I wonder whether legislating a minimum rate paid for prostitution (e.g. 100 euros per hour), with violations criminal for the underpayer but not for the prostitute, would have resulted in a nicer-looking industry. In other words, whether it would have been practically possible to selectively legalize high-end sex work.
As long as there is a willing buyer and a willing seller, the transaction will happen, you're just pushing it underground.
The higher the price you're able to command for your services, the more likely you are to have your stuff together, so it's also the most vulnerable sex workers you're pushing underground, too.
This strategy has been tried with guns, i.e. create expensive hoops to jump through such that poor people can afford fewer guns. The additional violence from the blackmarket of gunrunning cheap guns to meet the demand probably offsets any gains.
Or even better, pay them basic income - now women would no longer need to prostitute themselves out of desperation, and only the ones who really saw this as a lucrative career would choose it.
But I wonder, though, if you give welfare to women, will that lead to financially responsible, but "dull" men having a hard time getting laid? While "fun", but financially reckless men getting most of the women?
I suppose you may have meant a basic income scheme for both men and women, but the issue would still be there. Women get pregnant. Men don't. Thus men tend to be financially more successful than women, since they don't have to spend time being pregnant etc.
I'm asking for the source of your claim that implementing basic income would make no difference whatsoever.
Sure, some prices would rise. Basic income needs to be continuously calibrated relative to the cost of basic living. That said, I don't see any good reason to expect that the price of say food would rise beyond people's ability to buy. Western countries already produce way more food than is necessary, so supermarkets end up throwing a lot away. With increased demand there would be increased production of food, clothes, and other essential items.
Market forces would still be in effect, so rent prices would reach a new equilibrium. As long as there are more apartments than people, rents would stay at a level that people could afford (or the empty apartments would lower rents until people could afford to live there). If there are not enough apartments, more would be built in cheap locations to satisfy demand. Sure, basic income wouldn't make everyone able to live in New York, but that's not the goal.
No economic system is an island anymore. First, where do you get the supply of money to provide basic income to everyone? Seeing that most western countries and knee deep in debt, I guess you mean printing money then? Inflation would then go rampant, leading to rising prices, and rising commodity prices for everything that is not produced in the said country. Depending where you are that could have a very big impact on your daily purchasing power.
And then you'd have to raise prices again because your "basic income" is not basic anymore to sustain paying for rents, for stuff more than bare minimum. In other words, more debts.
That's a simplified explanation of what would be going on, but it gives a general idea of why it would not work so well in practice, and why it's not sustainable.
By the way in most countries you have a "basic income" already for people who have no resources whatsoever (not for everyone in society) - it's very limited but that's enough to buy food usually. The idea is nothing new.
You take it from people or corporations who are extremely rich.
I don't think we're at the point where it's sustainable yet but it's not hard to imagine a future where prices are dirt cheap and some robotics corporation is making $1t in profits every year after automating away every low-skilled job.
Western countries are knee deep in public debt, but very rich when it comes to private wealth. We don't need to print money, we just need to increase taxes a bit, especially on the wealthiest 1 %. Inflation is an unfair tax as it targets middle class savers the most, instead of the rich who have most of their wealth in real estate, shares and bonds, etc.
Some prices would rise, but not enough to offset the benefits of basic income. Our economy has more than enough productivity and wealth to provide everyone with food and shelter. The majority of food production is largely automated and does not require a lot of cheap labor.
Your claim that basic income is not sustainable is unsubstantiated. Basic income is a great way to share the proceeds of automation and increased productivity among the many instead of just among the few.
It's very easy for corporations or rich individuals to move away from places were tax increase too much. More unemployment, is that what you want? Because when such companies/people move, they don't spend their money locally anymore. Yeah, and they are free to move, unless you want to set up a totalitarian regime.
And the claim that taxing the very rich will save the government from its debt is hilarious, seeing that the US government, for example, has dozens of trillions of USD in debts and I have yet to hear about any company who has a trillion of net worth.
Sure, tax evasion is a problem, but the fact is taxes have been on a downward curve for decades now. Wealth and corporate tax evasion is a race to the bottom, and requires international cooperation. Should we just shrug and let inequality grow without bounds? We don't need to restrict people's freedom to move, but the EU and US could for example cooperate on introducing tariffs on companies that base their operations in tax havens. Of course, there is still a lot that could be achieved on a purely national level too.
Well you are obviously on another end of the political spectrum, I consider that taxes are way too high in many countries, and that governments should restrict the scope of what they do instead of increasing the tax burden on generations to come. Obviously this is not a very popular stance to have these days, but I am strongly convinced this is the best one if we are serious about our economic future.
While I am strongly convinced more redistribution is needed if we are serious about the well being of humanity. Economy should be a tool to serve humanity, not the other way around. Unless your head has been stuck in the sand, you might have noticed that pretty much all the increased profits generated since the 1970s have gone to the very few and rich.
Even if you only care about economic growth and not about inequality, there is evidence that economic growth is held back by the current levels of inequality:
> Unless your head has been stuck in the sand, you might have noticed that pretty much all the increased profits generated since the 1970s have gone to the very few and rich.
Unless you head has been stuck in the sand, worldwide poverty has decreased significantly since the 1970s and that's become the market has been more opened than before, not because governments have been overspending.
> Even if you only care about economic growth and not about inequality, there is evidence that economic growth is held back by the current levels of inequality
Bullshit. Inequality increase is obviously normal. Someone who starts with more capital will see their absolute income rising faster than someone with lower capital, so obviously "inequality" will rise no matter what. It would be very strange if it went the other way around. Besides, Inequality is bullshit because the level of life for almost everyone on Earth has increased generation after generation, and the poor have been getting less poor than they were, so for almost everyone it is a positive trend. Look at China, if you want an example of how hundred of millions of people benefit from a newly opened market to get out of poverty.
> Where is the evidence for the case that taxes are way too high? Growing public debt will also be a burden on generations to come.
What evidence do you need? When 45% of you gross salary goes back to the government in taxes, that's the only evidence you need.
EDIT/ And, you know, if you want to help the poor, nobody prevents you from giving your savings and income to charity or to whoever you like. You know, you don't need the government to do that for you with added inefficiency and bureaucracy.
To show that increasing inequality is not inevitable, before 1980 wealth inequality levels in the US were either steady or declining (scroll down to the first graph): http://www.cnbc.com/id/101540240
Yes, worldwide hunger has fallen by 17 percent since 1990 (a lot less than world economic and productivity growth in the same period), but there are still 842 million people who don't have enough to eat. We could pat ourselves on the back and say "well done", or we could consider the fact that we're settling for a lot less than what we are capable of - http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats
Inequality increase might be "normal" in our current political systems, but that doesn't make it desirable or inevitable. A progressive tax on wealth and income could prevent it from getting out of hand. Inequality is not bullshit, because first of all the extreme wealth in the hands of the rich could go a long way to feed and house the hungry and poor, and secondly wealth is power. Wealth can buy political power through lobbying and campaigning, ensuring that policies tend to shift ever in favour of the wealthy. Thus extreme inequality corresponds to extreme imbalances in power, undermining our democratic institutions.
On the first point, "you could approximately double the incomes of those living on less than $1.25 a day worldwide by transferring to them one-third of the consumption growth enjoyed by the world’s richest 1 percent since 1990. Think of it as bringing the consumption levels of the global 1 percent back to where they were around 2003 or 2004, in return for wiping out global absolute poverty. Is that such an unreasonable tradeoff?" - http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-09/how-to-end-g...
You claimed the fact that people had been lifted out of poverty since the 1970s was a sign that the economy was doing well. Why then is a 45 % tax such a problem, assuming the people paying it don't end up below the poverty level? Considering what governments provide in terms of infrastructure, safety, education, social security, and health care, is that so much to ask for? It seems only fair to pay back to society for the opportunities provided for us. Also from a utilitarian stand-point societies with less inequality have less crime and improved well-being (assuming the GDP per capita is not too low of course). Tax is a necessary part of a well functioning society, not a bogeyman. We should just make taxation more fair by not making the middle class pay a disproportionate share - the wealthy often pay a significantly lower tax percentage on their earnings due to income being taxed higher than capital gains.
High tax rates do not prevent economic growth, in fact the opposite seems to be the case: "During the 1950s and early 1960s, the top bracket income tax rate was over 90%--and the economy, middle-class, and stock market boomed." - http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-tax-rates
Tax rates are at an all-time low, inequality levels are soaring, and economic growth is poor. The gains from the high levels of productivity growth we've seen since the 1970s have been accumulating among a small elite. Doesn't seem very ideal to me.
That would just create a black market for cheaper sex workers. There will be people who can't afford the minimum price so a market will open to meet their demand.
