If you support taxing the rich, why don’t you support redistribution of hot women? One idiot’s theory

(Title updated in response to comment below)

Following the incel terrorist attack in Toronto, George Mason University economist Robin Hanson decides to stick up for the incel movement (which is discussing online whether vehicular homicide is enough or whether they should go with rape and mutilation attacks). Lots of liberals think it’s okay to help out people who have no financial resources — so why isn’t it justified to give women to people who have no sexual relief? And since the left tacitly wink-winks at the use of violence to force economic redistribution, they should be fine with incels using violence to force women to sleep with them.

The stunned response at the link was that possibly this was one of those stupid analogies like “taxation is slavery” (of course, Hanson works at a public university, so apparently Hanson’s fine with taxing people to pay his own salary) But even if that were true, as Echidne points out, the analogy doesn’t make sense. First off, redistribute wealth doesn’t violate the rich person’s bodily integrity. Secondly, Hanson isn’t actually arguing we should take anything from the “Chads” (the studs who supposedly monopolize the hot women), he’s arguing we should take from the women the Chads sleep with. They’re the ones who will have to put out, not the Chads. Echidne also goes into detail why most proposals to provide sex (e.g. government-sponsored prostitutes) won’t work (prostitutes can refuse customers, and incels don’t want to pay for sex, they want sex via power and dominance).

However given Hanson also believes that rape, particularly non-violent rape, is less morally bad than a cheating wife, maybe he doesn’t feel it’s so unreasonable to provide women to incel. Taxing the Chads means redistributing their women, just like any other property. Certainly he doesn’t discuss what to do about incel females (no suggestion the Chads have to sleep with them) or whether cheating husbands are equally objectionable (probably not, as the issue with cheating wives is the husband possibly not passing on his own genes).

And it’s not like Hanson’s the first professor to play these idea games. Consider economics professor Steven Landsburg, who challenged his students to show why raping an unconscious woman was wrong — why should the victim’s suffering outweigh the benefit to the rapist (as usual, Landsburg’s apology didn’t help)? And right-wing hack/law professor Glenn Reynolds once fired what he thought was a stunning putdown of Elizabeth Warren for saying businesses depend on government services (“You didn’t build that.”) financed by taxation. Warren and other women have a better sex life due to government services (they keep fit by jogging on roads built with tax money!) so the government should be able to make them have sex with people. It’s telling Reynolds’ mind went there rather than, say, suggesting we should tax hot women (which would be dumb, but not quite so creepy).

And it’s telling the NYT’s Ross Douthat thinks Hanson has a valid point.

I think I need to wash the stink of sexism off me now.