It’s Time to Legalize Prostitution
Actually, it should be legalized immediately, but with a “Grandfather Clause” that exempts Eliot Spitzer and only Eliot Spitzer from the legalization. He put others in prison for just what he is accused of doing and he gloried and exulted in their degradation. No sympathy.
By “legalize prostitution” do you mean just stopping government harrassment of prostitutes and their “clients,” or do you also want to give legal protection to pimps?
In the latter case, what is the empirical evidence that making it harder to prosecute pimps will reduce rather than increase the incidence of forced prostitution (a.k.a. “sex trafficking”)?
Is pimping such a benign and peaceful “profession” that legitimate entrepreneurs will immediately displace the violent psychopaths who currently dominate this “market”? Again, please list the scholarly studies documenting this point.
Why would prostitutes even need pimps if prostitution was legalized? The only reason they have them now is that they can’t go to the police if they’re ripped off, assaulted, etc. That wouldnt be an issue if it were legalized. Or they could also do what other businesses do when they have security issues–hire a private security guard firm.
What makes you think that prostitutes “need” pimps? And what does the average prostitute do if her pimp breaches the terms of his “employment contract”? Presumably she just fires him and hires another one – if she can still talk after he’s finished slashing her face with the knife he was carrying for her “protection.”
Well, prostitutes need some sort of protection from theft and assault by customers. As you point out, pimps are hardly the best providers of such, but what else can hookers do? The rest of us can go to the police if we’re ripped off, but obviously not them.
I’m not really sure of your point here, but let me ask you: do you think prostitutes would be more or less likely to be victimized by pimps if they could go to the police without fear of being arrested themselves?
“Presumably she just fires him and hires another one – if she can still talk after he’s finished slashing her face with the knife he was carrying for her “protection.””
Invoking gory imagery does not necessarily make your argument more logical.
But it does suggest a reason why a prostitute’s assessment of the “services” of her pimp is unlikely to differ from a store owner’s attitude to the “protection” provided by the local mafia.
The answer to Kim’s question is Yes. Hence my opening question above.
What Kim is suggesting here is that pimps as you describe them would be unlikely to exist if prostitution were legalized. Making things people want (like drugs or alcohol) illegal creates a black market. Black markets are notoriously violent because participants can’t call on the police to resolve disputes.
Thus, violent drug dealers and violent pimps. When alcohol was illegal, the people who dealt in that trade were pretty violent people too–that didn’t make Prohibition a smart decision.
The big difference, of course, is that pimps deal not in commodities but in people. They get their profits by beating and torturing their “products.”
Prohibition of drugs, alcohol, etc, multiplies the prices of these items and creates super-profits for criminals. Illegal drugs are so expensive that non-affluent addicts have to steal to maintain their habit.
Punishment of pimps has no effect on the “price” of women and children, whose “services” can be bought for next to nothing. The pimp makes money by enslaving his victims and stealing whatever their “clients” pay them.
Drug prohibition-related violence involves armed suppliers fighting over “market share.” Prostitution-related violence involves “suppliers” or “customers” attacking the unarmed and terrified “products” to guarantee their compliance.
These mistaken analogies are common. That’s why I’m asking for actual evidence that making it harder to prosecute pimps helps protect their victims.
“Skeptic” needs to quit trying to fit everyone else into his procrustean argument designed to only arrive at his desired answer. Prostitution is legal in places like Nevada & the Netherlands, and doesn’t exhibit the abuses he decries, which are obviously caused by prostitution prohibition, just like the gang wars of the Roaring Twenties were caused by alcohol prohibition.
Legalizing prostitution doesn’t make pimps “harder to prosecute” for any crimes that are malum in se; in fact, it makes them _easier_ to prosecute for those crimes, because their victims no longer have to fear being arrested for victimless crimes when reporting real crimes against themselves by their “managers.”
Skeptic,
So when Tom said he favored legalization of prostitution, you thought that might mean he wants to keep the laws against trading sex for money, and pass additional laws to make it harder to prosecute pimps for beating, stealing, and enslaving their employees?
I think that the discussion above is adequate. Prostitution in places where it is legal and where bordellos are allowed saves the women who offer their services from victimization by both clients and pimps, for the reasons that Kim, Drew, Tim, and Russell set out. The great advantage of legalization is just that…one is a part of and has access to the legal system, not the illegal system.
Now here we see ideology kicking in. People find their positions challenged, and instead of debating the issue with an open mind, they react as if I was insulting their favorite baseball team. If you want to get at the truth rather than defend an ideology, you have to supply evidence.
Legalized pimping in the Netherlands exhibits exactly the abuses I’ve described, in fact Amsterdam is notorious as the capital of sex trafficking and child prostitution in the European Union. The city is now desperately trying to reverse course because legalization “failed to curb gangsters running Amsterdam’s sex trade.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/17/news/Netherlands-Prostitution.php
Nevada is another unfortunate example: a recent set of interviews documented systematic abuse by the “legalized” pimps. As one of the “employees” commented, “It’s like you sign a contract to be raped.” Or as a prominent ex-prostitute said, the pimps are “taking advantage of your ignorance of the industry.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2164107,00.html
http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2007/Sep-07-Fri-2007/news/16519321.html
I’ve already explained why Prohibition-type wars between criminal gangs are totally different from criminals abusing victims to make a profit. To put the point as plainly as I can: the problem with pimping is not gang wars between pimps. The problem is the violence the pimp has to use against his victims if he wants to make money off them.
I respectfully ask my interlocutors to cite actual research and leave ideology at the door. It’s bad enough observing socialists with their fact-free celebrations of Cuban health care and the British National Health Service. That’s an approach libertarians should try not to mimic.
A quick look at the articles cited suggests that there is much confusion and little insight in them. I have a very busy schedule for the next few days, but I will return to this issue shortly.
At the recent American Econ Association meetings, Steven Leavitt presented new research on illegal prostitution in Chicago, based on data collected there. One research question was the effect of pimps; something they could study because in some of the study area protitutes had pimps, and in some not.
The consistent finding was that prostitutes with pimps earned more. Not only that, but the prostitutes w/o pimps asked the data collectors (ex-prostitutes) if they couldn’t help them connect with pimps.
If you want to stop human trafficking, abolish laws against immigration. It’s almost impossible for a legitimate job agency to recruit and place less skilled women across borders, hence these women are far easier traffickers who pretend to be offering something other than sex-slavery.
And eliminate laws against prostitution (and yes, pimping) so that when someone is abused they can turn to the law for help, and not have to fear being treated as a criminal.
If Skeptic is correct that legalization would make it easier for pimps to mistreat prostitutes, then you would expect prostitutes to be against legalization.
The opposite it true. Prostitutes are overwhelmingly in favor of legalization. Prostitutes organizing in groups like Bayswan and Coyote are in favor of legalization.
I also think it’s interesting to charge us with being ideologically motivated, then point us to ideologically motivated articles.
Thank you Charles for finally introducing some evidence. Here’s the Levitt/Venkatesh paper:
http://economics.uchicago.edu/pdf/Prostitution%205.pdf
Their method is remarkably simple-minded: “Data collection in Pullman was done principally through pimps. We spot-checked the accuracy of the pimp reports with the prostitutes themselves.” (p. 13) And their point about pimps being sought out by prostitutes is just as naive. As protection racketeers, pimps have to make life hard for independent prostitutes: for example by sending people (“customers,” “gang members”) to beat them up. Reading further: “Women who work with pimps are much less likely to be injured by customers; one of the services provided by pimps is protection. Pimps, however, hurt their prostitutes enough to roughly equalize the number of injuries.” (p. 14, n. 17)
The link below gives sources for some facts about the Netherlands:
* One year after legalization of prostitution and brothels, traffickers controlled 50 percent of women in prostitution.
* The women come from 32 different countries. There are few Dutch women in the brothels.
* 70 percent of the trafficked women are from Central and Eastern European countries. 80 percent of these women have their passports confiscated, are kept in isolation, forced to work long hours for no pay, and are physically and emotionally abused by pimps, traffickers and male buyers.
* Violence from “customers” is so great that even basic comforts are a threat to women’s lives. Under the new laws, cushions are required for the beds. A brothel owner responded, “It’s common policy for brothels not to have cushions on the bed for fear unruly customers might try to smother prostitutes.”
* From 1996 to 2001 the number of Dutch children in prostitution increased from 4,000 to 15,000.
* Traffickers evade prosecution by claiming the women consented, and prosecutors generally have a hard time establishing the line between voluntary
and forced prostitution. According to one report: “Where only forced prostitution is illegal, inability to prove constraint has repeatedly led to international procurers being acquitted by the courts.”
http://www.macom.org.il/todaa-colinpowell.asp
The idea of abolishing immigration laws assumes that trafficking means smuggling people across state borders. Actually a high proportion of trafficking takes place inside a country’s borders. Also many internationally trafficked women enter destination countries lawfully on their passports, on the instructions of a “legitimate job agency,” before disappearing.
I don’t see how Henri can enlist the opinions of prostitutes and then reject “ideologically motivated” articles based on interviews with prostitutes.
Here’s an item I didn’t see in the Levitt/Venkatesh paper:
“L&V planned a randomised experiment (randomly assigning prostitutes to pimps), but before they could carry it out, the pimps got angry at Venkatesh and told him that he would be killed if he returned.”
http://andrewleigh.com/?p=1750
Protection service or protection racket?
I haven’t read the paper (yet). But in his oral presentation, Leavitt was explicit that data were collected by former prostitutes, not pimps.
In his presentation he was also very clear that prostitutes with pimps earned higher net incomes, and that prostitutes actually asked to be connected with pimps.
Skeptic, you are *not* expressing any skepticism about repealing legal prohibitions on prostitution, correct?
You *are* obviously expressing skepticism about pimping. Any kind of labor relations could become slavery, but your argument is that the sex trades are particularly susceptible, right?
Yes, exactly. I’m arguing that prostitutes should be left alone and that pimps are running a protection racket.
What distinguishes prostitution from other labor relations is the gigantic demand for work so unpleasant and unhealthy that wholly insufficient numbers of women are willing to do it. The demand can be met, however, if a third party guarantees a supply of women who have no choice in the matter.
Hence the small proportion of domestic prostitutes and the otherwise inexplicable violence of the pimps. Hence the corrupt cops and abusive “customers” who persecute independent prostitutes but magically vanish when their victims turn to the pimps for “protection services.”
Regarding data collection, L&V seem to have said one thing in their presentation and something else in their paper.
I don’t get Skeptic’s claim. Skeptic interprets, without any basis, Tom’s call for legalization of prostitution as giving “legal protection to pimps” and “making it harder to prosecute pimps.” But if the pimps are not engaged in violent behavior, there is no reason to prosecute them or to “give them legal protection.” And if they are engaged in violent behavior, then I really doubt that Tom or any other advocate of legalization of prostitution is calling for “making it harder to prosecute pimps.” So Skeptic has made a lot of fuss based on a pretty clear misinterpretation of Tom’s statement. It’s like saying that advocates of drug legalization are calling for no prosecution of gangsters. But the reason for the gangsterism is the illegality. No one who advocated legalization of alcohol thought they were giving immunity to Al Capone. They wanted to take the alcohol business out of the hands of gangsters and put it in the hands of normal, non-violent merchants. It worked.
If “pimp” is defined as an abusive and violent person, then no one who favors legalization of prostitution wants to “protect” pimps. If they are mere managers who are governed by the same standards of law as everyone else, what is the problem. Bordellos, after all, allow prostitutes to be in the same house, with security, and their stability allows reputation to work, so doctors check them for disease, clients are protected, bills are paid, and so on whereas when bordellos are outlawed, the prostitutes walk the streets, which is far more dangerous for everyone.
Very interesting discussion here…
My concern, though, is that there might not be very good analytical and scholarly research done on on this topic at all. Mainly because, it seems, prostitution is one of the most hidden underground markets. I, for one, have never met nor have ever known of any prostitutes in or around where I live; which happens to be a semi-large city. On the other hand, I can easily locate or obtain any type of drug in a matter of hours. I can also, with very little effort, figure out where to obtain illegal immigrants for employment. So any type of research done on prostitution would have to be looked at with great skepticism and questionable accuracy.
Anyway, so I’m wondering if it is just unrealistic to satisfy Skeptic’s question. But I shall wait and see what Mr. Palmer will dig out. Perhaps I am wrong and there is a great deal of accurate and reliable research on this topic…
LN, please read my first post again. I didn’t interpret TGP’s call for legalization at all, I asked him to clarify what he meant by it.
Then please read my later posts again. You’ll find a clear explanation of why alcohol/drug prohibition has nothing in common with laws against pimps.
For the results of legalized pimping, I quoted the Council of Europe report: “Where only forced prostitution is illegal, inability to prove constraint has repeatedly led to international procurers being acquitted by the courts.”
I could also have quoted the Center for International Crime Prevention: “The laws help the gangsters. Prostitution is semi-legal in many places and that makes enforcement tricky. In most cases punishment is very light.”
I’ve given a lot of evidence of the horrible reality in the Netherlands contradicting the wonderful promises of legalizers. That’s why evidence, not theory, should be our guide if we want to prevent suffering.
Chris: Why is it hard to do serious research on actually existing prostitution? L&V’s experience is instructive: they needed an agreement with the pimps just to get off the ground; when they went too far, the pimps started making death threats. Regrettably L&V didn’t draw the obvious conclusions about the value of their “findings.” But it’s not hard to get useful information when the pimps are no longer watching:
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/natasha.htm
An NPR interview with Venkatesh on the prostitution research will be available at 3/15/08 at 12 EDT
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88276496
To Skeptic: 1) Brokerage services themselves are not criminal acts, and economically can be quite useful (i.e. beneficial to everyone involved). Providing of such services ought not be criminalized.
2) I suspect you are correct that brokers in prostitution are more likely to be abusive. One reason is that a) prostitution is illegal (the factor most of us are pointing out); another is b) the business of pimping is more likely to attract abusive people (the Skeptic argument).
Point 1 suggests that pimping ought not be illegal. 2a suggests legalization would help eliminate the abuse problem, the truly criminal part of pimping. 2b suggests that this industry would require more careful policing than some others.
Prostitution isn’t unique in being more susceptible to worker abuse than average; any labor intensive industry with relatively unskilled labor that is organized outside of the public eye will be subject to this. The solution isn’t banning all business organization in the industry, it is being serious about enforcing laws against abuse and similar criminal activity.
Charles N. Steele,
I don’t think Adam Smith had prostitution in mind when he wrote the following on labor as the “sacred and inviolable” foundation of all other property.
“The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbour, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon the just liberty both of the workman, and of those who might be disposed to employ him. As it hinders the one from working at what he thinks proper, so it hinders the aothersa from employing whom they think proper. To judge whether he is fit to be employed, may surely be trusted to the discretion of the employers whose interest it so much concerns. The affected anxiety of the lawâ??giver lest they should employ an improper person, is evidently as impertinent as it is oppressive.”
What’s wrong with keeping prostitution illegal? Why legalize something that would require more “policing” and “being serious about enforcing laws against abuse and similar criminal activity”? Isn’t the transaction between seller and buyer inherently abusive? Why not legalize snuff films if there are volunteers or legalize flogging or waterboarding in the public square if there’s a market for them? Why not legalize bloodsports, although in this instance, animals could not consent to being entertainment prey.
Should law reflect quaint “moral sentiments” at all or only markets? Do you think the government should regulate monogamous relationships through the marriage contract? Should polygamous or polyandrous marriages be legal?
As a non-libertarian, it’s very difficult for me to understand what people here are talking about, other than freedom to do anything at all. Very discouraging, what with Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and other manifestations of living in a country that begins to look more like It Can’t Happen Here all the time.
BTW, I hope you will start a discussion of Marglin’s book on your blog. If you read his book, I think you might modify some of the opinions you voiced after watching the Cato interview with Will. I started my own blog last week as a possible place for such discussions, but thus far haven’t had time to launch it.
Leona
My argument differs from Leona’s. My argument isn’t that pimping should be stopped because it’s a vice; it’s that pimping must be stopped because it’s coercion.
The “protection services” are a mafia-style protection racket. The “brokerage services” are a form of slave trading. Actually in Europe pimping used to be called “the white slave trade.”
There’s huge demand for prostitutes. There aren’t nearly enough women willing to meet the demand. Enter the pimp, who satisfies the demand with an endless supply of women who have been beaten, tortured and raped into submission.
Hence all those non-local prostitutes; the “random” attacks on independent prostitutes; the violence of the pimp against “his” prostitutes; the evidence that legalization achieves the opposite of what legalizers predict.
Skeptic,
You say “There aren’t nearly enough women willing to meet the demand.” And: “What distinguishes prostitution from other labor relations is the gigantic demand for work so unpleasant and unhealthy that wholly insufficient numbers of women are willing to do it.”
Isn’t it possible that the living conditions driving people to prostitution are just as coercive as beating, torturing and raping into submission? For example, trying to escape an abusive family or being homeless and facing the same or similar risks? Wouldn’t it be better to try to find ways to address these public-private issues than to make such an occupation legal?
Speaking of health, I think it is the article on the Nevada trade that mentions prostitutes being forced to have their health tested and certified by medical professionals. Isn’t this also coercive, to legalize something and then set up a policing system for the purpose of safeguarding public health? You mentioned fact-free celebrations of the Cuban health care system. Being forced to have medical tests for the sake of client safety sounds like a similar type of celebration. Would a special section of the police station be set up for medical testing? Or perhaps Wal-Mart might add prostitute health certification to its other medical services?
And what about the NIMBY factor? Would people demand additional regulations, confining prostitutes to free-trade ghettos so that street walkers wouldn’t solicit near schools, for example, where they might frighten the children or the horses?
Skeptic’s argument makes sense to me on moral terms: “My argument isn’t that pimping should be stopped because it’s a vice; it’s that pimping must be stopped because it’s coercion.” I just don’t agree that it is factually correct, because pimping *isn’t* inherently abusive. All I have to do is find one prostitution broker who helps, rather than hurts, the prostitutes. Government has no business prosecuting such a person.
And if we permit government to prohibit activities that *might* become coercive, rather than inherently coercive activities, we jump off an extremely slippery slope, because all interpersonal activities are potentially coercive.
I don’t think Skeptic is the anti-libertarian some have suggested. S/he seems motivated by the rights of the prostitute, more than anything else.
Leona: First, send me your blog url, I’d like to see it. You can post it in the comments on my latest post — no penalty for being off topic. Second, prostitution is innocent, nonviolent activity. Keeping it illegal is the same as outlawing any other free, cooperative trading. Free trade is the basis of human society and should be left alone.
Leona — I meant to say “post your url *on my blog* on my latest post.”
Who says free trade is the basis of human society? It’s one basis of society but I don’t see it as the only one or THE one in isolation from other bases of society.
Well, thanks for the url invitation. I’ll post it on your blog, but it’s very embarrassing right now, since so far it has nothing except a name:
Patienceandfortitude’s weblog. It’s going to be for book discussions, but you probably guessed that. 😉
BTW, I think you mischaracterized Marglin as a communitarian. I don’t think he really fits in such a category. However, before I can discuss his book with you, I have to finish reading it!
Great posts from both Leona and Charles.
Leona: living on the streets massively limits options but falling victim to pimps eliminates them. A homeless person can beg, steal, search for refuge, etc. A victim of a pimp does what she’s told – or she endures his fists, knives, chains, baseball bats… In other words I distinguish poverty, no matter how desperate, from slavery.
I’ve pointed to the crucial ambiguity in “making such an occupation legal.” Does this mean ending the punishment of prostitutes? (It’s unjust to punish the victims.) Or does it mean creating a legal right to pimp? (It’s irrational to protect the perpetrators.)
Nevada regulations are mild compared to the Netherlands! There were the health inspections. There was the official register which prostitutes didn’t want to join for privacy reasons. They had to declare their earnings for taxation but couldn’t use available tax deductions because no bank wanted their accounts. The result is that legalization actually drove some Dutch women out of prostitution! Of course the pimps quickly replaced them with women trafficked from Eastern Europe.
I think you’re also right about the NIMBY factor. Both street prostitution and brothels attract the worst anti-social males, day and night. As prostitutes move in, residents and businesses move out, neighborhoods decline and property values plummet. That’s what wrecked the experiment with “tolerance zones” in British cities.
Charles: “All I have to do is find one prostitution broker who helps, rather than hurts, the prostitutes. Government has no business prosecuting such a person.” I disagree entirely. The argument that to qualify as inherently coercive a practice must be universally coercive is fatal to liberty.
Redistributive taxation is coercive. Does every productive citizen vote against the welfare state? Slavery is coercive. Did every slave try to escape his master? Protection rackets are coercive. Does every store owner hate the mafia? Totalitarianism is coercive. Does every Russian celebrate the fall of communism?
You can always find people who aren’t coerced in scenario X because they prefer it to the presumed alternatives Y and Z. Does this prove that X is only potentially but not inherently coercive? Does this mean we should create a legal right to perpetrate X? You can see where this argument leads.
Yes, I’m trying to argue from libertarian principles, applied to the facts as I understand them rather than as self-defined libertarians typically understand them. When we misperceive the real world, we run the risk of mistaking brutal aggression for peaceful exchange, thus protecting rights violators and betraying their victims.
That’s why I’ve pressed for evidence about actually existing prostitution and actually existing legalization. The libertarian who applies his principles when mistaken about the facts is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
Skeptic,
“When we misperceive the real world, we run the risk of mistaking brutal aggression for peaceful exchange, thus protecting rights violators and betraying their victims.”
I’ve noticed quite a lot of this going around lately. Alas, mistaking maps for territories.
Legal or illegal, it doesn’t sound as if the procurers would give up their turf peacefully, in which case, those who tried to make a profit in the trade as independents would most likely get roughed up by those in the sociopath protection racket. So why not keep the whole thing illegal? Wouldn’t fewer people be harmed?
This reminds me of the film Klute with Donald Sutherland.
Just an aside, but unlike Tom, I do feel some sympathy for Eliot Spitzer. Even if he caused other people to suffer degradation, I don’t see how it would improve matters to subject him to the same treatment.
Turning to taxation, you say: “Redistributive taxation is coercive. Does every productive citizen vote against the welfare state?” How many productive citizens in top redistributed tax brackets are voting against the corporate welfare state?
I’m still under the gun on lots of projects, but I will try to print these out and sort them out this weekend. For now, I will note that many prostitutes in relatively liberal western Europe are, in fact, illegally workers from poor countries to the east and south. That means that they are relatively easy to exploit, because they have no legal rights to approach the police, whom they fear will deport them. Moreover, their passports are sometimes confiscated by the pimps, giving them even more power over them. The problem in such cases is not prostitution per se, but the powers created by the legal regime. Similar problems are faced by workers in various Gulf countries, because they have little or no access to the legal system, their passports are confiscated, and they fear expulsion.
“they are relatively easy to exploit, because they have no legal rights to approach the police, whom they fear will deport them”
Women are being raped by gangs of pimps and queues of “customers” – but they don’t approach the police for fear of deportation???
More information:
http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~dreveskr/prolinks.html-ssi
The exploitation of some women (and boys) by pimps is a serious issue and not to be taken lightly. But it is not an inherent feature of prostitution in a legalized (by which I mean, subject to legal rules) market. Illegal immigrants who lack work permits tend to be exploited because of the power that their pimps have over them. That is also true of underage boys and girls. But the problem is the lack of legal protection, in the one case for foreigners who are not allowed to do any other kind of work (and who are sometimes cruelly exploited by people who promised them work as models or secretaries or the like) and in the latter case of runaway children who are not allowed to work at anything else and who are more easily abused by adults.
Reasonable laws and protections governing children without guardians and protections for illegal immigrants (i.e., no fear of punishment/deportation if they expose coercive pimps) are essential elements of a legalized market for prostitution. Under such conditions, women or men banding together in legal brothels gives the best protection to prostitutes, both from exploitative or violent clients and from pimps or procurers who exploit their legal vulnerability.
Tom,
“Under such conditions, women or men banding together in legal brothels gives the best protection to prostitutes . . .”
The free market goes communitarian?
Have you ever heard of a business firm? A shopping mall? A co-op? What vision of a “free market” do you have? Only individual producers and individual sellers, with no associations, firms, or other groups? That would be a very strange world, indeed. The only way to get it would be to forbid free association, which is the antithesis of a free market.
I apparently made the mistake of attempting to interject humor into this thread. Next time I’ll post in the John Cleese section.
My mistake. I am rushing to pack for a trip. May I offer my apologies for being so thick?
Not to worry. I should probably flag jokes with onion icons.
I hope you enjoy your trip!
I found Skeptics core argument incredible. The problem with prostitution is that there is a high demand and a low supply. Therefore, slavery is needed to fill the breach. Pimps are the slavers.
This argument is fundametally flawed That is because demand and supply are treated independent of price. The “price” is assumed to be given.
Anyway, at some price the quantity supplied and quantity demanded will match up without any woman being enslaved.
The high prices will reduce quantity demanded. And, further, it will almost certainly increase quantity supplied. (Well, that is what generallly happens with other sorts of unpleasant and dangerous work.) One way or another, the market will clear.
There is no need for slavery to fill a shortage in the prostitution market.
If the wages from prostituion are very high, then it will make employing slaves in prostituion profitable. The profits from slavery is the difference between the wages the slave can be compelled to earn and the amount it costs to maintain the slave and capture them, and the like.
Capturing slaves and introducing them into the market will tend to reduce the wage and so the profits from puting them into a specific field of endevor, and even reduce the profits from enslaving people.
Anyway, that is the basic economics of the sitution.
Slavery is illegal. Is there something about prostitution that makes it more difficult to enforce the prohibition on slavery?