something frequently brought up in these articles is the idea that pushing sex work underground makes it less safe, but nobody ever presents any kind of reference to any kind of study when they say it. it's just assumed. i'm willing to challenge the truth of this claim, and even suggest that it's a bit reactionary, in the sense that it's ignoring basic market forces - something that marx or proudhon would not have done.

i would suppose that the argument, never really stated, would be that women are less safe if they're less policed. why are socialists parroting this claim?

i might rather suggest that when you decrease the supply of something while maintaining the demand relatively stable, the price goes up, and, as such, the bargaining power of the seller increases. a purely market-based argument would be that driving prostitution underground would make people more safe, and not less safe, as it would give the seller more control over the buyer. the counter argument would be that the buyer will react with violence, but i'm not sure this is well thought through; if they're going to react with violence when the price is x amount, why wouldn't they when the price is however much less? why is violence dependent on cost? and, if you're rather arguing that it's the lack of visibility that leads to violence, i might rather make the opposite point - driving the transaction underground makes it harder for violent people to find the sellers, and easier for a community to snub people it wants to avoid. a small industry advertised via word of mouth is no doubt far safer than one advertised to anybody and everybody in magazines or on the internet.

this issue aside, this is another prominent socialist journal explaining a kind of basic socialist position on prostitution: if there would be any prostitution in a truly free society at all, it would be very minimal, and the focus should consequently be on providing women with better choices, rather than normalizing what is probably the shittiest one.

http://isj.org.uk/the-sex-work-debate/