mandated
benefits comparable to what the children of the elite in America have! And
if there is not enough money to pay for this standard of living, we can
just print more!

(I would never let _my_ children, Biff and Buffy, interrupt their tennis
camp experiences by working a job for less than what they will eventually
earn as management coaches and wellness advisors, and I will work to ensure
that children in Third World nations are not similarly disgraced by doing
manual labor. And if they and their families go hungry as a result of my
principles, they will have won the moral victory. And a few of them might
even advance to the finals at Forest Hills!)

--Tim May

P.S. Since many on the CP list seem to miss signals, this piece reflects my
views that the current outrage over "child labor" will merely end up
killing a bunch of children who otherwise might have earned enough to eat.
Food is not simply distributed for free, and if children cannot find work
in Kathy Lee's Sweatshop Apparel Factory, and assuming that "tennis camps"
are not the alternative, the effect of First World holy righteousness will
be killing off a lot of these kids. Maybe not such a bad thing, given the 7
billion world population. Even better, of course, would be adopting a
laissez-faire approach.

Me, I wear linen/cotton shirts produced in Bangla Desh, probably by hordes
of poorly-paid Bengalis. But, since the likely alternative for them is
sitting in the mud swatting horseflies and watching the water buffaloes
until starvation eventually claims them, I feel great about wearing "slave
labor-produced" goods!

And why can't we work to outlaw the "manufacturing sector jobs" in the U.S.
economy, the ones that only pay $22 an hour for boring labor? After all,
$22/hour is hardly enough to send Biff and Muffy to tennis camp, let alone
the proper prep schools, let alone the $250K needed to send them to a good
Ivy League school. These blue-collar workers are being exploited by the
capital class and need to be liberated from these jobs.

Let them eat cake.

--Tim May

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