Claims, Reasons, and Assumptions

In the article “Put your money where your mouths are” by Nicholas Kristoff the claims he makes are that ending child labor is not as beneficial for the child as we think it might be. He claims that while child labor is bad there are other reasons behind it, such as education, that we must fix before we can end child labor, otherwise, the children and their families end up in an even worse situation. He gives two reasons as evidence one being the garment making industry in Bangladesh and the second is the production of soccer balls in Pakistan. In both situations the children and their families suffered after the U.S. ended both of these industries. Without these jobs the children have nothing else. Some of the assumptions Kristoff makes are our views and believe on child labor he assumes that the readers think that child labor is wrong and there are no benefits to child labor. Another assumption is that we know about industries in other countries and that the U.S. has made regulations and laws that have banned these industries. He assumes we have knowledge of these countries and what goes on in them. He also assumes that all of us have “self-righteous indignation” and that we don’t really understand how the world works when many of the readers and the people he calls self-righteous may actually have a good understanding of the situation and may be doing all they can to change what is happening.