Persistence of child labor or exploration of child labor

Abstract

The article aimed to problematize the relations between the process of human formation of the working class childhood and the problem of the “exploitation of child labor”, in turn so wrapped up in myths, controversies and misconceptions, object of a certain common sense by the researchers, non-governmental institutions and official bodies, the media and the general population. In this sense, the wording of the article aims to bring to the discussion theoretical and conceptual elements about the problem in question, in which the synthesis question/problem-question: “child labor or exploitation of child labor?”, Circumscribed in the historical perspective of the capitalist system of production. Both academic literature and official and even non-governmental (third sector) documents and data privilege the term “child labor” rather than “exploitation of child labor”. From this point of view, the idea is, from a methodological point of view, to reflect from the existing literature and statistical data. We understand that the concealment of the word “exploitation” is part of the political and discursive strategy that seeks to divert the social focus from the central element of capitalist society: the exploitation of surplus value. Thus, we can say that conceptual, etymological, epistemological and ideological confusions about the theme are part of the apparent political-ideological discursive game and, dealing with superficial aspects of the problem, contribute to the weakening of the struggle for another society, persisting the problem before of the insoluble contradictions and crises of capital, which has the central element of its production / reproduction in the misery arising from the exploitation of labor.