potter economics
Megan McArdle: Harry Potter: the economics
bq. The low opportunity cost attached to magic spills over into the thoroughly unbelievable wizard economy. Why are the Weasleys poor? Why would any wizard be? Anything they need, except scarce magical objects, can be obtained by ordering a house elf to do it, or casting a spell, or, in a pinch, making objects like dinner, or a house, assemble themselves. Yet the Weasleys are poor not just by wizard standards, but by ours: they lack things like new clothes and textbooks that should be easily obtainable with a few magic words. Why?
An interesting touch on the subject. It seems true that in the Potterverse, magic is free, something that never works very well for story telling. C.S. Friedman just published _Feast of Souls_, the first book in a trilogy based on the opposite extreme; the source (and cost) of magic is life force. in _The Magic Goes Away_, Larry Niven deals with magic as a finite resource, to interesting effect. There are lots of other examples in SF&F literature.
So why don’t we care about this inconsistency in Rowling’s work?
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Because nowadays, dissing Rowlings works in public is much like going to Rome and picking on the pope?
I think it goes something like this:
1. Magicians can conjure up anything, so why would any of them be poor?
2. Hey, if they can do that, why would any muggles be poor either? Or have diseases?
3. Hm… Why are so many people in the real world poor/hungry/sick, when we could clothe/house/feed/cure them if we wanted to?
4. This train of thought is making me uncomfortable, so I’m going to stop worrying about it and get back to the story.