Yes, in places where there is an extreme power imbalance, with few employment opportunities for the disadvantaged, and no morals or accountability among elites, all manner of scummy things happen.
We should strive to ameliorate the conditions in the world that make this happen, so that young women can aspire to being scientists or doctors or businesswomen, instead of some corrupt asshole’s decorative servants.
It's this type of attitude that makes most on the right cringe at the left. The notion that if someone isn't living their life in a way that you deem to be of value, then there must be a "power imbalance" that needs to be corrected. Has it occurred to you that not everyone wants to be a doctor, or "businesswoman". And that many young women actually like sex and furthermore like using their sexuality to get things in return?
Has it occurred to you that there's nothingwrong with that? It doesn't have to be a "power imbalance". When I buy an orange at the grocery store is that a power imbalance? Should that grocer find a better job by your estimation? Should he have been a doctor? Does he need your "saving"?
If a young woman wants to follow a man to meetings, live in his mansion, have sex, and look beautiful at all times, and in exchange gets what she considers fair compensation, then what exactly is the problem? It's an exchange of goods and services on the open market. It does not imply a "power imbalance".
Who said anyone’s life lacked value? There’s nothing wrong with being a market clerk, or a restaurant server, or a farm laborer, or a fashion model, or an administrative assistant, or a factory worker, or a janitor, or a soldier, or a mail carrier, or a taxi driver, or a stay-at-home parent, ....
The problem is that many people in many places are stuck with a choice of either working themselves to death at a job they hate for shit pay and no benefits (or maybe just starving on the street) or else selling themselves to a very wealthy asshole. When that happens, it indicates a profound structural failing of the society. Prostitution or feudal servitude shouldn’t be anyone’s only shot at a comfortable life.
In theory there’s nothing wrong with a career in private security. But it’s messed up to be an enforcer for the dictator family who who rule Equatorial Guinea and live lavishly while keeping the rest of the country in miserable squalor.
In theory there’s nothing wrong with being an actress. But it’s messed up if getting a leading part depends on giving blowjobs to the studio executives.
Etc.
> It does not imply a "power imbalance".
If the young women in such relationships had all the money and power and the old men had none, how many of those couples would still be sleeping together?
There are porn stars who live comfortably yet remain in the business. There are even wives who like to be pimped out by their husbands because it's kinky to them; that's technically still prostitution.
I don't think the 'happy hooker' is just a theoretical thing. I think it exists, and it happens all the time. The fact that there is prostitution doesn't imply there is a power imbalance. Maybe if prostitution wasn't so stigmatized, it would be even more common.
Having said that, in this context there is obviously a power imbalance. Somebody says they're scared to leave because of the threat of violence. I'm sure this also happens in way too many cases around the world. I share your view that possibly a significant chunk of this misery can be done away with by getting rid of poverty. However, let's not forget the contribution to said misery by the mere psychopathy that drives people like Epstein.
The women could simply lead a normal life without Billionaire perks, like Billions of other women do. They are not forced to sell their bodies in exchange for a Billionaire lifestyle.
Have you seen how much scientists get paid nowadays? Don't even get me started on how most people who follow that career path just end up as lab techs at best, who earn even less. Everyone I know who majored in bio, chem, or physics has ended up in tech. For the money. And why should they have done otherwise?
It is a huge waste of talent and misallocation of resources that a large proportion of the smartest and best-trained scientists and engineers in the world get sucked into working in finance, business consulting, advertising/surveillance, etc.
There’s nothing wrong with individual people making this choice (I have many friends in those fields). It’s just evidence of large structural problems in the society.
(Of course, not all “tech” is zero-sum or harmful.)
You don't have to be smart or well-trained to get the big bucks. I don't have a STEM degree. The most successful engineers I know don't even have a degree at all.
No, it is a pretty good allocation and a great use of that talent. That talent is producing value at a scale unprecedented in human civilisation. The human race has spoken, and this is what it wants. And I, for one, love it.
> talent is producing value at a scale unprecedented
As far as I can tell, much of this “value” consists of inserting oneself into existing money flows and diverting a tiny part into one’s own pocket, at the expense of everyone else in the society.
Wages in the broader society have been stagnant for decades despite steep increases in labor productivity. Healthcare, housing, and education costs keep skyrocketing without commensurate improvements in quality.
In the USA, life expectancy is going down, infrastructure is aging without replacement, worker and consumer protections have eroded, children’s lives are increasingly regimented and controlled, 40% of adults are obese, loneliness is rampant, young people are deeply indebted, almost nobody has enough savings to comfortably retire, many ecosystems are facing collapse and many species are facing extinction, ...
Listen, I know you have your pet loves: American obesity, loneliness, debt, etc. etc. I have mine. And it is possible that if I allocated all labour I wouldn't do it like you would. In fact, I suspect no two people would have the exact same allocation.
Fortunately, because we are free people, we have proposed a mechanism. You make something valuable to me and you get a sort of exchangeable vote from me that you can use to get someone (perhaps even me) to make something valuable for you. This is a nice mechanism because that way useful people can be rewarded for their usefulness by letting them choose the next thing for labour to be allocated to.
This system is distributed, everyone trusts the vote, and you can't make me do something against my will. This system of free and fair collaboration and competition has produced the current allocation as the current consolidated view of what people want. It's not what you want, true. It's not even what I want. But it's what we (all of us) want as independent agents collaborating and competing with each other.
But what if they don't want to? Or are unable to (too stupid, not too poor)? Why work a 9-5 job, when you can spread your legs every now and then get Louboutin shoes for a present, and a (real) Louis Vuitton handbag, and so on.
And the differences between the countries are not a local power imbalance problem, it's just the amount of benefits (=money) you get for spreading your legs. In a rich 1st world country, the "sponsor" has to earn a lot to make it worth it... but in a poor country, even a freelance coder working for foreign companies can earn enough to sponsor a girl like that, and also have a new-ish BMW (so her friends see her in it) and so on.
But when we get to higher class people, especially older, you suddenly stop calling the rich guy a scummy elite, but call her a trophy wife, especially if the guy is really really old and close to death.
We should strive to ameliorate the conditions in the world that make this happen, so that young women can aspire to being scientists or doctors or businesswomen, instead of some corrupt asshole’s decorative servants.