Cindy Cotter says: A recent story in The Economist says an Oxfam study of a crackdown in child labor in the carpet industry in Bangladesh showed that of 50 thousand kids displaced from their jobs in carpet factories, 30,000 ended up in prostitution or jobs in more dangerous industries. (Hope I got those numbers right. Can't find the issue.) __________________________ This is a tricky issue. And I think an effective ban on child labor may not alleviate these children from slavery and may make their condition much worse. On the other hand a legal ban (which is the case right now) is the condition in which the present condition survives and reproduces itself. A stepping stone toward freedom for children from servitude and exploitation may be to legalise child labor with all the rights of adult labor, i.e. right to association, representation, and minimum wages etc. Just a provocative though. But by now, I guess, you have come to expect that from me. __________________________ World Watch's last paper, "The Hour of Departure," discusses pressures that cause famine, war, and mass migration. It counts population growth high among them. An earlier article in The Economist mentioned that if all the land in the Phillipines were evenly divided among the people, there wouldn't be enough per person to support them. The World Watch paper says this is also the case in much of Africa. I have the impression people here aren't keen on Malthus, but isn't there something to the population question? If there's no room on the farm, what ARE the kids to do? Cindy Cotter ________________________ That's right! We are not keen on Malthus because Malthus had it wrong. Poverty is the biggest cause of overpopulation and not its result. The average size of urban middle class families have drastically declined in India within one or two generations but still its impact on population is not much felt because great masses of people are still very poor and therefore have many children. I think Malthus is pushed by the first world right-wingers because they don't wanna talk about a redistribution of wealth and protection of enviorenment at the global level. Its the old "blame the victim" politics all over again. By this I don't mean to put all the responsibility of the thirld world problems on to the first world. But Malthus is no answer. Its just a political tool. Cheers, ajit sinha Obviously non-economist
