Always have, remember what financed the industrial revolution? Opium.
So, basically…
it isnt completely ridiculous. eg. sex workers get paid, sex workers then spend their money elsewhere increasing total demand. its just that it is difficult to measure (double counting issues and all) as the article says.
there can be ‘legal’ activities which may not be captured in official data too, the informal sector.
Someone already said this in the other thread on a similar post here: that money from drugs and prostitution is already laundered. It’s already a part of the GDP.
i think it would depend on how its laundered.
if a person pays a sex worker $100 and the sex worker (assuming no middlemen) reports it as just someone friendly giving them money for nothing in return (gift) then that transaction itself won’t be counted in GDP.
if a person pays sex worker $100 and the sex worker runs a nail salon as a front, then that $100 would be counted because the ‘customer’ paid to get their ‘nails done’.
I read this recently:
China’s material-focused GDP may be a better measure of the economy as it relates to living standards, especially since UNSNA has obviously lost its mind by now officially recommending drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling and theft be included in GDP.
https://asiatimes.com/2024/06/whats-the-real-size-of-chinas-economy/
No, it doesn’t make sense. Prostitution doesn’t produce value, counting drug trafficking is much more reasonable. I know that other “legal” services are already counted, but when they don’t play a role in producing value, they shouldn’t be.
the article i linked mentions this
Even if the service sector is included in GDP, there is a conceptual problem associated with measuring its output, since what constitutes the rendering of a service is difficult to distinguish from what constitutes mere transfer payment. After all, one may derive satisfaction from making a transfer payment exactly as one derives satisfaction from the performance of a musician; how then can we include the one and not the other within the ambit of GDP?
the question is whether service sector as a whole should be measured and included.
i also do not believe prostitution as a service creates no value. what is ‘value’ depends, sex does provide pleasure and it is being done for payment. one could argue art (Paintings, Movies, TV Shows, Games etc) shouldn’t be included either because there is no tangible value being created.
It shouldn’t be, that’s what I’m saying. It’s unproductive labor, in the sense that it doesn’t produce value. The service sector is paid with the product produced by the producing sector (mainly industry and agriculture). Counting their “production” is counting the same money twice. Artists as a whole don’t necessarily fit into the service sector, because their work can produce value, depending on how they work. For example, craftsmen and musicians who record their music produce value, because their work is transformed into a commodity.
EDIT: I know I spoke a bit confusingly, but English is not my primary language and I read Marx in my language, so I don’t know the precise translation of many terms.
Responding to the part you added later: the question is not simply having individual use value, which one could argue that prostitution has, the question is whether labor transforms matter into merchandise or not, in short, whether it produces or not value (having value and producing value are different things).
(Paintings, Movies, TV Shows, Games etc) shouldn’t be included either because there is no tangible value being created.
No, there is tangible value being created. You take the combined work of everyone involved in production and end up with a commodity. Paintings, Movies, TV Shows and Games are commodities.
They always did, it’s just that now they’re finally adding the lumpenproletariat to the equation. The true criminals- the highest criminals and the highest form of criminality- have always not only been embraced by the west, but uplifted to the highest office.
