We should strive to ameliorate the conditions in the world that make this happen, so that young women can aspire to being scientists or doctors or businesswomen, instead of some corrupt asshole’s decorative servants.
Has it occurred to you that there's nothing wrong with that? It doesn't have to be a "power imbalance". When I buy an orange at the grocery store is that a power imbalance? Should that grocer find a better job by your estimation? Should he have been a doctor? Does he need your "saving"?
If a young woman wants to follow a man to meetings, live in his mansion, have sex, and look beautiful at all times, and in exchange gets what she considers fair compensation, then what exactly is the problem? It's an exchange of goods and services on the open market. It does not imply a "power imbalance".
The problem is that many people in many places are stuck with a choice of either working themselves to death at a job they hate for shit pay and no benefits (or maybe just starving on the street) or else selling themselves to a very wealthy asshole. When that happens, it indicates a profound structural failing of the society. Prostitution or feudal servitude shouldn’t be anyone’s only shot at a comfortable life.
In theory there’s nothing wrong with a career in private security. But it’s messed up to be an enforcer for the dictator family who who rule Equatorial Guinea and live lavishly while keeping the rest of the country in miserable squalor.
In theory there’s nothing wrong with being an actress. But it’s messed up if getting a leading part depends on giving blowjobs to the studio executives.
Etc.
> It does not imply a "power imbalance".
If the young women in such relationships had all the money and power and the old men had none, how many of those couples would still be sleeping together?
I don't think the 'happy hooker' is just a theoretical thing. I think it exists, and it happens all the time. The fact that there is prostitution doesn't imply there is a power imbalance. Maybe if prostitution wasn't so stigmatized, it would be even more common.
Having said that, in this context there is obviously a power imbalance. Somebody says they're scared to leave because of the threat of violence. I'm sure this also happens in way too many cases around the world. I share your view that possibly a significant chunk of this misery can be done away with by getting rid of poverty. However, let's not forget the contribution to said misery by the mere psychopathy that drives people like Epstein.
There’s nothing wrong with individual people making this choice (I have many friends in those fields). It’s just evidence of large structural problems in the society.
(Of course, not all “tech” is zero-sum or harmful.)
As far as I can tell, much of this “value” consists of inserting oneself into existing money flows and diverting a tiny part into one’s own pocket, at the expense of everyone else in the society.
Wages in the broader society have been stagnant for decades despite steep increases in labor productivity. Healthcare, housing, and education costs keep skyrocketing without commensurate improvements in quality.
In the USA, life expectancy is going down, infrastructure is aging without replacement, worker and consumer protections have eroded, children’s lives are increasingly regimented and controlled, 40% of adults are obese, loneliness is rampant, young people are deeply indebted, almost nobody has enough savings to comfortably retire, many ecosystems are facing collapse and many species are facing extinction, ...
Fortunately, because we are free people, we have proposed a mechanism. You make something valuable to me and you get a sort of exchangeable vote from me that you can use to get someone (perhaps even me) to make something valuable for you. This is a nice mechanism because that way useful people can be rewarded for their usefulness by letting them choose the next thing for labour to be allocated to.
This system is distributed, everyone trusts the vote, and you can't make me do something against my will. This system of free and fair collaboration and competition has produced the current allocation as the current consolidated view of what people want. It's not what you want, true. It's not even what I want. But it's what we (all of us) want as independent agents collaborating and competing with each other.
And the differences between the countries are not a local power imbalance problem, it's just the amount of benefits (=money) you get for spreading your legs. In a rich 1st world country, the "sponsor" has to earn a lot to make it worth it... but in a poor country, even a freelance coder working for foreign companies can earn enough to sponsor a girl like that, and also have a new-ish BMW (so her friends see her in it) and so on.
But when we get to higher class people, especially older, you suddenly stop calling the rich guy a scummy elite, but call her a trophy wife, especially if the guy is really really old and close to death.