Let's kick the Arachnid in his lying, undescended nuts. Just for the fun of it.
What is "child labor?" In America, it was defined as paid wage labor for boys under 13 years of age. Girls were prohibited from non-domestic labor.
What was the percent of children engaged in labor. Less than 1% of children under 13 worked in factories or industry. Though about 18% were paid wages for farming and agricultural work.
The first move by congress simply changed the age of when one was considered a child to 16.
www.bls.gov
Per ChatGPT
Not really.
Arachnid's statement is misleading at best. If the claim is literally that
“socialism stopped child labor in the USA,” there isn't good historical evidence for that.
Here’s the more accurate history:
- Child-labor reform in the U.S. began long before the New Deal, with Progressive-era reformers, labor organizations, state governments, and groups such as the National Child Labor Committee. In 1916, Congress passed the Keating-Owen Act, although the Supreme Court struck it down in 1918.
- States had already enacted child-labor restrictions before the federal government successfully acted. The movement to restrict child labor was therefore not something that suddenly appeared because of socialism.
- The major federal breakthrough was the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It prohibited oppressive child labor in covered employment and established federal minimum-wage and maximum-hours provisions.
- The FLSA was part of Roosevelt's New Deal, which is generally characterized as a reformist/social-democratic expansion of government rather than the establishment of socialism in the United States. The U.S. remained a capitalist economy with private ownership of businesses.
- There is a legitimate argument that labor unions and left-wing/socialist activists contributed to the broader labor movement that pushed for reforms. But that's quite different from saying socialism stopped child labor.
There's another important point:
child labor was already declining substantially before 1938. Economic development, compulsory education, changing family economics, urbanization, and earlier state regulations all played important roles. The 1938 law was nevertheless crucial because it established a durable
federal legal prohibition on oppressive child labor in covered employment.
So, if you're fact-checking Arachnid
I'd rate the statement:
“Socialism stopped child labor in the USA.”
False/misleading.
A much more defensible version would be:
“Labor activists, unions, Progressive reformers, and later New Deal Democrats helped push the U.S. toward ending child labor, culminating in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.”
Calling that achievement
“socialism” is an ideological interpretation, not an accurate description of the historical event itself.
If you want, I can also break down
how much of the decline in U.S. child labor was caused by legislation versus capitalism/economic development versus unions and socialist activism—that's where the historical debate gets much more interesting.
