“You’re a wizard, Harry,” Hagrid said. “And you’re coming to Hogwarts.”
“What’s Hogwarts?” Harry asked.
“It’s wizard school.”
“It’s not a public school, is it?”
“No, it’s privately run.”
“Good. Then I accept. Children are not the property of the state; everyone who wishes to do so has the right to offer educational goods or services at a fair market rate. Let us leave at once.”
“Malfoy bought the whole team brand-new Nimbus Cleansweeps!” Ron said, like a poor person. “That’s not fair!”
“Everything that is possible is fair,” Harry reminded him gently. “If he is able to purchase better equipment, that is his right as an individual. How is Draco’s superior purchasing ability qualitatively different from my superior Snitch-catching ability?”
“I guess it isn’t,” Ron said crossly.
Harry laughed, cool and remote, like if a mountain were to laugh. “Someday you’ll understand, Ron.”
Professor Snape stood at the front of the room, sort of Jewishly. “There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class. As such, I don’t expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. However, for those select few who possess, the predisposition…I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.”
Harry’s hand shot up.
“What is it, Potter?” Snape asked, irritated.
“What’s the value of these potions on the open market?”
“What?”
“Why are you teaching children how to make these valuable products for ourselves at a schoolteacher’s salary instead of creating products to meet modern demand?”
“You impertinent boy–“
“Conversely, what’s to stop me from selling these potions myself after you teach us how to master them?”
“I–“
“This is really more of a question for the Economics of Potion-Making, I guess. What time are econ lessons here?”
“We have no economics lessons in this school, you ridiculous boy.”
Harry Potter stood up bravely. “We do now. Come with me if you want to learn about market forces!”
The students poured into the hallway after him. They had a leader at last.
Harry and Ron stood before the Mirror of Erised. “My God,” Ron said. “Harry, it’s your dead parents.”
Harry’s eyes flicked momentarily over to the mirror. “So it is. This information is neither useful nor productive. Let us leave at once, to assist Hagrid in his noble enterprise of raising as many dragon eggs as he sees fit, in spite of our country’s unjust dragon-trading restrictions.”
“But it’s your parents, Harry,” Ron said. Ron never really got it.
Harry sighed. “The fundamental standard for all relationships is the trader principle, Ron.”
“I don’t understand,” Ron said.
“Of course you don’t,” said Harry affectionately. “This principle holds that we should interact with people on the basis of the values we can trade with them – values of all sorts, including common interests in art, sports or music, similar philosophical outlooks, political beliefs, sense of life, and more. Dead people have no value according to the trader principle.”
“But they gave birth to y–“
“I made myself, Ron,” Harry said firmly.
“Give me your wand, boy,” Voldemort hissed.
“I cannot do that. This wand represents my wealth, which is itself a tangible result of my achievements. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think,” Harry said bravely.
Voldemort gasped.
“There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.”
Voldemort began to melt. Harry lit a cigarette, because he was the master of fire.
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. The minimum wage is a tax on the successful. The market will naturally dictate the minimum wage without the government stepping in to determine arbitrary limits.”
Voldemort howled.
“I’m going to sell copies of my wand at an enormous markup,” Harry said, “and you can buy one like everyone else.”
Voldemort had been defeated.
“He hated us for our freedom,” Ron said.
“No, Ron,” Harry said. “He hated us for our free markets.”
Hermione ached with desire for the both of them to master her, but nobody paid her any attention. They had empires to build.
I'm an anarcho-hufflepuff. Why? Fuck you, suffer for having read these words.
Hermione ached with desire for the both of them to master her, but nobody paid her any attention. They had empires to build.
cursed
Everything that is possible is fair
The smallest minority on earth is the individual.
It hurts that I used to believe both of these things.
Here's part 2, the rest is on that site as well:
https://the-toast.net/2014/06/02/ayn-rands-harry-potter-chamber-secrets/
“We have no economics lessons in this school, you ridiculous boy.”
Neoliberals don't want you to know about political economy
“Harry, you look different,” said Hermione as I joined her and Ron in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express.
I suppose I did. I was wearing an ushanka with a Red Star, a Che Guevara T-shirt, and browline glasses. I had grown a scruffy beard and had had my scar changed from a lightning bolt to a hammer and sickle.
“Why are you wearing a shirt with that murderer on it?” asked Hermione as I sat down.
“He’s not a murderer, he’s a soldier,” I explained.
“I’d be offended, but I know you’ve been brainwashed by the bourgeoisie capitalist establishment. You’re suffering from false consciousness.”
“What’s false consciousness?” asked Ron curiously.
I knew he would be more open to communist ideas because he was part of the proletariat, whereas Hermione was part of the bourgeois intelligentsia.
“False consciousness is when people think communism is bad,” I explained. “Since communism is good, it means they’re obviously insane.”
“Harry, are you a communist?” asked Hermione in a quiet voice. I could tell she was scared, probably of losing her private property.
“As a matter of fact, I am!” I said, knowing I had nothing to be ashamed of. “Uncle Vernon was complaining about communists one day and I decided that anyone hated by Uncle Vernon couldn’t be that bad.
So I read The Communist Manifesto and discovered how the world really worked.”
“But — but,” said Hermione, at a loss for words, “President Reagan said the Soviet Union was the evil empire. He wouldn’t have said that if it weren’t true!”
I signed, wondering if Hermione was too deep in false consciousness to ever come around to the correct way of thinking.
Reading this story made me imagine there's probably actual unironic fanfic takes on Harry Potter defeating Donald Trump with magic and the thought of it alone made me irrationally angry.
Nowhere better to post this, but a funny story about people adapting atlas shrugged into a film trilogy , and having to crowdfund the last one after the first two bombed lol https://www.indiewire.com/2013/09/what-would-ayn-rand-think-atlas-shrugged-hits-kickstarter-to-get-cash-for-final-film-in-trilogy-93353/
Since I like trains I tried to watch Atlas Shrugged Part One a few years ago. I didn't know anything about libertarianism or Ayn Rand. It sucked and I barely got through it.
I read and liked that. The politics and world building of HP is so bad, its so easy to dunk on, even from the right
