A LIBERAL SUPPORTING CHILD LABOR

Free markets are often given a bad name by liberals and no where is this more so then in the seemingly obvious cases of child labor and price gouging. The basics of capitalism are hard to escape even for liberals who have creatively tried so desperately since the accidental confluence of FDR and Karl Marx. I have never seen anyone concede the basics of capitalism more poignantly than Nicholas Kristoff, one of the most intelligent NY Times op-ed knee-jerk liberals ever, when he had to admit through tears that he supported child labor where he had personally been on assignment to see the alternative.

The alternative was not wealthy mercenary parents who wanted to profit from their kid's labor, but rather orphans who scavenged in disease ridden garbage dumps in bare feet in hopes of finding something valuable enough to sustain themselves, and perhaps a younger sibling, for another day. In the country he was in, child labor in clean safe factories for pennies a day was outlawed; so kids suffered the far worse alternative. It was a dramatic case where capitalism would have produced fewer tears and dead children than the well intentioned but deadly liberal alternative.

Another case involves price gouging in Florida after the recent Hurricanes. Most gov'ts win the PR battle by very skillfully passing laws to prevent raising prices in an emergency. It seems to make perfect liberal sense until you consider that the demand for construction services was up about 10,000% after 3 hurricanes. The only way to supply that demand was to let prices rises enough so that construction companies from surrounding states could pay the additional costs of immediately packing up to operate their businesses in a distant place. The liberal gov't though prefers the PR victory and so demand far exceeds supply. Work that needs to be done, which people are willing to pay a higher price for, is not getting done.

Capitalism does not guarantee instant prosperity for everyone, it is simply better than all the alternatives humans have ever tried, even when you have to think through the tears as Mr. Kristoff finally did, and as Republicans have always done.