The thought of a young child working in a Third World sweatshop is repulsive to most people. And rightly so. Consider the case of Halima. She is an eleven-year-old girl who clips loose threads off of Hanes underwear in a Bangladeshi factory. She works about eight hours a day, six days per week. She has to process 150 pairs of underwear an hour. When she falls behind, supervisors shout at her or slap her. She is only allowed to go to the bathroom two or three times per day, and it does not have soap or toilet paper. At work she feels “very tired and exhausted,” and sometimes falls asleep standing up. She makes 53 cents a day for her efforts.

You might understand the logic of the preceding chapters and have revised your views on the desirability of sweatshops, but there is probably a lingering fear that if we allowed the global market to determine employment without governmental regulation, we would end up with many children such as Halima working in the factories. So, some laws must be needed to save the children. Right?