Andrew Yang, one of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, recently tweeted:
We should consider decriminalizing sex work on the part of the seller – it would be helpful in combating human trafficking. Many sex workers are themselves victims.
I agree with his proposal. But Yang left out something key: we should also consider, and do more than consider by actually changing the law, decriminalizing sex work on the part of the buyer.
I could go into all the ins and outs but I looked back and found that I handled many of the same issues when Jimmy Carter gave an ill-thought out case for making the buyers of prostitutes’ services, but not the sellers, criminally liable. He was half right too.
By the way, I know that people are often talking about how bright Andrew Yang is. I certainly haven’t seen it.
READER COMMENTS
KevinDC
Dec 23 2019 at 7:19pm
I agree that it ought to be decriminalized for both parties. But as I was pondering this story, it raised what seemed like an interesting possible point of dispute people might have about justice and fairness.
Let’s suppose that it’s agreed that the bad scenario is where it’s illegal, and both parties to the transaction are prosecuted, and the good scenario is how things currently are in Australia, where it’s legal and both parties are left alone. What should we make of this weird in-between scenario?
First, the law itself seems a bizarre. “It’s legal for them to sell it to you, but it’s illegal for you to buy it from them.” That’s some Alice in Wonderland level legislation right there. But if that’s the situation we have – is this better or worse than the “bad” scenario as defined above?
One might say it’s better because it’s only half as unjust as before – in the previous regime two people were facing unjust charges for capitalist acts between consenting adults, whereas now only one is. While it would still be better if nobody faced charges, it’s still a move in the right direction, so while we shouldn’t be satisfied with this, and should continue to push for full legalization, we should accept this halfway step that at least alleviates some injustice if it’s all we can get for now.
However, another person might say that this new scenario is even worse, because the injustice is now unfair, inasmuch as people consider distribution and fairness related. In the prior system, both parties were at the same legal risk, and they would face the consequences equally, but now the risk is not equally distributed. While nobody should face charges for this capitalist act between consenting adults, if a system exists where that will happen, it would be outrageous for only one side of the transaction to be at risk while the other faces no liability at all. Injustice should be redressed, but until it is, the burden of injustice should be equally distributed. Therefore it’s better for both to suffer the injustice than for one to bear all the costs themselves.
Lower levels of injustice, unequally distributed, or higher levels of injustice, equally distributed? A person’s answer to this could tell you a lot about how much they value equality of outcome as an end in itself.
(Also, I have to agree, I am a bit underwhelmed by Andrew Yang. His whole candidacy is riding on his UBI proposal, but as has been argued pretty effectively, his math doesn’t even come close to checking out. See here for an example https://squareallworthy.tumblr.com/post/183529771487/taking-ubi-seriously-part-9-yang-redux)
David Henderson
Dec 23 2019 at 7:40pm
Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
You wrote:
That’s one reason I recommend looking at my post that I linked to on Jimmy Carter. I point out that illegalization is a crude from of a tax and the burden is on both buyers and sellers no matter whom the tax is imposed on. The split of the burden depends on relatively elasticities of supply and demand, period. My gut feel, although I don’t say this in the previous post because I’ve now had time to think about it, is that the demand is less elastic than the supply. That means that the customers bear over half the burden no matter whom the tax is placed on.
KevinDC
Dec 23 2019 at 7:48pm
Thank you for your kind reply, David.
I do want to make clear that while I did write that, I wasn’t necessarily advocating that – I was describing different views one might hold, not describing my own view. But your point is a good one – the legal incidence of a policy is not the same as it’s economic incidence. This is one of many insights from economics that are underappreciated.
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