Suffer the Little Children

This editorial about child labor in less developed countries makes the excellent point, which I might have hoped would be obvious, that the typical alternative to child labor is not hugs and puppies, but prostitution and begging. If you ban or boycott the industries that provide opportunities for better child labor, you just push the children into worse child labor.

But wouldn't I rather these kids be in school? Yeah, and people in hell want ice water, too. School, unfortunately, is typically not an option for the children in question. Never let the best be the enemy of the good.