Don't worry, no spoilers. I'm only on chapter 10.
I finally figured out what bothers me about Harry Potter after reading this.
Does it bother anyone else that in this world there seems to be no opportunity cost, no coherent legal framework, and everyone works for the government?
That being said, I am loving book 7.
Ryan
13 years ago
6 comments:
I have been bothered by this for some time...
initially, i found solace in the fact that, at least true to form, all of the government officials are made out to be morons...but this just leads to another problem:
if everyone in the Ministry of Magic is an idiot, and everyone works for the Ministry of Magic, doesn't that mean that, well...everyone in the wizarding community is an idiot?
as far as the lack of opportunity cost is concerned...maybe this simly an explanation for why the magical community desires to remain hidden from muggles--they realize that muggles would try to exploit their magical counterparts to make up for their own high costs
however, i disagree with the idea that opportunity costs do not appear in the Potter books. throughout the books, you have a comparison of rich vs. poor--harry vs. ron, malfoys vs. weasleys, etc...if there were no opportunity cost of magic, wouldn't these differences in standard of living cease to exist?
if magic really didn't require giving up something--could be produced from nothing--why would a family of wizards choose to live in a hovel? why would they bother gardening? why would they both raising chickens?
admittedly, there is no direct statement of what it costs to use magic, but the arrows certainly point to it, in my opinion.
I agree. My guess is Rowling just didn't want to go there. It still bothers me that there seems to be a shortage of gold even with all these alchemists running around. Wouldn't expanding the supply of gold induce hyperinflation? Seems gold should be worthless, not rare.
I can see the scarcity of unique magical objects...
As for the initial problem presented in the article of Harry teaching the Patronus charm...does the literature (the books 1-6) state anywhere that it was easy for any of the students Harry taught to conjure a Patronus? I recall him teaching them this charm only AFTER they had mastered everything else he taught them, weeks and weeks later.
Having seen the fifth movie, I can suppose that the movie may give the impression it was easy, but that's hardly a criticism of JK Rowling, now is it? Seems the criticism is more of the screenplay and acting than the novels. Hmph.
Good point Scott. Maybe the "opportunity cost" is magical effort which is costly, just like physical effort.
Regarding the alchemists, maybe they are the central bankers of the wizard economy, carefully expanding the supply of gold to match the expansion in the economy, thus maintaining price stability...
central bank=gringotts, right? another problem with that article...wouldn't the very existence of such a bank indicate that there's some opportunity cost/interest rate with regards to holding gold on hand?
i suppose it could be a vault for use like that of scrooge mcduck, but given the supposed greedy nature of goblins in the book, i can't imagine the society is usury-free.
i think that lady got going on an interesting article without really stopping to think carefully about the novels...of course, i'll go to my grave clutching the idea that harry potter is true doctrine, so...
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