Being a casual and undisciplined surfer of the net means that I often get guided towards stories right in front of me, and very late, by somewhat circuitous routes. For instance, I only got to this as a result of Harry Hutton linking to a James Lileks piece in the Washington Times. But never mind, I got there:
A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing “sexual services” at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.
Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.
The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.
She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her “profile” and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.
Under Germany’s welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.
This is as classic a case of an ( I presume) unintended consequences as I have ever encountered, and it is an unintended consequence of two opinions both of which I hold myself. First, I do think that prostitution should indeed not be illegal, and second, in the absence of the abolition of state welfare, I do think that persistent welfare claimants should be obliged to lower their sights about what work they are willing to accept. Very unemployed information technology professionals should not lounge around watching day time television for year after year until such time as someone finally offers them a job in the information technology profession.
So, add to all of the above a tiny pepper shake of that Germanic manic logic of the sort that we all know about from our history books, and you get: be a prostitute, or lose your benefits. Amy Alkon, commenting on this post, explained why being a prostitute can be a fine and noble thing and can have very good consequences for society, but she surely did not mean this
That is the trouble with micro-managerially interventionist welfare (or attempted welfare) states. Arguments have a tendency to degenerate into whether any and every imaginable sort of human behaviour or employment or enjoyment should be either (a) illegal or (b) compulsory. (c) Take it or leave it/your choice/we do not care/enjoy it – shun it – it makes no difference to us/you decide . . . has a way of getting squeezed out.
The trouble with coming to a story this late is that, well, you’re too late. The piece has already been debunked, and then I partially debunked the debunkment by revealing it to be merely a partial debunkment dressed up as a full debunkment.
Cheers.
Posting something that’s been debunked is a misfortune. Posting something that’s debunked in the post that you hat-tip for linking you to it looks like carelessness… 😉
Even if it had not been debunked, ask yourself this:
Given that Germany is a signatory to any number of UN Conventions aiming to protect basic human dignities, how likely is it that the story is true?
Other factual debunkments notwithstanding, it seems to me that you WANT it to be true a priori.
The story originated with the Daily Telegraph in London, as a german speaking Brit one learns to take ANYTHING the Telegraph prints about Germany with a very large dose of salt.
Makes sense to me, actually – if she has ohter options, she’ll take ’em. If she doesn’t have other options, she’s gonna be walking the streets anyway, no?
Pete (Detroit): No.
That’s one of the key differences between blogdom and the much despised Mainstream Media. Any halfway-competent copytaster would have held this one up to the light, especially if the story had broken in the Moonie paper.
Luniversal: If only that were true. Private Eye has a section (forgotten the name) of stories pulled from real newspapers. Usually at least one or two a week I have seen pulled apart in alt.folklore.urban (often a decade or more ago).
Rich
So how would one justify not requiring women to take jobs as prostitutes while requiring them to take other jobs if they are unemployed for a long time?
I know how I personally feel abou the issue, but I’m wondering how one would construct a consistent unemployment system.
Personally, I support a welfare system that provides minimal housing and basic food and sparse living conditions with no means test or requirements. Anyone who wanted to could live in “welfare housing” but would be limited in how many possessions they could have. Food would be very simple and hopefully boring. Education opportunities would be provided. This would keep people from dying in the streets but would not require a huge bureaucracy to monitor compliance, etc…
Bolie Williams – “How would one justify not requiring women to take jobs as prostitutes ….”. Why “women”? Why not “people”? Why ignore 50% of the human race? That goes for Pete (Detroit), too.
In answer to your question: Why would one be required to justify not subscribing to such an absurd proposition?
Here’s what bothers me about this. People complain the unemployed woman shouldn’t be forced to do this, but do you really think most current prostitutes aren’t forced into the profession? How many people actually set about undertaking that trade? If it’s legal, than this situation should be acceptable, because this is the situation most of the girls are in anyways.
Idahokid let me see if I get your point. Is it that because most women are forced into prostitution therefore if the state forces this girl into it, then its no big deal? Does this just apply to women, or should men become prostitutes as well? And what advice would you give to her – “just lie back, think of The Fatherland and enjoy it”?
Ok… anyone here either know personally, or *is* currently a prostitute?
If so, are you/they *forced* to do it. How did you/they come into this profession? How is the pay vs. the work?
If you aren’t one, or don’t personally know one (a hired one doesn’t count) then don’t comment.
Many are forced into jobs which would preferably be avoided. Men have worked in dirty and dangerous jobs since the beginning of time.
But asking whether the state should force women into prostitution is the wrong question anyway. The question is “Should the state be providing support to people who could otherwise earn a living?” or perhaps even “Should the state provide support to people at all?”
Rich
How about not requiring employers to pay for this?
If an employee wants unemployee insurance, they should pay for it themselves. If they are foolish enough to not read the private insurance contract carefully…..
Get the State out of the “insurance” business, and this potential problem goes away.
How about not requiring employers to pay for this?
If an employee wants unemployment insurance, they should pay for it themselves. If they are foolish enough to not read the private insurance contract carefully…..
Get the State out of the “insurance” business, and this potential problem goes away.
I know two pretty well, one in the UK and one in Nigeria. Both personal friends, not suppliers of relief services, as it were. I also know, albeit not so well, several other Nigerian prostitutes who were at various times “girlfriends” of some of my colleagues.
The British one was also a heroin addict, and I spent an instructive if somewhat harrowing few weeks helping her get off the stuff. Because of that, she did not manage to make any real savings out of her income – drug addiction tends to keep people in prostitution, since it is one of the few ways you can earn enough cash to fund the habit.
In both cases, the motivating factor was money (untaxed money at that). In neither case was the choice of “career” involuntary – it was just a way to earn good money, although not without risk. I’d point out that there is no welfare system at all in Nigeria, so there is perhaps less choice than there might be over here. The British girl was more or less forced to stay in prostitution because of her drug habit, but she didn’t start out that way.
The Nigerian one is pretty bright, and uses the money she earns to help start up her business. Her longer term intention is to get out of prositution entirely, as soon as she can afford to – it’s not easy to expand a business in Nigeria, so this will take some time. The British one no longer works in this way, and has become respectable.
EG
The real scandal of the story in Germany is the way the state has created mass unemployment through its over-regulation of the employment market. Germany is a rich country, arguably richer than the UK but the high level of unemployment there is a good argument for deregulation. Their welfare cuts are very painful now because they didn’t grasp the nettle in easier times.
Cutting unemployment benefits is a painful process but it is easiest when unemployment is low. That is why the UK should take action now so that if the economy takes a downturn people will more readily take non-ideal jobs if they can’t find anything in their chosen field.
Good god man, I had to read that thrice to make certain I had your meaning right.
[Insert random smiley face to show good humored nature of comment]
Hi, Verite, if you’re still looking…
I didn’t mean to come off as a jerk. However, If she has other options that she (and OK, he, for that matter) finds less objectionable (for whatever reason) s/he should be encouraged to employ them, after a “reasonable” period of time. Define “reasonable” as you wish – two weeks, two years, whatever, sooner or later the gravy train MUST run dry.
And then, what options?
You find SOMEthing to do, to attempt to keep body and soul together.
Personally, I’m fond of the “barracks and boring food” suggestion, tho I’m sure there could be SOME use made of these people – sweeping streets, daycare attendents, whatever.
And yes, recognising that there are a significant (if not “substantial”) number of people that are simply not able to do even that, and I can be persuaded that they need ‘institustional’ care. And not prison. However, I had a girl quit a job once, as she was 6 mos pregnant w/ her 2nd child and was about to get an increase from the welfare people. The father of both kids lived w/ her (and her Mom) in a loving, (apparently) healthy family situation, and he also had a job (probably also low-grade, she was working at a fast food place I was managing, but that’s not relevant) They were not married only because she would nto have qualified for benifit if they had been. They intentionally had the 2nd kid to increase the benifit, so she could stay home.
Not saying they were doing anything wrong, they were playing the system by the rules.
But it’s a WAYYYY sick system.
Er, and for the record, I used to have a friend (who has since disappeared) who did a little ‘side work’ from time to time when she “needed a little extra.”
If that’s relevant.
We didn’t talk about it much, it didn’t affect our relationahip one way or the other.
Perhaps ‘aquaintance’ is a better term, I suppose.
Pete (Detroit) – Re the woman who quit because she was six months pregnant and getting a raise from the state, this is practically an industry in France. There are people who make a full time job (and it is so complicated, it *is* a full time job) out of studying the system and what they need to do to get more out of it. I actually heard a pregnant young French woman say, once, “That’s the new washing machine and the fridge.”
In Singapore, there is no welfare. None. No unemployment benefits. If you’re unemployed, you live on what you’ve put by (and the Chinese are great savers) or your family takes care of you. I asked a woman I worked with, “But what if you can’t find another job?” And she replied, “You can always come down.” Meaning, if you were a bank manager, you may have to work as a hospital cleaner for awhile while you’re trying to get back in on your own level. She was shocked to hear that in the West, the state rewards people for being idle and picky. And that people have so little pride, they accept it.
By the way, in France, the money for getting pregnant programme was to increase the French population, and like all government big ideas, the law of absolutely unintended consequences kicked in. The people who benefit most are increasing the *immigrant* population. Between the money for getting pregnant, unemployment benefits (to be fair, this doesn’t include Morrocans, who will accept any work in order to support their own families) and the superb free medical system, they do OK.
“And she replied, “You can always come down.” Meaning, if you were a bank manager, you may have to work as a hospital cleaner for awhile while you’re trying to get back in on your own level.”
Meanwhile, in the States, people who try to do that tend to be rejected as “overqualified”, at least from what I’ve heard. Of course if it was less expensive to hire someone, and less expensive to get rid of them, people might be more willing to take a chance on someone that doesn’t fit their idea of a “sure thing”…
Ken – Yes, that is true. If a former bank manager applied to be a hospital cleaner, obviously the administrators would know he had no intention of staying and wouldn’t want to go to the bother of training him in the routine.
Yet it works in Singapore, and this is possibly because they have approximately 105% employment. In other words, Singapore has a total population of around five million, around half of them children. There is full employment and competition for employees. Every morning around 25,000 Malaysians take the two minute drive across the Straits of Malacca and use their swipe cards to enter Singapore and go to their jobs. So because the economy is so healthy and well managed, even if someone couldn’t find an ideal position immediately and had to “come down”, the places where he/she applied would grab that applicant anyway – even knowing he/she wouldn’t stay.
It works in Singapore because Employers do not have to pay nearly as much tax on employees as they do in the US or europe.
Hiring someone just to see if he can do the job only costs a few hours wages in Singapore.
The overhead involved in hiring and then firing a bad employee in the US is insane in many jurisdictions.
Kristopher Barrett – They don’t hire bank managers as hospital sweepers “just to see if they can do the job”. They would hire them, knowing full well that person will continue to look for a job on his own level and leave when he finds one, because they are desperate for employees.
Second, it is expensive to hire people in Singapore. On top of the salary and benefits, the employer is required by the government to make (in my day) a 12.5% of the employee’s salary to the employee’s account in the Central Provident Fund. So no. It is not cheap.
I don’t know any prostitutes personally but a couple of months ago in Honolulu a guy offered me $500 to sleep with him, but I didn’t want to do that. I was offended but also suprised at how much money he was offering me. If that was the going rate one could easily make $200-300k a year tax free, it certainly makes me understand why people do that.
I could think of far worse lives than hanging around Waikiki beach and sleeping with fairly nice looking guys for far more than could be earned in pretty much any other job.
Without implying that state influence of the economy is a good thing or a bad thing, I would point out that the economic function of unemployment assistance is to help smooth out business cycles. It promotes extra spending during downturns and should inhibit it during booms.
It should therefore be fairly niggardly during economic good times and fairly generous during the downturns to be effective. The problem is that politicians who are giving away other people’s money find that a habit hard to break. Even more when people are flush and don’t mind the drain so much. The obvious solution is an automatic formula which is less politically responsive, but this leads to sorts of bureacratic idiocy like involuntary prostitution.
I’m intrigued by the concept of private unemployment insurance. It certainly is a novel idea. I wonder how it would work? Once I had a policy, what would keep me from taking a periodic ‘vacation’ to amortize my premiums?
12.5% is damned cheap compared to Portland, OR.
This state is close to 100% of wages in local employer taxes.
And if there is a labor demanding good economy, I doubt a firm would look to closely at this “overqualified” problem.
“I’m intrigued by the concept of private unemployment insurance. It certainly is a novel idea. I wonder how it would work? Once I had a policy, what would keep me from taking a periodic ‘vacation’ to amortize my premiums?”
The rules of the policies, combined with the diligent efforts of insurance fraud investigators.