Why Do Child Labor Laws Exist?

Corporate laws and regulations exist because no industry can be entirely trusted to self-regulate. Big Tech and Big Agribusiness are no exception.

Child labor in the United States, 1909. Photo courtesy: Preus museum. Library of Congress; National Child Labor Committee Collection.

Trust. But Verify.

Q: Why do child labor laws exist? A: Because they must.

Have you heard? Big Tech can’t be trusted. It’s time for regulation. Yeah, no kidding.

Almost nothing is ever all good or all bad. Conservatives who think government regulation is the very devil and progressives who want the government to regulate everything are both wrong.

If you are a conservative who was influenced by the literary works of Ayn Rand, I can sympathize. Yet, you might have noticed a key character missing from her novels, and from her whole corresponding philosophical system.

In review, Rand’s work pits the noble entrepreneur/inventor who just wants to give the world his idea and be compensated fairly for it against greedy, entitled elites who think they have the right to a share of the products of the entrepreneur’s labor based solely on the merit of society’s need.

“Need equals entitlement,” is the basic premise Rand was challenging. She calls into question the accepted nobility of characters like Robin Hood. No matter the high-mindedness of your motives, she argues, you are not entitled to…