I honestly look at it the other way round. Child slavery is a foregone condition in a capitalist society. It’s a giant pyramid scheme in that it is similarly unsustainable. Eventually poor people can’t carry the weight of the production. And when they are priced out of the market they become ungovernable because they become desperate. Children are easier to control by adults. So of course to make up for what we can’t any longer get adults to do we’ll get children to fill those gaps. And children aren’t adults so they don’t have to be paid as much. And eventually don’t have to be paid at all. Just given food and maybe clothing and some shelter.
Perhaps that’s very defeatist of me. But we’re seeing that in some states in the US. Kids working at meat packing plants and fast food places. And of course desperate people who have to provide for their families will make hard decisions. It won’t happen all at once. But it’s going to keep trending worse and worse.
Capitalists (millionaires and billionaires) very obviously do not think of themselves as being the dystopian factor that destroys society. I think that’s because they live this fever dream where they will be able to dance on the avalanche. Like … They think there will always be new investors, always be capital, always be returns, and profit, and dividends. But that money and that production and that labor has to come from somewhere. And it’s a finite resource. Which means that eventually it will dwindle. Right now there are people working 2 or 3 jobs. Getting 4 hours of sleep a night. At what point do they meet other people, find someone to have a relationship with? At what point do they have a family? Have children? Raise children? In the future will they have 4-5 jobs? Where does it stop?