This is poor argumentation because I will turn right around and say to you, "Just because some laws are effective, doesn’t mean all laws are effective. And, compared to what are these laws effective, and what are these laws effective at doing? Effective is a very comparative term. I would say drunk driving laws are effective at keeping some drunk drivers off the road. I think a free-market would be much more effective. And, as to the “effective at doing what” question, you probably believe that drunk driving should be illegal. I do not. To me, these laws are effective at restricting my freedom to drink and drive. You may say they are effective at making a safer society. We disagree on the terms. Be more specific.
*Note: I do not endorse driving drunk. See my thread post here (https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/how-does-laissez-faire-capitalism-account-corporate-responsibility/22490/9) for clarification.
I think what john is saying is that it is not the law that keeps the children out of labor or prostitution. It is the economic environment in which they live. If child is able to go to school instead of work in a sweat shop, it is because his or her parents live under circumstances where it may not be necessary for the child to do so. Child labor laws are harmful to a country, and especially the poor. If there is such a law, and the child may no longer be hired for labor, the family may not bring in enough money to eat that day. So children turn to even less desirable occupations such as crime, drug dealing, or prostitution where the employers will not likely be in compliance with the laws anyway, due to the nature of their business’ being illegal. So, if these countries manage to have a low prostitution and child labor rate, it is not because of a law. It is because of the market allowing these characteristics to be possible.
By the way, I checked out some of the countries part of the OECD. Here is what i found just to name a few.
India: India’s federal police say that around 1.2 million children are believed to be involved in prostitution. A CBI statement said that studies and surveys sponsored by the ministry of women and child development estimated that about 40% of all India’s prostitutes are children.
Afghanistan: Bacha Bazi is a form of child prostitution employed by Afghan warlords where small boys are regularly bought and sold into sexual slavery.
Then you have Aruba, Algeria, Pakistan, Sudan, and Uganda; yeah, these places are well-known for their humane treatment of children.
Oh, and here we have Colombia: I have personal experience with this place (which I wont explain in great detail). Yeah, isn’t this where 75% of all cocaine is produced and exported from? Here are a bunch of statistics with sources regarding Colombia’s use of CHILD LABOR in the PRODUCTION OF COCAINE.
And look! Colombia has its very own wikipedia page detailing its child prostitution.
To be fair, there are hundreds of countries on there. Some (or in this case a lot) are going to be some bad eggs. But its not that the laws are bad or ineffective, right? Kidding, I would say its not just third world countries that are ineffective at administering the laws, but all governments.
No, they do not. Who do you think pays for these so-called “services”? We, the people, do. If they don’t tax us, then they inflate us, or indebt us, or, hopefully and least likely, they cut spending somewhere else. A truer version of your statement would be “Some individual citizens will superficially appear to have access to a greater amount of certain resources, while certain other individual citizens will most certainly have less under a statist government (if we do not account for opportunity cost).”
and now you bring up pooling resources? Where was the acknowledgement of class action lawsuits to answer your initial point? Isn’t that a pooling of resources that might solve your supposed problem? And you do not need a state to employ the benefits of pooled resources. What about a homeowners association that pools money to pay for their police rather than a coerced blanket tax? Have you considered the costs added to any service when it is controlled by a government bureaucracy? JJ’s stossel post showed the department of the interior literally misplacing billions of dollars; they have no idea where it went! Can you imagine if a private firm simply misplaced $2.5 billion dollars? It’s unthinkable, unless you have some shady money magic going on, then it isn’t really lost, as much as fraudulently hidden. Private enterprises pool resources all the time, and much more effectively (better bang for the buck) than forced taxation ever could.