The world has changed before, and it's changing now. If we hated the sins not the sinners in the past, that game is turning on its head. Starting last month, Europe is supposedly including illegal activities in GDP calculation, counting incomes from gambling, smuggling, drugs and prostitution. Next time roads, parks, highways and dams are built and government subsidies go to power, healthcare and educa-

tion sectors in the European countries, some of that

money will not only be soaked in blood, sweat and tears of the sinners but also tempered with legitimacy for their sins.

In 1998, an ILO survey showed prostitution accounted for 2% to 14% of GDP in four countries: Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. The latest is that prostitution and illegal drugs are contributing around $ 16 billion a year to the British economy. In future, the net will widen to accommodate illegal employment, gambling, pirating of software and fencing of stolen goods.

Is the world coming to terms with the sinners and their sins? The ELI members such as Germany, Hungary, Austria and Greece, where prostitution is legal, already include the revenue it produces in their national accounts. In the Netherlands, drug money has been long included in GDP calculation. Italy already includes much of its shadow economy in GDP estimation, but hopes to increase it by 2% adding drugs, prostitution and black market cigarettes and alcohol. Gambling is a big source of government revenue in some countries, the United States leading the pack.

Sinful acts are increasingly making economic sense to the world, also preparing itself to take a lenient view on the sinners. In 2009, the US state of Nevada, which allows paid sex, was considering a tax of $5 for each transaction. State senator Bob Coffin even worked the numbers. He figured out that taxes imposed on existing brothels could raise $2 million annually and legalising prostitution in large cities like Las Vegas could bring $200 million to the state coffers. That year another US state, Rhode Island, was contemplating a ban on prostitution but was forced to change its mind due to a $661 million hole in the budget.

It was also in 2009, when the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy estimated that Americansspent at least $64 billion a year on illegal drugs. Every state in the United States, except Hawaii and Utah, allows gambling that ranges from state lotteries to racetracks to casinos. In 2007, such activity generated more than $92 billion in receipts. Once Atlantic City and Las Vegas were the two major gambling hubs in the country, but other US cities are now sprinkled with casinos. Legislation is underway to repeal the federal ban on online gambling. According to Pricewaterhouse Coopers, it alone could yield as much as $5 billion a year in new tax revenues.

These are but examples of how money can manipulate morality. And there is no dearth of logic to justify it. The prophets of pragmatism argue that since the fight against these vices had proven futile for centuries, the governments might as well legalise and tax them. It was argued that legalisation would end black markets that generate huge amounts of what economists call "deadweight losses," or activity that doesn't contribute to increased productivity. It also costs time and resources to enforce laws against these vices.

A 2006 study done by the former president of the US National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Law, Jon Gettman, found that marijuana was already the top cash crop in a dozen states and among the top five crops in 39 states, with a total annual value of $36 billion. A 2005 cost-benefit analysis of marijuana prohibition by Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard economist, calculated that lifting marijuana prohibition could save $7.7 billion in law enforcement costs. It could also generate more than $6 billion a year if taxed at the same rate as tobacco and alcohol.

Victor Hugo writes: "Sin is a gravitation." Like gravitation defines everyday life and the structure of the physical universe, sin defines everyday life and the structure of the moral universe. Samuel Butler explained further when he said that the function of vice is to keep virtues within reasonable bounds. The mind rotates on its axis, creating its own night after day.

There're cultures where blood money is paid to victims or their families for rape and murder, and it protects the offenders from their vengeance or sanctions of law. After gambling, drugs, smuggling and prostitution are decriminalised, a new world order is going to emerge. Virtue will distinguish from vice like economists differentiate demand from want. Shuffled like a deck of cards, morality is undergoing a transformation, which dictates that vice is virtue backed by purchasing power, lack of which is a vice unto itself.

The writer is Editor, First News and an opinion writer for The Dally Star. Email; badrull51@yahoo.com