All magic aside, a striking aspect of the Harry Potter books is just how completely normal and bourgeois are all the settings and experiences of the characters, how they live in a world very much like our own and confront all the usual scarcities of time and resources, which is another way of saying that economics is one lens through which to understand the books and their success. Alberto Mingardi has already commented on one aspect of this.
Well, it turns out that Marxists have noticed too: this piece from Le Monde, by a literary theorist and reprinted in the New York Times, should not be missed. It is in advertantly hilarious. Because every sentence is a gem, surely the NYT won’t mind this long quotation for educational purposes only. What the writer decries (without explanation) Misesians can only cheer!
NICE, France — With the Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling has enchanted the world: the reader is drawn into a magical universe of flying cars, spells that make its victims spew slugs, trees that give blows, books that bite, elf servants, portraits that argue and dragons with pointed tails.
On the face of it, the world of Harry Potter has nothing in common with our own. Nothing at all, except one detail: like ours, the fantastic universe of Harry Potter is a capitalist universe.
Hogwarts is a private sorcery school, and its director constantly has to battle against the state as represented, essentially, by the inept minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge; the ridiculous bureaucrat Percy Weasley; and the odious inspector Dolores Umbridge.
The apprentice sorcerers are also consumers who dream of acquiring all sorts of high-tech magical objects, like high performance wands or the latest brand-name flying brooms, manufactured by multinational corporations. Hogwarts, then, is not only a school, but also a market: subject to an incessant advertising onslaught, the students are never as happy as when they can spend their money in the boutiques near the school. There is all sorts of bartering between students, and the author heavily emphasizes the possibility of social success for young people who enrich themselves thanks to trade in magical products.
The tableau is completed by the ritual complaints about the rigidity and incompetence of bureaucrats. Their mediocrity is starkly contrasted with the inventiveness and audacity of some entrepreneurs, whom Ms. Rowling never ceases to praise. For example, Bill Weasley, who works for the goblin bank Gringotts, is presented as the opposite of his brother, Percy the bureaucrat. The first is young, dynamic and creative, and wears clothes that “would not have looked out of place at a rock concert”; the second is unintelligent, obtuse, limited and devoted to state regulation, his career’s masterpiece being a report on the standards for the thicknesses of cauldrons.
We have, then, an invasion of neoliberal stereotypes in a fairy tale. The fictional universe of Harry Potter offers a caricature of the excesses of the Anglo-Saxon social model: under a veneer of regimentation and traditional rituals, Hogwarts is a pitiless jungle where competition, violence and the cult of winning run riot.
The psychological conditioning of the apprentice sorcerers is clearly based on a culture of confrontation: competition among students to be prefect; competition among Hogwarts “houses” to win points; competition among sorcery schools to win the Goblet of Fire; and, ultimately, the bloody competition between the forces of Good and Evil.
This permanent state of war ends up redefining the role of institutions: faced with ever-more violent conflicts, they are no longer able to protect individuals against the menaces that they face everywhere. The minister of magic fails pitifully in his combat against Evil, and the regulatory constraints of school life hinder Harry and his friends in defending themselves against the attacks and provocations that they constantly encounter. The apprentice sorcerers are thus alone in their struggle to survive in a hostile milieu, and the weakest, like Harry’s schoolmate Cedric Diggory, are inexorably eliminated.
These circumstances influence the education given the young students of Hogwarts. The only disciplines that matter are those that can give students an immediately exploitable practical knowledge that can help them in their battle to survive.
That’s not astonishing, considering how this prestigious school aims to form, above all, graduates who can compete in the job market and fight against Evil. Artistic subjects are thus absent from Hogwarts’s curriculum, and the teaching of social sciences is considered of little value: the students have only some tedious courses of history. It’s very revealing that Harry finds them “as boring as Percy’s reports cauldron-bottom report.” In other words, in the cultural universe of Harry Potter, social sciences are as useless and obsolete as state regulation.
Harry Potter, probably unintentionally, thus appears as a summary of the social and educational aims of neoliberal capitalism. Like Orwellian totalitarianism, this capitalism tries to fashion not only the real world, but also the imagination of consumer-citizens. The underlying message to young fans is this: You can imagine as many fictional worlds, parallel universes or educational systems as you want, they will still all be regulated by the laws of the market. Given the success of the Harry Potter series, several generations of young people will be indelibly marked by this lesson.
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Ilias Yocaris is a professor of literary theory and French literature at the University Institute of Teacher Training in Nice. This article was translated by The Times from the French.
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Given the success of the Harry Potter series, several generations of young people will be indelibly marked by this lesson.
Thank god for that. It’s amazing that these socialist wackos can acquire phDs in the first place.
I > L O V E < it
I LOVE it
The staggering success of the Harry Potter series only reminds us of the world we want to have children growing up in. The author and her success through her vivid imagination and cultivating that magical quality of life, so missing in the culture of materialism- only proves the value of fiction and storytelling.
Although I haven’t had a chance to read them, I would have wanted my children to have read them,
had life played a better note for me personally
That was a masterpiece. It could hardly have been better if it had been written as a parody of the collectivist mindset. In the end, I think it is easy to overstate the extent to which Rowling intends to portray collectivism on the side of evil.
At it’s core, the Harry Potter series is a story of heroism. Heroic acts are always those of individuals. They involve taking risks for a worthy goal. Harry is certainly the protagonist, but it is clear very early on that there are a number of other heroic figures, major and minor, surrounding him.
That such a tale is in accord with our political and economic philosophy provides a host of insights into the values that we hold dearest. We find heroism so compatible simply because laissez-faire capitalism is about letting individuals pursue the goals they deem worthy. We trust people to make their own choices, and we admire the heroes who pursue the best in adversity. That the collectivists hate heroes and individual judgement of good and evil speaks volumes about them as well.
I’ve only read the first three, and that fairly quickly (they are by no means a slow read). One other aspect of anti-statism I did note were the dementors. I got a distinct anti-statist vibe in how they were described and the people’s reaction to them. I couldn’t help but wonder if Rowling was trying to say something more with them “how can we continue to stand by while the State does all sorts of things that are evil, but all in the name of good?”. From another angle, I got the feeling that nobody liked them, but nobody, other than perhaps the headmaster, could do anything about it. Isn’t that rather how it is? Nobody likes the State taking 30-40% of the wealth and grinding individuals underneath it, but who can do anything about it individually?
Also, isn’t it ironic that Rowling wrote the first book while on the public dole?
“Also, isn’t it ironic that Rowling wrote the first book while on the public dole?”
She has redeemed herself.
The underlying message to young fans is this: You can imagine as many fictional worlds, parallel universes or educational systems as you want, they will still all be regulated by the laws of the market.
Yocaris, certainly unintentionally, has stumbled onto an insight near and dear to the hearts of all Austrians: that human action (real or fictitious) is governed by — better yet, defined by — certain immutable principles. Worlds without subjective value, declining marginal utility, derived demand, and time preference are unimaginable, at least to humans. The social institution we know as the market evolves directly from these praxeological principles.
Having read the Harry Potter books a few times, I’m not sure that such strongly Misesian insights can be taken directly from the text. The characters simply happen to inhabit a world much like our own: they both compete and cooperate with each other, participate in mutually beneficial exchange, and deal with incompetant and rule-bound government bureaucracies. In particular, Yocaris seems to downplay the crucial element of cooperation between Harry and his friends, and also among the series’ villains. Neither Harry nor his arch-enemy Voldemort could succeed without loyal allies.
Despite his rather skewed view of the Potter books, Yocaris has stumbled onto a topic of interest to Austrian economists. Mises would no doubt be pleased that the law of unintended consequences is going strong.
Please enlighten me…
I’m relatively new to socio-political commentary, so I want to make sure I understand the intent of this thread.
I took most of the comments of the original writer of the article to be more or less positive about the real market survival needs of the students at Hogwarts.
From later comments, it seems the writer was criticizing the universe that HP inhabits, and that the message for young readers of these books is somehow harmful to them.
What exactly did the original writer say that was so critical of the HP series or the capitalist concepts embedded within it? It must have been too subtle for me.
Thanks.
James,
There’s nothing wrong with the commentary of Yocaris, except his intent. The examples he lays out are meant to show how evil these books are, because they expound the virtues of a capitalist society.
Yocaris means to say that all examples of the market working, and the ineptness of the bureaucrats are what is wrong with the books, and are lies. Whereas most readers here will think his examples are pretty darn close to the truth.
Maybe this will make it clearer:
(Link)
The scariest quote in this version of the story is: “Yocaris, one of the people responsible for training the next generation of French teachers…” Very sad.
I don’t get this Yaris. The HP world is almost planned utopia, since magic has solved the problem of economic scarcity.
With all this controversy and interest, it seems obvious that we need a session on Harry Potter at next year’s Austrian Scholars Conference. Seriously.
No one seems to have commented on the most Austrian factor of the books, the fact that there is no fiat money and that everyone uses gold.
Mr. Arab,
Indeed, gold-as-currency is a terrific feature of Harry Potter’s world. To comment on another post above, magic has certainly not solved the problem of economic scarcity. After all, if that were the case, the Weasleys would live just like the Malfoys, wouldn’t they, or perhaps they would all have Hogwarts-sized abodes.
Another interesting theme that started appearing in the latest book is the idea of the wand as a gun. One of the first things Dolores Umbridge tries to do is confiscate the students’ wands “for their own safety.” Gee, where have we heard this before? Rowling’s own England, for starters, with its climbing crime rate. I’m sure this was a commentary on gun control as well as bureacrats.
See also this
Yocaris, teaching the teachers of France is no different than Columbia Teachers College in the US. The attitudes and policies that come out of Columbia are just as anti-market as anywhere in the world.
This isn’t surprising, look at their customers. They cater to government bureaucrats, who love to hear that they are important and useful to “society”. They cater to the teachers Unions, who love to hear the same thing.
Absurdly, they are just as market driven as anyone else, having to cater to their customers or be put out of business by someone who does it better. Would that be irony or hypocrisy?
Why would anyone discount history as important in ones education. If ever there was a time to educate yourself about the vils of the state, in the past and present, and how the free market can work and has… that time is now.
In some ways there are anarcho-capitalist features in Harry Potter. Just look att the Order of the Pheonix. It’s a non-government defence agency.
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