My therapist made a comment about how China is a failed socialist experiment because they have 2-3 year olds working in factories. I responded “So we’ve been told.” She looks at me like I’m crazy. (Not a great look for a therapist) “I’ve not seen any evidence of that.”
“Because they’re such a closed country!”
“Which means you have no evidence to your point either?”
“Well, missionaries… anyway!”


Idk about 3 year olds in China, but in Capital Marx does describe 4 year old factory workers in England so tbh “common sense” isnt a good argument here imo
Back then you could use children for things like filling bags and boxes with screws and nuts or whatever, but I very much doubt any of that sort of stuff isn’t being made in huge automated factories in China at this point.
Someone else has made a point re: object permanence not kicking it i find more convincing
Regarding this point, in marxs time it was less “fill bags and boxes” and more “run stuff back and forth” or “squeeze into the machine and see if you can see whats jamming it”, “sort these products into groups” or “push this button every time X happens”