The Harry Potter Economy | Hacker News Reader

The Harry Potter Economy

economist.com

26 pointscwan23 comments

Heh. When I saw the title, my first thought was Srsly? An article on HN about Gringotts!?

(ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_in_Harry_Potter#Economy)

I love Harry Potter, but somebody needs to explain to me how e.g. the Weasleys experience material privation by Muggle standards with regards to things like not being able to afford clothes when both Weasley parents and, for most of the series, most of their children are all capable of conjuring valuable things (including clothes) from the ether. Or how Harry is rich like a king due to his inheritance despite his parents having no detectable business or reason for excessive wealth (well, aside from their prodigious abilities at conjuring valuable things from the ether). Or how Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic, both of which are shown as having truly prodigious amounts of wealth expended in their construction and upkeep, are sustained via contributions from a parallel economy where the level of economic sophistication has not exceeded "a one-room store attended by an artisan", except for (apparently) multinational corporations, branding campaigns, and market sophistication in... quidditch broomsticks.

Economics is a real spoilsport for fantasy literature. I was once taught a single sentence which now nags at me in every book I read: "Describe how this army is fed." For example, the carnivorous Canim in the Furies of Calderon series fielded an army of some 60,000 apex predators in a sparsely populated agricultural region for a period of over two years. Their purchasing agent should require about as many sources of meat as all the McDonalds nationwide, but the economy as depicted couldn't possibly support that.

Have you tried the Merchant Princes? It may contain the only sci-fantasy book with a cover quote from an economist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross#Merchant_Princes...

I haven't, but if it is available on my Kindle, you deserve an affiliate commission.

I am going to print out this thread and send it to the publisher:

"Due to copyright restrictions, certain Kindle Titles are not available everywhere. If the country or region displayed is incorrect, you may change it by clicking "Change region"."

I could circumvent that via using my US proxy or wait until I go back for Christmas, but I really wanted a book to read on the plane ride tomorrow. And you know? Screw it. I'm going to buy from one of the numerous publishers who is willing to take the money I am attempting to throw at them.

Harry Potter expert here. Responding to your first question about poverty, there are some limiting factors on conjuring. First, although items appear to come from nowhere, they actually are likely to come from somewhere. For example, the feast appears magically on the Great Hall tables, but it comes from the kitchens below after being prepared by house elves. When things vanish, they also likely go somewhere else (remember the vanishing cabinet). Many things are transfigured (transformed) by starting first with a subject, like turning beetles into buttons, and some effects wear off (a lot of magic is non-permanent), so here it would make more sense to use actual buttons for clothing. The second limiting factor is skill level of the witch/wizard, as many possess expertise in one area, but not others (even Dumbledore being magically expert in many areas is not an alchemist, for example). This helps explain why places like Hogwarts and the Ministry are elaborate; witches and wizards of many skill levels and abilities worked together crossing spells for added conjuring complexity as well as durability from the magic wearing off.

As for Harry's parents having money, they were a highly skilled witch and wizard husband/wife team. Just as in the muggle world, as with a smart husband and wife tandem (think the Obamas), they would do well economically. Harry's money is riches for a single kid financing a few school years, not necessarily a king's sum meaning he is set for life.

Not an alchemist? Did you forget about the Socerer's Stone? How could a non-alchemist discover that many uses for dragon's blood?

Harry's parents are mysterious figures and I would guess that their wealth (or his rather) was more inherited than from being a highly skilled witch wizard team. He did inherit the invisibility cloak.

When I say not an alchemist, I mean to the degree of Nicholas Flamel who was the only known maker of the Sorcerer's Stone. Many people know math well, but don't call themselves mathematicians. I agree some of the wealth could have been inherited (on the Potter side), but being highly clever, Harry's parents certainly had earning potential as well.

I would guess that the money was probably inherited rather than earned -- likely from James, as Lily was muggleborn. Even though they may have been a power couple, or as you say, a highly skilled witch and wizard team, they were only 20 when they died -- not really enough time to amass obscene amounts of wealth.

Remember that people in the magical world come of age one year earlier than muggles. I do think some wealth was inherited, but I also suspect James was something of an adventurer (remember his outings with Moony, Padfoot, and Wormtail), maybe Lily as well (they were both Phoenix Order members), which would have given opportunities to come across gold and rare items like the invisibility cloak.

Why would someone downvote my comment above? I did agree a source of the wealth was likely inheritance. But why couldn't James, with his clever, some would even say mean (to Snape), talents not also be likely to go out and get into adventures, take a few risks? (before Harry arrived, of course) He was still young after all. Remember, Sirius was the wealthy one in school. James went to stay over his house as a kid. Nothing was ever said about James Potter having a significantly wealthy family. Also, Hagrid says "D'yeh think yer parents didn't leave yeh anything?" That sounds like Lily and James made at least some of the money.

Mostly I agree with you but I think Calderon dealt with this more than most. Baggage trains where frequent plot devices and resource management was portrayed as an important mostly discussed off screen. Southern taxes supporting the shield wall. The Canim also had significantly more than 60,000 people, they had ~60,000 warriors and a few hundred thousand "people" because they sent a full slice of society across the ocean. They also took over a huge land area including at least one large city, several coastal towns, and a huge area in between which was something like a months march across. Something like (10 * 30) ^2 = 90,000 square miles is plenty of area for an army that size. Also, they did not appear to be limited to meat.

Bellisario’s Maxim: “Don’t examine this too closely.”

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BellisariosMaxim

Something I've always appreciated about Lord of the Rings is that it actually took time off from the story to tell you how the army of Mordor is fed. Apparently they have absolutely enormous amounts of farmland by lake Nurnen in southeast Mordor.

Economic realism would do more than just satisfy the nitpicking nerds, too. It would have real artistic value in the form of more verisimilitude in the setting and social atmosphere. I suspect it would affect even economically illiterate readers/viewers, if only on a subconscious level.

For example, something that bugged me about the re-imagined "Battlestar Galatica" series was that a group of only 38,000 survivors, apparently with no more automation technology than the real world, and under constant military threat, have a humming specialized economy. It includes arms manufacturing, ore processing, and even illegal niche industries like child prostitution. It can do these things in addition to maintaining and operating a fleet of sophisticated spacecraft, running intensive military operations, and feeding, clothing, and sheltering everyone. It usually feels more like a population of half a million than 38,000.

But some of the episodes feature shortages of labor or resources, and I like it when this happens. It seems more real. It's easier to empathize with the characters because I can better feel the bleakness of their situation and their challenges seem less contrived.

Those sorts of constraints are what sets hard sci-fi apart from space opera. And in the hands of a skilled writer, economic and technological constraints are powerful tools for storytelling. In Star Trek how does Starfleet know how many starships it can build!?

For the same reason why many people in the world experience material privation: not enough time/talent to do it themselves.

If you had enough time, effort, skill, and raw material, why would you ever need to buy clothes from the GAP, mass produced food from Safeway, or entertainment from BestBuy? Certainly, it would be cheaper and healthier to make your own food. But do you really want to spend all your time making stuff, when, overall, it would distract from what you really want to be doing with your life?

In terms of Harry Potter, there is a law of conservation occurring there. Many things 'conjured' there does not last very long, and even to get them into existence requires energy from the summoner. In fact, it specifically mentions in the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Hermoine states a conservation law about why wizards can't conjure food. (Don't remember which one.)

I hope this answers your question.

This is quite a nice short story if you haven't read it. The Cambist and Lord Iron:

http://issuu.com/spectra/docs/cambistandlordiron

I think all of these show one thing: when people like what they use, they will tell everyone else. You watch an amazing short film on youtube - you tell everyone you know, and the tree grows very quickly.

The good stuff bubbles to the top. It really is that way. You cannot have something brilliant and wanted, and it does not get its day. People will discover it and they will tell others and so on.

When I read an amazing book, the first thing I do is call my sister to tell her to read it too, so we can discuss it.

If it's good, all you need to do is seed it with a certain number of initial users. The rest will come by itself.

I respectfully disagree. Harry Potter isn't considered "good" among critics, it's not a literature masterpiece. The same is true for other arts, like cinema and music. The top sellers usually aren't considered the best.

"Wanted", as in the audience wants to consume, yes. Maybe good enough; for the mass market.

But it all depends from what angle you approach the conversation. Tastes are hard to discuss.

Your last paragraph ignores the "everything else" that constitutes a product and its surrounding business. Things like price, marketing, design, distribution deals, costs, market share potential, competitors, etc... it's not enough to simply have a good product; or even a perfect one, if such thing was possible.

Potter isn't a literary masterpiece, but it is solidly written. Rowling managed to write some really complex and interesting characters, which is difficult for any writer and is often missing in Fantasy.

There's a big division between popular writing and literary writing, and people who write the latter can get up their own asses a bit sometimes about popular authors. But they still recognize that the popular authors often really do have skill.

It reminds me of a Jazz musician I was speaking with a bit ago. We got on the subject of Brittney Spears, and he said that he doesn't like her style of music but he acknowledges that she does takes a lot of skill, and that a lot of people try to imitate her and fail.

What literary people can't fathom isn't the success of Rowling (or King or Crichton etc). What they can't fathom is the success of Dan Brown, a man who seems to lack any discernible trace of talent.

"Central to the books’ success was a repackaging, with a darker cover, for adults embarrassed about being seen reading a children’s book."

Hehe.

This sort of thing will be made obsolete by e-books.

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