Competition has opened up the entertainment industry and news media…and given victims of sexual harassment in those industries more employment options if they go public. From Anders Ingemarson at separatestateandtheeconomy.com:
Yes, yet another article about the depravity of entertainment, media and political high rollers! Don’t despair—we’ll cover an angle that deserves more attention: the fact that freedom in general, and capitalism—with total separation of state and the economy—in particular, provides the best long-range protection against predatory sexual behavior.
Rob Tracinski of The Federalist made the point a few weeks ago at the height of the Harvey Weinstein affair:
“For those like Weinstein who are out in the private sector, we need to leave people as free as possible to speak and publish so they can criticize and expose the corrupt elites, which is the only thing that eventually stopped him. And we should leave the economy as free and vibrant as possible so that people have more ways to get around creeps who like to set themselves up as gatekeepers whose favor you have to curry if you want to get ahead.”
A major reason why so many media and entertainment personalities are being exposed now is the radical reshaping of their industries. Since the dawn of the internet, and especially since bandwidth became abundant and cheap enough to allow for streaming to a screen near you (flat-screen, laptop, tablet, phone, etc.), competition has dramatically intensified and become more diversified for both the delivery (cable, satellite, phoneline, wireless, broadcast) and content (Netflix, Amazon and others entering the field). Gone are the days when the power was concentrated to three major broadcast networks and a few studios.
With the power diluted, the incentives to protect the Harvey Weinsteins of the world have been reduced. Women pursuing an entertainment or media career have more professional options than they used to, meaning that both “coming out” about the past and saying no in the present are less likely to be a death sentence for their careers.
And main stream media journalists, feeling the competition from bloggers and other online writers, are being forced to throw some caution to the wind to stay relevant. Caution that previously contributed to the cover-up of sexual misconduct that supposedly “everybody knew about” but nobody exposed.
To continue reading: Freedom and Capitalism: The Cure For Sexual Misconduct
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