Peter Dorman wrote, >I swear I didn't know it at the time. I heard that an Amish guy in >central NY State made fantastic rockers for a low price (a little over >$100). So I ordered a chair to be picked up in several months, my head >filled with thoughts about supporting cultural diversity as well as the >happy moments I would have reading in my new chair. > >When I got there, the chair-maker was behind the cash register, and >behind him were a gaggle of kids, mostly pre-teen, operating woodworking >equipment. And, yes, the chair was beautiful to look at, comfortable to >sit in, and very, very cheap.... INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DELEGATES OF THE PROVISIONAL GENERAL COUNCIL INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN'S ASSOCIATION THE DIFFERENT QUESTIONS by KARL MARX Written at the end of August 1866 4. JUVENILE AND CHILDREN'S LABOUR (BOTH SEXES) We consider the tendency of modern industry to make children and juvenile persons of both sexes co-operate in the great work of social production, as a progressive, sound and legitimate tendency, although under capital it was distorted into an abomination. In a rational state of society every child whatever, from the age of 9 years, ought to become a productive labourer in the same way that no able-bodied adult person ought to be exempted from the general law of nature, viz.: to work in order to be able to eat, and work not only with the brain but with the hands too. .. . . A gradual and progressive course of mental, gymnastic, and technological training ought to correspond to the classification of the juvenile labourers. The costs of the technological a schools ought to be partly met by the sale of their products. The combination of paid productive labour, mental education, bodily exercise and polytechnic training, will raise the working class far above the level of the higher and middle classes. It is self-understood that the employment of all persons from 9 and to 17 years (inclusively) in nightwork and all health-injuring trades must be strictly prohibited by law.
