Children
If you expect (or demand or rely) that the community will support raising your children, then the community should expect (or demand or rely) that the community will have input on the children (including, perhaps, on whether or not you should have them).
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Let’ start with the posit that no one has a right to another person’s labor, and therefore that a person’s labor should only be given of their own volition. Perhaps there are instances of emergency or indebtedness where this is not the case, but it generally seems to be a valid maxim (though perhaps it is naive, and it is against historical norms). However, if we accept the posit that no person has a right to another person’s labor (or by extension another group’s labor), then no person should have a right to the community’s help in raising their children without the consent of the community.
In our society we expect (based on existing social norms) that education (which is in a large part also just day care) will provided for us for free for as many children as we want to have. This expectation is regardless of how many children we have (and therefore regardless of the burden that we will be placing on others). This is in part part of our pro-natalist policies, but also is because of a recognition that we cannot control people having children, and that most likely if we fail to provide children education (especially children whose parents impart little beneficial values to them) then we will likely all be worse off as a society. The mandate for public education then is necessity born out of averting long term social damage due to undesirable child upbringings that we can’t prevent or control. As a bad (but perhaps useful analogy) it is similar the public provision of trash collection: if we fail to provide free trash collection we won’t be able to stop people from generating and disposing of trash, it will just be disposed of in ways that are harmful to society (thrown in the woods, buried, etc).
There should be a natural balance to community children, whether from the well off who need less direct support from the community, to those who have or raise children against the advice of the community.
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- You do not have a right to your community’s labor; you therefore do not have a right to the community’s help in raising your child. The parent(s) and the community must agree on the help to be provided and the conditions of support.