I understand that many libertarians would curse me when I said about what I think women want.
They’re right. I don’t know. Not only I don’t know, statement about what women want are often used as justification of very anti libertarian agenda. So naturally libertarian hates that statement.
Government, encourage marriage and prohibits prostitution under assumption that marriage is “good” and women want life long legally binding marriage anyway. Libertarian argues that it should still be up to women.
Evolutionary psychology position is that prostitution is preferable to most women and that’s the very reason why it’s prohibited. Moreover, simply giving bigots benefit of doubt like what Libertarians do just won’t cut it.
In the absence of evidences, that’s heavily censored, in area of life politically significant, faith triumph over science. It’s just fact.
But why? Why all the effort to regulate sex?
This is probably the biggest difference between libertarian and non libertarian. Libertarians, especially entrepreneurs, match what they produce with what the market demand. So libertarians do not care what the market actually demands. All they want is honest signal of what the market wants so they can fulfill it.
Does it ever occur to us that most people cannot match what they produce with the market demands?
You have a factory of cement, for example. Then suddenly governments’ embrace globalization. That means your factory will just be junk. You can’t easily change that.
The same goes for beauties. If suddenly we realized the obvious that males want the pretty, can ugly women match the market demand and be prettier?
No. In fact, if there is any pattern in sexual selection is that anything “sexy” is most likely genetic. What we’re buying when we pick a mate are genes. Beauty is in demand precisely because women can’t earn it, at least not easily.
Having a high paying jobs will also have huge genetic correlation. High paying jobs are often high paying precisely because workers can’t easily choose to be able to do it. Otherwise I would have been a heavy weight boxing champ.
Libertarians positions are:
1. What ever 2 consenting parties agree to do, it’s no body else’ business.
2. What people typically want doesn’t matter. What matters are what each individuals want.
I like libertarianism. I must admit that those 2 positions are factually correct in most area. In some area, the 2 positions are simply false.
Areas where those 2 positions are false are area where supply is not very elastic. Those are precisely the area where governments often interfere, though arguably shouldn’t.
In fact, inelasticity of supply is the very justification of most unmeritocratic rules agreed even by some of the most hard core libertarians called objectivist.
“Forced altruism may be justifiable for things beyond their control,” I’ve heard an objectivist say.
“It’s not fair to hold people accountable for things beyond their control,” says others in justifying that a defendant is innocent on ground of insanity.
“People can’t be programmer anyway no matter how high programmer’s salary is,” says my socialist friend.
To which those with the least to offer simply say that things are not within their control. “Every body wants to be rich but well, I am poor here against my will,” says a cradle to grave welfare recipients.
What I mean by not very elastic doesn’t mean it’s totally inelastic. In fact, I am of the opinion that many things we think is inelastic is actually very elastic in a quite unintuitive ways and those unmeritocratic norms will produce whatever typically unmeritocratic norms will do, namely unproductivity.
Those are elastic in politically incorrect way. The way the supply is elastic is outside our box and hence looks inelastic. Heavy anti market regulations, for example, will create demand for corrupt officials. Well, we don’t teach that in school or public success coaching do we?
Imagine what happen in most normal goods. Say demand for fish drops. Then price of fish will drop too. The drop of the price of fish will also drop supply of fish. At the end the price of fish won’t drop that much. In the short time, price will drop. That’s because of the huge sunk cost fish industry has put. At the end it won’t matter match. Price drops but not a lot in the long run.
The same for steel or car factory. Say demand for car suddenly drop due to competition in china. It’ll be just like fish. Except that now the sunk cost is bigger. The number of jobs lost is bigger. The political pressure, something libertarians never take into account, to prohibit car imports will be bigger. That explains why for so many years we do not have globalization.
Most libertarians will simply tell those car industry workers, “Tough.” Yea they can’t change job. It’s easier for them to pressure government to prohibit import then to change them self. Let’s just face it. That’s what they do.
Now what about sexual demand?
Say men prefer the pretty (they do, we do, I know). Say men only pick the pretty. Now, does that affect the ugly?
Libertarian position is:
1. What ever 2 consenting parties agree to do, it’s no body else’ business.
In most products and service it doesn’t. However supply is NOT elastic. Ugly women can’t just be pretty. Men picking the pretty will drop the value of ugly women.
Libertarian position is:
2. What people typically want doesn’t matter. What matters are what each individuals want.
Again, what people typically want matters a lot on supply inelastic goods. That’s because what people typically want decides the market price.
If porn is legal, ugly women will go extinct. I must admit American girls are typically prettier than Indonesian thanks to porn.
Now what about supply inelasticity itself. Didn’t I say that that those are actually elastic?
Take a look at car factories, for example. In short terms, it’s not elastic. They already had a car factory. A sudden price drop means their factory is worthless.
The keyword here is sudden. How sudden? Because if it weren’t sudden, then they could have chosen not to build cars in the first place.
What about poverty? That doesn’t seem to be elastic. We know they can’t afford their babies.
But they can choose not to make them in the first place. Yes but even then is not elastic enough. The need to procreate is stronger than the need to live. Let’s face it. That being said, most women in Asia wouldn’t want to make babies without some financial commitment, while most women in Europe do. Welfare program do encourage breeding among the poor.
However, if those women really want to reproduce can’t they just pick rich smart males first and get say, some financial commitment?
Rich smart males, like any males obviously want as many hot women as possible. No society will ever run out any kind of males. Males are, how can I say it? like sperms. Expendable. I start seeing libertarian bottles flying toward me here.
Expendable unless they’re rich or provide some other values toward the ruling elite/society/whatever. Women always produce some form of value because getting pregnant sucks and hence has high market value. Even women marrying other males provide some values to most males because she takes out a competitor. Not so for women doing it outside marriage.
Men often do not produce any value whatsoever for other males and hence are more likely expendable.
Now, here is another fine point. Women cannot easily pick the rich. Consensual contract to reproduce between adults are heavily regulated against women picking rich smart males.
Prohibition of prostitution is one of them. Lack of right to decide child support commitment before conception is another. Not to mention a price fixed in marriage where women always get half and more unless the males perform some complicated legal maneuver first. That ensures that most rich males are not available on marriage and prohibition of prostitution means they can’t easily commit money otherwise.
So at the end, as we see, unmeritocratic rules, namely welfare program for the poor and prohibition of prostitution for the rich does heavily affect the supply side of poverty. Namely it encourages women to pick the poor and breed poor guys with the same preferences, including voting preferences.
Supply is actually very elastic when it comes to humans’ reproduction. It’s just that the elasticity doesn’t come out of individual direct choices. It comes out of sexual selection choices, which imply extinction of some genes and proliferation of others. That one is just not palatable enough among voters.