The economics of sexual morality

10 posts

Bob Dylan Roof
I shouldn't have to point this out, but I will so that we can get back on track. It is clear from your endorsement of free market economics that you concede that prices affect the behavior of consumers in their consumption of a given set of goods, and that consumer behavior reciprocally affects the prices of a given set of goods. Depending on an individual's disposition, sexual behavior, like consumer behavior, involves risks, such as childbirth and sexually transmitted diseases, and benefits, such as childbirth (if the individual is insuring against the invalidity of old age) and pleasure from dominance and submission. Where an individual, because of their limited economic power, must find that the costs of sexual behavior outweigh its benefits, they will temper their behavior accordingly. This does not imply that the set of risks and benefits associated with sexual behavior are universal.

The point about the disparities between wealth that you keep emphasizing is largely irrelevant for the purposes of this thread. There are absolute values of poverty and affluence which preclude or permit certain types of sexual behavior, but the point of Devlin's model also applies to relative values. That is, to an individual's subjective perceptions of the risks and benefits of sexual behavior in the context of the society they inhabit.

The subject of this thread was not intended to be whether economic explanations of sexual morality infringe on Nietzschean reductions of morality to power or Darwinian reductions of morality to fitness-maximizing behavior. Economic explanations compliment both approaches, and in the context of our wealth-maximizing society, they are far more important to the policy makers.
President Camacho
I understand the utilitarian perspective you're arguing from: the American Section 8 negro has a much higher standard of living overall than even the Roman aristocrat, because the former has access to a bevy of modern technics including transportation, antibiotics, etc. Roland already addressed essentially why I think it's irrelevant in this case... but to clarify:

The Section 8 negro might have an iPod, flat screen, automatic weapon, indoor heating, etc, that dwarf any of the amenities an ancient aristocrat could hope to possess. But from a relative perspective, he in fact owns nothing of real value in his society. He owns neither land nor capital, nor even generally liquid wealth (cash). He is largely invisible to society and serves no valuable purpose. His housing and food is paid for by government and thus places no incentive on him to plan for the future-- ie, his descendants. Promiscuity is the natural result from such a combination. (I'm not saying that negro culture has nothing to do with this, though: it does. But the State greatly exacerbated these tendencies and rendered blacks completely unaccountable)

The German tribesman, on the other hand, owns (and likely built) his humble house, he likely owns (at least in common) some cattle, or farm implements, or some other kind of wealth-generating device. He has an important station in society as a warrior, and a definite incentive to be careful about choosing a partner to procreate with, because his property will be passed down to descendants. As Roland pointed out, siring bastard children is a very quick way for a tribal society to degenerate into anarchic conditions.

To use an example from the ancient world paralleling our situation, Augustus and his successors tried desperately to halt the depopulation of Empire, which was especially acute in the mother countries of Italy and Greece. There were charity food drives, and tax incentives for having children, etc, but short of transferring all de facto parental duties to agents of the State--a task only the managerial state has had the audacity to attempt, still without success--there was little that could be done to stop the declining birthrates.

The best solution they could come up with was resettling veterans, usually on provincial farmlands-- in other words, by tying people back to the agrarian life and values in strategic frontiers of the empire. It is also not surprising that most of the veterans who took up this offer tended to be Germans, Thracians, etc, who were not infected so much by the decadent and selfish sexual values of Imperial Rome. Importing immigrants and slave laborers, usually from the rustic Eastern provinces, was the primary method of buttressing the population of the cities.
Bronze Age Pervert
But read what I said above. I'm saying it's primarily cultural and biological factors that determine whether a class or an individual is promiscuous, or has a chaste, or has a moderate private or family life, and so on. Economic factors don't really matter in the end...you're the guys making the utilitarian argument. In terms of pure access to resources the modern welfare recipient has more than the ancient tribesman but it is his culture that prevents him from having a similar sexual morality.
President Camacho
How would you explain the gulf between the strict sexual virtues of Homeric Greece versus late Greece/Imperial Rome; between the chivalric code of medieval Europe and the disappearance of that code in the modern West? Or for that matter between Arminius' tribe and the crossdressing discothek Berliner of the same blood who inhabits the same ground today?

Is it "late period decadence"? Of course. But "decadence" is not a cause . I maintain that the progression of society from rural to urban civilization lies at the root of this moral decadence.
Bronze Age Pervert
But there are many rural tribes that are promiscuous. Tacitus above in fact mentions how unusual is the German's monogamous and sexually sober nature. Whether the ancient Hebrews were rural, pastoral, or urban is debatable, but their very strict sexual mores developed in distinction to those of other peoples around them who lived a similar way of life.

I believe it is religion and culture that determines this, not pure access to resources. If there is an economic angle it's because religion and culture also affects economy.
Bob Dylan Roof
Yes, but physical laws are more important than biological or cultural causes, yet so long as we analyze human behavior in terms of intentional behavior, that is, as though they are rational actors - and there is no other way to do so as of now - economic analysis remains relevant. You are grasping at straws for no reason here. I agree with you that morality is ultimately reducible to much more fundamental forces, but morality cannot transgress the laws of economics and must therefore also be analyzed in terms of the scarcity of goods.

Tell me why an otherwise heterosexual male or female turns to homosexuality in prison. An economic explanation is just as worthwhile in this context as references to power or evolution. In fact, power or evolution are much more useful for explaining why people value sex as a good; but economic calculation is much more valuable for explaining why a prisoner settles for presumably inferior sex with someone of the same gender over risking sex with a guard, or escaping from prison for the purpose of sex.
President Camacho
But as I pointed out with the example of the Pashtun, monogamy is only one form of sexual morality. Between the monogamous Cherusci and the Bedouin with 12 wives, there is something in common that both Imperial Rome and New York City alike are lacking: a strict code, a sexual order that must be followed.

And of course the ancient Hebrews were originally a pastoral people... the fact that the populace of Jerusalem kept reverting to the fashionable pagan gods and morals of Babylonia or Egypt only shows that pure tradition cannot survive intact when thrust into the urban setting.
Bronze Age Pervert
The OT does prize Abel above Cain, and the pure life of the shepherd above the corruption of the cities. But I think it is very possible to have a strict sexual morality in cities. The Greek cities are example of this, as is early Rome. Ascetic Christianity spread in the urban world of the Mediterranean, and later super-ascetic sects like the Cathars were active in the cosmopolitan, ancient cities of southern France. You can argue that Christianity is an exaggeration maybe. But I deny completely that a pastoral or rural life is a prerequisite for a strict moral code or a strict sexual morality. What about Sparta. Again, what about early Rome. That was a city...what about even commercial Venice, was their sexual morality that debased? The most exalted moralities are those of urban aristocracies. And although the Jews felt that way about shepherds, David, etc., nevertheless Jerusalem was everything to them and was seen as a holy city.

The peak of human life is in the city, not in rural tribal life. And what you're doing here has been lampooned by Chekhov in his wonderful story Peasants, in which he shows the moral depravity and brutality of the rural serf that was so idolized by the late and decadent Russian intelligentsia. Much like we worship primitive or tribal peoples today. In fact in relation to what you're saying it is probably a more frequent rule that the more decadent an aristocracy becomes, the more it praises rural and pastoral life as supposedly pure and virtuous. This was the case with the French aristocracy before the Revolution (and the cult of Rousseau), the Russian aristocracy before 1917, and it's the case now in the West in other ways.

In sum I don't think there's any relationship between access to economic resources and sexual morality. And I repeat that it is only in certain aristocracies, those of decayed cities (better called oligarchies or plutocracies) that you see loose sexual morality...
Bronze Age Pervert
Well this is a slightly different argument. If you want to discuss the "sexual market" in the Roissy and Devlin sense (and I know you do, but I'm just being argumentative...effects of coffee...sorry for derailing thread) then I agree with this, but this is a function of culture and biology, not material resources and it's only an "economy" in a vague analogous sense. I suppose one could develop this analogy, but what would be the use of that? The problem with young "beta provider" men being priced out of the sexual market has, I think, less to do with the economic empowerment of wimmins, and more with strictly cultural and biological problems. Male homosexuality has similar causes, I believe.

The discussion about pornography is a little different, but I still say that compared to certain ancient cultures we're rather priggish...Allan Bloom points out that our age will not be remembered as "hedonistic." It flatters itself with the delusion that we're hedonists...but it's not true.
President Camacho
Every one of these examples is from the "Spring" and "Summer" phases of a cultural evolution, in Spenglerian terms:

Early Rome and Greece, "the urban world of the Mediterranean"-- by this I assume you speak of the "late imperial" period, which is the springtime of the great Magian religions (Mazdaism, Christianity, post- exilic Judaism), the Western world before the French Revolution, etc.

Cities appear in the early period of a culture's history, but at first the city is only a center of trade, or military stronghold, or a political capital. It is not until much later that the spirit of the city completely overtakes the countryside and the latter becomes simply irrelevant-- which is the same exact time that "democratic" mass politics overtakes nobility and virtue. For the Western world this occurred around the turn of the 19th century, for the Classical world around the turn of the 3rd BC, for the Magian world no later than the Sultanate.
Yes, and that is why when the aristocracy crumbles, cities become the vice dens they have a reputation for.