I was going to add some pictures of Russian prostitutes but then thought, no, that's just voyeurism. In a previous post I had casually remarked on the possible connection between the industrial military complexes in the north and the refugee crisis in the south.
Someone estimated that there are 30,000 prostitutes in Dubai. Friends who have returned from there have said the place is crawling with them. Tashkent, too, was full of prostitutes (I'll write about that later, maybe). In Lahore you know someone who got hooked to someone for 5,000 Rs a night and you are reliably told that there are places on the outskirts of the city, the "farmhouses," where there is a thriving high-end industry servicing the politicians and bureaucrats.
Reading an old paper by Saskia Sassen puts that in some perspective. Perhaps we need to think about globalisation, shrinking economies and the search for profits in illegal and immoral activities.
I don't have recent figures but I don't think these can be thought of as being peripheral to the economy any more.
Sassen's figures:
$ 7 billion profit to criminal groups from the trafficking of people (1998)
4.2 trillion Yen (per year) for the Japanese sex industry.
$ 20 billion for the smuggling of migrant workers.
If we think about how sex is related to tourism and entertainment (how big is the porn industry, for example?), think about drugs and arms, then we're talking about pretty large amounts of money, legal and illegal movements, co-ercion and violence all tied up with the spread of markets.
I don't one can-with a serious face-go back to Econ 101 and talk about markets for apples and wheat without looking at the underlying relations of power, the separation of markets from ethics and from a realistic psychological perspective.
Akerlof's new book is out. In it he asks (I think..not read) the intriguing question of whether fraud and other shady dealings can actually survive as an equilibrium phenomenon. It's not hard to understand in a multiple equilbria setting: if everyone is doing a bad thing (cheating, cutting corners) then it may be the only rational strategy for you to survive as well.
Example (from the classic Basu and Van paper): banning child labour might get you to the good equilibrium; otherwise, families can be stuck at the bad one.
Think now, if you will, about VW, Enron, LIBOR, FX, all the backhanders that go with military contracts. Oil, too, is surely rigged (or at least "influenced"..there are a lot of big players out there). Would anyone really care about Iraq or that whole region if there wasn't, you know, oil involved?
~
So, yes, there is one kind of argument that would look at subjectivities (the warped psychology of men). But that needs to be examined in the light of, and in addition to, structural features: changes in the economy and wider culture (commodification)..i.e. the spread of capitalism and its culture.
So, the question really is: how is excess for some related to the very real limitations (in some cases horrific violence) for others? Do they just co-exist or are they functionally related?
Someone estimated that there are 30,000 prostitutes in Dubai. Friends who have returned from there have said the place is crawling with them. Tashkent, too, was full of prostitutes (I'll write about that later, maybe). In Lahore you know someone who got hooked to someone for 5,000 Rs a night and you are reliably told that there are places on the outskirts of the city, the "farmhouses," where there is a thriving high-end industry servicing the politicians and bureaucrats.
Reading an old paper by Saskia Sassen puts that in some perspective. Perhaps we need to think about globalisation, shrinking economies and the search for profits in illegal and immoral activities.
I don't have recent figures but I don't think these can be thought of as being peripheral to the economy any more.
Sassen's figures:
$ 7 billion profit to criminal groups from the trafficking of people (1998)
4.2 trillion Yen (per year) for the Japanese sex industry.
$ 20 billion for the smuggling of migrant workers.
If we think about how sex is related to tourism and entertainment (how big is the porn industry, for example?), think about drugs and arms, then we're talking about pretty large amounts of money, legal and illegal movements, co-ercion and violence all tied up with the spread of markets.
I don't one can-with a serious face-go back to Econ 101 and talk about markets for apples and wheat without looking at the underlying relations of power, the separation of markets from ethics and from a realistic psychological perspective.
Akerlof's new book is out. In it he asks (I think..not read) the intriguing question of whether fraud and other shady dealings can actually survive as an equilibrium phenomenon. It's not hard to understand in a multiple equilbria setting: if everyone is doing a bad thing (cheating, cutting corners) then it may be the only rational strategy for you to survive as well.
Example (from the classic Basu and Van paper): banning child labour might get you to the good equilibrium; otherwise, families can be stuck at the bad one.
Think now, if you will, about VW, Enron, LIBOR, FX, all the backhanders that go with military contracts. Oil, too, is surely rigged (or at least "influenced"..there are a lot of big players out there). Would anyone really care about Iraq or that whole region if there wasn't, you know, oil involved?
~
So, yes, there is one kind of argument that would look at subjectivities (the warped psychology of men). But that needs to be examined in the light of, and in addition to, structural features: changes in the economy and wider culture (commodification)..i.e. the spread of capitalism and its culture.
So, the question really is: how is excess for some related to the very real limitations (in some cases horrific violence) for others? Do they just co-exist or are they functionally related?
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