Why feminists should study economics

In Sweden it's legal to sell sex but illegal to buy it. According to Slate.com, hyper-feminist Catharine MacKinnon believes "This is the only approach to prostitution that's based on 'sex equality,'...It treats prostitution as a social evil but views the women who do it as the victims of sexual exploitation who 'should not be victimized again by the state by being made into criminals'".

But criminalising the purchase of sex does harm prostitutes. Consider a man who is willing to pay $100 for legal sex. If he faces the prospect if being arrested for buying this sex he will pay less for it and so the prostitute will suffer.

Criminalizing sex is like imposing a tax on it. And economic theory teaches that there is usually no difference between when you impose a tax on consumers or when you impose it on producers. In both cases the consumers and producers are exactly as well off as if the tax had been imposed on the other party.