> I am surprised we don’t see economic arguments to rationalize the status quo of societal norms against cannabis and prostitution on hackernews.
> Prostitution lowers the price of sex with women. One of the biggest motivators of employment and productivity among men is the high price of marriage, monogamous sex with women.
Perhaps we don’t see more economic arguments for the status quo because they sound stilted and weird. Good lord, “the price of sex with women” is the most joyless thing I’ve ever read here. If someone seriously made that argument to me I’d be more distracted by how weird that sounds more than anything else.
(By the by I also think it’s a bad argument. It fails to understand why people get married, whether or not impressing a partner is actually economically important in aggregate, the differences between low attachment sex and marital sex, engage with the differences in marital rates before and after prostitution was made illegal, the impact of social expectations and norms on marriage, and the economic output of women among other issues).
> “the price of sex with women” is the most joyless thing I’ve ever read here
Prostitution is an industry entirely built upon the price of sex with women.
You can do a thought exercise about what would happen if it was entirely legal with modern financial tools. it would be a bigger shift than just adding property tax in China. Everything would get repriced, from real estate to the wage gap in non prostitutional professions. These thought exercises are not for the faint of heart.
> Prostitution lowers the price of sex with women. One of the biggest motivators of employment and productivity among men is the high price of marriage, monogamous sex with women.
Perhaps we don’t see more economic arguments for the status quo because they sound stilted and weird. Good lord, “the price of sex with women” is the most joyless thing I’ve ever read here. If someone seriously made that argument to me I’d be more distracted by how weird that sounds more than anything else.
(By the by I also think it’s a bad argument. It fails to understand why people get married, whether or not impressing a partner is actually economically important in aggregate, the differences between low attachment sex and marital sex, engage with the differences in marital rates before and after prostitution was made illegal, the impact of social expectations and norms on marriage, and the economic output of women among other issues).