I am against the senseless punishment of children just as much as the next fellow. However, I believe your characterisation of child labour as a form of punishment is flawed.

Fundamentally, I do not think that labour of any sort, by any person - even child labour - is a senseless punishment inflicted on man by the exigencies of capitalism. If labour is indeed a punishment, it is inflicted upon man not by any artificial system of social organisation, but is instead a punishment inflicted upon us by nature itself.

People often argue that children deserve an education, or children deserve not to work. What they really mean is not that the natural state of a child does not involve working, or that children left to the whims of nature will automatically be granted an education by some natural state of affairs. What they mean is that they believe our society has sufficient resources to afford to have others labour on the behalf of children so that they do not have to labour for their own survival.

The provision that children need not work is not a natural state of affairs at all. It is a privileged state of affairs afforded by our great wealth today, as compared to the relative poverty of our not-so-distant ancestors.

To sentence a child to work is not to punish them for their parents' poverty; punishment implies the use of active intervention to reverse a natural state of affairs, which is clearly not what is taking place here. It is, in fact, the opposite which is taking place: It is the wealth of the parent which allows them to reward their undeserving children with formative years free from the demands of work.

Of course, you and I would both agree that it is extremely desirable that children do not have to work. Where we disagree is merely on the definition of child labour: whether it is a punishment, or whether it is the natural state of affairs which we keep at bay by the force of our collective wealth. I believe it is clearly the latter.