If we can’t begin to agree on fundamentals, such as the elimination of the most abusive forms of child labor, then we really are not ready to march forward into the future.

Herman frames the abolition of the worst forms of child labor as a baseline moral and political test for any society or international community that claims to be “progressing.” The conditional structure (“If we can’t… then…”) implies that disagreements over lesser policy details are secondary; what matters first is consensus on non-negotiable human rights fundamentals. By linking child labor to readiness to “march forward into the future,” she casts reform not merely as charity but as a prerequisite for legitimate modernity—suggesting that economic growth or globalization without basic protections is hollow and ethically compromised.