Samuel Bostaph wrote:  
  
"So, what's wrong with "child labor"?  And, what's the age cutoff, below which it can't be
defended?"
   
This sent me back to Jonathan Swift. I had assumed, I thought wrongly, judging by the
discussion which followed that irony was the intent.  Swift's "A Modest
Proposal" is brilliant as ever. But now it seems that it was a mocking question  
after all.  
   
In the serious vein, as Anil Nauriya said, 'political', 'values'  and 'normative' elements
are an integral part of the discipline and most definitely in the policy area. Our science
is driven by our subjectivity in the questions we pose. And contemporary societies'
position on this issue is the collective subjectivity which uses science to find an
appropriate policy ('choice' in the public sphere if you will). So it seems we have
already agreed on the answer by way of anti-child labor laws that exist even in poor
countries, however ineffectively they might be administered due to many complicated
reasons. The task would be to institute right kind of changes alluded to by Steven Horwitz
and Barkley Rosser in their posts, that would eradicate the conditions leading to child
labor which benefits the employers also, if one is to believe the documentaries mentioned
in another post.
   
Sumitra Shah