Reader Meredith sent along a link to this post by Steven Levitt on the Freakonomics blog:
What Do Prostitutes and Rice Have in Common?If you believe what you read, then the answer to that question is that they are both examples of one of economics' most elusive objects: Giffen goods. But don't always believe what you read.
A Giffen good is a product or service for which demand rises with price. In other words, if you hold everything else constant, but the good gets more expensive, the quantity consumed will increase.
I don't think it's inherently demeaning to analyze the economics of sex work. I do, however, think an entire post that equates human beings with a GRAIN is pretty fucking unacceptable. Also, note that the post does not compare the commodities purchased -- i.e. sex and rice -- but instead treats sex workers as if they themselves, rather than their services, are bought and sold.
Then, just in case any readers missed the fact that he doesn't think sex workers are human beings, Levitt turns it all into a big joke:
I offer a Freakonomics contest: the commenter who provides the best answer to the question of what prostitutes and rice have in common within the first 24 hours of this post will win their choice of Freakonomics schwag.
You'll be totally shocked to learn that the comments are a cesspool.
So I have a similar contest for you, dear commenters: What do asshole economists and rice have in common? Best answer wins a set of Feministing magnetic poetry.
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They're both edible!
They both tend to be white.
Thank you for covering this. I read that article and was disgusted.
There are oh so many of them, and they tend to stick together.
-White is most common
-Brittle and dry
-Used better on the side, and rarely important enough to take center stage
Neither one gets any bigger than a grain of rice
It's possible to consume far too much of both. The limit of overconsumption is a lot lower for asshole economists though, as in, anything they say.
I guess the better way to say that is that they both have diminishing marginal utility. :)
They can both be finished(ready) in a minute!
Both should be placed in very hot water
They both remind me of maggots (too far?)
I think it is just that it would be a little more confusing to say "what does sex have in common with rice?" Rice is inherently a commodity, sex is more complicated. It makes sense to specify that you are talking about prostitutes for brevity's sake. And for the sake of argument, prostitutes are pretty colloquially known as "selling themselves" or "selling their bodies" since it's pretty hard to eliminate the human from the sex act.
If anything, he made a small semantic error in failing to specify a distinction. Other than that he was performing a pretty straightforward debunking of an economics claim, and using only economic theory. I really don't see what about this makes him an asshole.
Correction: Sex-workers/prostitutes do NOT sell themselves or their bodies. They sell a "service" (whatever one thinks of those services). Nobody buys the right to do whatever to that body or gets to own the person when purchasing a specific service from a sex-worker.
I know you referred to those terms by their "colloquial" use. But I still want to make this point because the colloquial use is wrong and dangerous.
PS. I see now that Merlaw said it: It is confusing the supplier with the supplied (not a mistake an economist should make, is it?). This is a very common confusion in this particular field though and I know that it is one of the major hurdles prostitutes (of all kinds) face and which prevents reality-based policies and debates.
Perhaps not selling your body, but definitely renting it out.
no.
What is your job? Do you rent out your entire body to your employer? Or do you sell a specific product, ie a specific task that you do with that body? How would you feel if your boss indicated that he had rented your body and person instead of hiring you to do the specific task that was in your contract?
A few days ago we had the "day against violence against sex-workers"... now how are we to combat this if we agree that customers have in fact rented the right to do whatever they want with the whole body? When in fact the workers themselves are fighting that exact idea (that comes from both left and right, unfortunately)?
We really really need to get rid of that treacherous little piece of rhetoric.
When you rent a movie (or any other product, for that matter), you can't do whatever you want to it.
So your assumption that the term "renting" implies complete freedom and impunity is blatantly incorrect.
I am a consultant. My clients essentially rent my brain. But doing so comes with Terms and Conditions, just like renting anything else.
This thread of comments is at the core of the issue. What is being sold (or rented)?
In the industry of prostitution, one human being is being hired to provide sexual gratification to another. This is clearly a service. However, services can be commoditized; for example, telephone customer service is sold as a commodity by many developing countries to Europe and the USA.
As in the call center staff, the essence of the prostitution service involves a certain protocol of actions (solving the problem of the customer or bringing the customer to orgasm) whose success and value is at least partly a direct result of the worker's human qualities. A call-center staffer with a stutter won't go far; a prostitute who has visible leprosy sores won't either.
To a certain extent, the human qualities of these workers are part of the service. Elliot Spitzer paid high rates for the psychological privilege of being naked with a college-educated younger woman who presumably excelled in the amorous arts. The record appears to show that the individual did not matter much to him, but the person's qualities did. In his economic transactions, Spitzer commoditized the prostitute.
I don't see any way of getting around this. Trading in sex necessarily involves the commoditization of many of the personal attributes of the worker providing the service.
The philosophical question is what is the person, aside from "brainy," "blonde" or "busty"? At what point, if you strip off all attributes, do you end up with nothing? Are we who we look like physically or psychologically or are we something else?
Sorry to run on.
Again: no.
You are correct that when you rent a movie you do indeed rent it with the right to do whatever you want with it within certain conditions (like not damaging it). When I rent a movie I do not have to use it in it's intended way or purpose (I can watch it backwards etc). This is not so when you hire a worker!
A worker is hired to do a specific task which can be loosely or strictly defined. When I hire you to do some thinking I do not "rent your brain". Renting your brain in a way that is equivalent to renting a movie would mean that I would have the right to make you think and feel whatever I wanted you to as long as I did not damage that brain. That is hopefully not the case.
When I hire your services I hire you to do a specific thing. You retain the full right to refuse to do any other thing - so I have not "rented" you (or your brain): I have paid you to do something with your brain, I have not rented the right for me to do something with your brain. This is not comparable to renting a video.
The same thing goes for a sex-worker. With the caveat that their contracts are (or should be) very specific, and they retain (or should retain) the rights to refuse anything. If a person pays a sex-worker to tie him up and whip him he has no right to do anything outside of that specific contract and the worker retains the right to refuse anything both outside and inside that specific contract.
Sex-workers, like other humans and laborers, are not comparable to rented videos. They are hired to do one specific service, they are not rented out as human commodities (or: they should not be - that would be a violation, which is why we should not use that language).
Interesting analogy, but it seems to have one rather glaring flaw. If someone rents my brain, that is, consults me for my knowledge of a given topic, it is very easy for me to arrest the transaction should I choose to do so.
Once a sex worker has been tied up and is being whipped, or is simply alone in a room with a client, it becomes inherently more difficult (and risky) for that transaction to be discontinued.
It is all fine and dandy to speak of rights and to work towards a safe environment for sex workers, but I do not believe sex work can be conceptualized as any other form of work is. By its very nature, sex work is inherently dangerous, and I would venture to guess that most sex workers are fully aware of the dangers. If it is the case that sex work is a voluntary choice, then the assumption of risk would also be voluntary. While there certainly are other dangerous jobs, there is not much danger inherent in being a consultant.
There is a pattern in your comments of saying that whatever the OP is critiquing has a reasonable explanation and isn't so bad, after all. Even if you were right now and then (and hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day), has it occurred to you yet that the sheer number of posts all making similar critiques on a vast variety of sociological phenomena might just mean, just maybe, that we are on to something? That Patriarchy not only exists but leaves discernable traces? And that the posters here know how to spot them? Try sitting back and observing for a while longer. When you've lost the reflex to deny feminists', and especially women's, experiences, then you know that you are ready to speak up again.
I haven't read doubleb's other posts, but this one seemed reasonable, and there are other commenters on this post who have said similar things.
Now, I read Feministing and generally agree with the posts, but sometimes will disagree with one, like this one. I only very occasionally comment, but I'm much more likely to comment on ones where I disagree, as I think in those cases that I've got a different perspective and something to contribute that might be interesting. Now if someone were to read all of my contributions, they would probably come to the same conclusion as you have about doubleb - that I'm always disagreeing with the OP etc, but that doesn't mean that I disagree with the majority of posts or have a "reflex to deny feminists', and especially women's, experiences".
I was going to say something similar to tomd. You notice that I post mostly disagreement because I find disagreement much more interesting. There are many posts with which I agree, but I don't bother posting anything because I don't feel I have anything constructive to add. I certainly agree that patriarchy exists and is pervasive, and I also see it everywhere I go. What I'm typically disagreeing with is the tendency to find something that might be offensive, and then just assume that it is and that it's meant that way.
Like in this case, an economist, in a primarily economic conversation, referred to prostitutes being a product instead of their services. I don't think it's fair to call him an asshole because of that slip up. It might be a mischaracterization, and it might reflect a larger problem in societies view of sex-workers, but I don't think he was trying to be offensive, and I doubt he even thought about his language carefully at all. His business was describing a complex economic mistake, and he's being attacked here for a common misuse of language. I just think it's unnecessarily angry to attack him personally for what is really a larger problem.
Both are usually white, and an asshole economist is about as useful as a single grain of rice; just something to be swept up and tossed out.
"Also, note that the post does not compare the commodities purchased -- i.e. sex and rice -- but instead treats sex workers as if they themselves, rather than their services, are bought and sold."
Not to be an asshole myself but people in professions are often labeled that way.
I mean if you heard instead, lawyers and rice; doctors and rice; secretaries...well you get the idea. You often defined people the job they have rather than the service they provide.
They are bland, boring and without any taste!
I have to agree with Kristen, you have this very wrong. It might help to read the article. "The client who buys the services of these two types of prostitutes is buying two very different products." Note the service (i.e. sex) is the product of the prostitute not the prostitute themselves.
I'll agree with you the contest is in poor taste but otherwise nothing to complain about.
The post is specifically talking about rice--as you state, a commodity--and commodified sex. The "small semantic error" that he makes is referring to the supplier of the commodity as the commodity. A human has motivations, incentives, disincentives--a commodity has none of these things. A grain of rice has no agency, no reason for growing, no ability to act consciously within the marketplace. Its seller does. To equate the two would be completely absurd. That's why it's completely absurd--and horrifically insulting--to talk about prostitutes without acknowledging that they are human beings selling a service, not themselves a commodity.
He could have said (in re: Doubleb) "what does prostitution have in common with rice?" That would have been an improvement in my opinion.
This is how he tends to talk about things, without analyzing any meaning behind it. Personally, I think the math sometimes can be interesting, but it seems superficial without more analysis. He writes about lots of things in this style: gangs and drug sales, the KKK, names that "sound Black," abortion, etc. Very different from the sociological perspective that most of us with a feminist lens prefer!
A side note, his book was not very good. The only interesting part to me was the quasi-ethnographic section on gangs, and I usually love economics!
What do asshole economists and rice have in common?
They both have the moral & ethical conduct equivalent to that of a gerbil.
Oh, wait a minute. That's not fair... gerbil's are matriarchal! :)
There is a reason "straightforward economic claim(s)" should not be used in relation to humans. Not only does it de-humanize people, but it tries to make every human situation into a strict 'one-or-the other,' black or white category. There leaves no room for the grey - which is mostly what human situations consist of. I found the same thing when I read "Freakonomics." If you knew anything about the topics that he took up, you could see what was missing in his straightforward economic argument. For example, in the case study where Levitt was discussing how/why teachers might help their students cheat on standardized tests, no where did he discuss whether or not standardized tests are an accurate form of assessment for learning. This educational detail, which is a pretty common debate in the education field, might affect how some teachers administer, or care about those tests. The beautiful, messy and complicated grey area - that's why sociological disciplines exist.
>Both are bland and white.
>Both are usually full of starch
>Both can't always supply it on demand
>Both can be pres. Bush's puppets [Condoleeza/A-hole economists]
Both have the potential to give you unpleasant digestive problems.
They are small, white, common, mindless, stripped of the good stuff (over-polished), lacking compassion, and as they describe women in their flip, thoughtless, and dehumanizing articles: a human commodity.
Asshole.
The only thing I could think was STARCH, which is present both in rice and the assshole economist's expensive shirts that he could afford thanks to PR people who were able to place a copy of their book in the hands of every celebrity who wanted to seem smart in the tabloid. For a while Freakonomics was the equivalent of wearing glasses without a prescription.
Also they have in common their outcome: SHIT!!!
They're both equally good at describing human behavior.
The results are ready in a minute, but it always turns out wrong.
(admittedly, only true of Minute Rice)
Absolutely nothing. Rice is useful.
Neither are acceptable to throw at weddings because they make birds' stomachs explode? Umm... I got nothin.....
Neither has a heart.
They should be boiled and fed to the starving.
Asshole economists and rice?
They're both white, starched and stiff, and can cause serious pain when they're in large amounts and bloated.
Those of you saying "it's just semantics, it's no big deal" allow me to frame this another way.
When you read this guy's post, do you then picture him as someone who would treat prostitutes (in casual conversation and in person) with the dignity and respect that they deserve as humans?
It is generally frowned upon to throw either at weddings.
Asshole economists and rice are equally dry and unpalatable when raw; only one improves its taste by changing its color.
Treat rice with hot air and it gets puffed up and insubstantial. Asshole economists are always full of hot air, puffed up, and insubstantial.
This guy's an economist. He is paid to look at the entire world as a commodity. (Asshole economist Stephen Harper, now Canada's Prime Minister, has joked that an economist is what people without the charisma to be accountants become.) He is, by default, something of an asshole.
This particular economist has said that if ethics are how the world should work, economics is how it does work. He has found a correlation (but, he stresses, no causal link) between legalized abortion and the crime rate. He tries to come up with the weirdest comparisons and situations possible. He compares sumo wrestlers and public school teachers, and asks why so many crack dealers still live with their moms. A question comparing prostitution to selling rice isn't exactly a sign of a deeper misogyny.
That being said, he did say something stupid and insensitive. I don't think he meant it, and that it was an accident of poor wording, but that doesn't change that he said a very stupid thing.
Some of these make ALL economists sound bad, when in fact, I became an Economics major because I didn't see enough women in the field and I happened to like it. It was MY rejection of a system that told me that because I have a vagina, that I should be in the background as a nurturer and not someone who could actually HELP people on a large scale. And to the person up there who said that Economists are paid to see the entire world as a commodity-- that's simply not true. As a general rule, unless on a policy or corporate level (and sometimes even then), it is more of an observatory field. Just because some douchebag says compares prostitutes to rice because he sucks doesn't mean that all economists are bad people who can't bring change to people who need it as well.
Both asshole economists and rice need to be washed thoroughly at least several times before anything else is done with them.
What do asshole economists and rice have in common?
I would like to put both in a bag and throw them out of a helicopter into a crowd of hungry refugees.
Both something you should put a lid on!
White Privelege.
Also...basing their research mostly on correlations and presenting conclusions that have some questionable evidence but are mostly conjecture?
Oh wait. Rice knows better.
Mountain out of molehill here...As all of Leavitt's writings do, he uses a provocative title in order to hook the reader into some pretty esoteric economic theory. I don't often agree with him, nor find his approach terribly appealing, but if you actually get past the title, he's correct in this case...and answers an intriguing question...no, not about prostitution & rice, but about Giffin goods, which is the theme of the article. Its just so much academic masturbation. Which is why its in the Times to begin with.
Since he was clearly being provocative its fair to criticize him, but the piece doesn't demonize women.
I know that the bulk of these comments are all made in good spirit but I can already hear Bill O'Reilly using some of the them to demonize feminists much like he has with 'progressives' via DailyKos.
I tend to believe people are good and unless I have unambigious evidence to determine otherwise I stick with that principle. In this case I genuinely believe Levitt was simply speaking in economic terms. Now we know that economics in the strickest sense cares not for humanity but the system in which humanity exists. I'm sure Levitt respects the humanity of prostitues but he is not a sociol worker so it doesn't come through in his writing.
None the less, some of the comparisons were pretty funny :)
Thank you for bringing this up! Although I see no mention of the fact that today is international day to end violence against sex workers.
I'm a sociology of work person, so I feel like I'm the academic "natural" enemy of economists.
I thought the comments were reprehensible.
I should specify that I meant the comments on NYTimes.
The only time anyone cares about them is when they're low on money.
Was a difference ever contested?
they closely resemble parasites. (tapeworm looks like grains of rice - sorry if i freak out rice lovers.)
For a perspective on what Levitt and his colleagues actually think about sex workers, you could actually do a search for the "Prostitution" tag on their blog. Call me crazy, but that would seem pertinent before spouting off and calling him an asshole, and making some rather off-base assumptions based on some wording of one tongue-in-cheek blog post (which was a response to the prostitute vs. rice comparison from *somewhere else*).
they closely resemble parasites. (tapeworm looks like grains of rice - sorry if i freak out rice lovers.)
levitt missidentifies the human as the product of prostitution, when in fact a prostitutes labor is their product.
yeah.
i think he overlooked that really simple fact because he was really boned out over how awesome and edgy his giffen comparisson would play out.
what do asshole economists and rice have in common?
-neither gives a shit when people starve.
Neither are chocolate.
What do asshole economists and rice have in common?
They're often white, tasteless, and will go along with whatever is hot at the moment.
The white ones have no taste!
He's not an economist, he's a freakonomist.
In contrast, Paul Krugman is an economist.
Am I the only one feeling uneasy with how people are making the connection with skin color (race) here, i.e., white economists, white rice?
I mean I also found the comments in poor taste on his blog for the same reason----where many referred to prostitutes and rice as both being prevalent in southeast Asia (a geographic reference of race).
At first glance both seem like they have a lot of substance, but after you sit and process them for a while you realize that you're left feeling empty.
they both come in varieties that are void of value and are often used as fillers for bankrupt means of sustenance!
Um, wow. Apparently it doesn't take much to be labelled an asshole. Just one blog posting.
I mean, granted that this wasn't Levitt at his best (the contest in particular is pretty tacky). But the severity & range of character assassination in the Comments on this page is stunning. ("neither gives a shit when people starve"...seriously? Someone thinks that about Levitt? Why?)
We ought to be able to recognize the difference between *saying* something asshole-ish, on one hand, and actually *being* an asshole, on the other.
I've never met Levitt...I've only read one co-authored book, and a handful of blog postings. I have no idea what kind of dude he is, really. But that's kinda my point...
They're both processed.
Oh god, my favorite food is being compared to something completely different. Ugh.
Rice > Asshole economists.
Alright, this piece totally misses the point of Stephen Levitt's question. He's asking an ECONOMIC question.
Levitt's error is linguistic, not moral. He is mixing up the service offered with the serviceperson who offers it. We do this all the time, when we speak of the cost of "a lawyer."
Throughout his book, which I have read, he makes other such economic comparisons, like, "How are standardized tests and sumo wrestling alike?" But not many would claim that Levitt thinks that sumo wrestlers exist for the sole purpose of measuring each other's wrestling prowess to determine who gets government funding.
It takes an extremely reactionary and tortured state of mind to equate "How are rice and prostitutes alike?" with "Prostitutes are just commodities, they exist for my pleasure, moo hah hah!" Come on friends, give Levitt more credit.