Number of teacherspopulation/wizarding economy

[Steve Vander Ark]

No: HPFGUIDX 12941

Rita, nice post. There are a few inconsistencies with the canon as I 
read it, however, and I also have my usual rambling comments to add, 
so if you don't mind, I'll skip through here and note them. :)


--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Rita Winston" <catlady at w...> wrote:
> 
> I don't know whether it is 'clever scheduling', but there do seem 
to 
> be times during the day when some students are in class but other 
> students have 'free time'. Little things like Harry looking at his 
> timetable and seeing that he has no classes on Friday afternoons...

I don't think anyone has Friday afternoon classes, although maybe 
this is just one of my Unwarranted Assumptions.

> 
> I've made up a vague theory that the few teachers handle so many 
> class hours by scheduling many classes to meet only once a week, or 
> even only once every two weeks. I made Snape a schedule where he 
> teaches Gryffindor/Slytherin Double Potions every morning and 
> Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff Double Potions every afternoon (three or four 
> hour classes) to first years on Monday, second years on Tuesday, 
> third years on Wednesday, fourth years on Thursday, fifth years on 
> Fridays, sixth years and seventh years on alternate Saturdays. If 
he 
> grades the homework himself, no teaching assistants, he has no time 
> to sleep, let alone live.

This makes good sense. And I think some upperclass students might not 
need Snape there at all for a lot of their work, it could be more of 
an independent study. After all, if they were working on Polyjuice 
potions, it would take weeks to finish. Maybe they would turn in 
writing--journals, lab notes, etc.--and have once a month sessions. 
For that matter, upperclass students might supervise some classes, 
too, once they got away from so much theory work and spent more time 
experimenting.

> 

> I've been thinking that 1000 students (at Hogwarts as JKR said and 
I 
> believe, or divided among several schools which seems more 
plausible, 

JKR made it pretty clear that there weren't other schools. I think 
that if there are, they aren't schools in the same sense as Hogwarts, 
more geared toward a particular trade, perhaps. 

> or being educated by apprenticeships instead of schools)

Again, I think this best fits the kind of society we see in the 
Wizarding World. I use the term "medieval" to describe it, not to 
suggest that it's bad or backward, but that it's social structures 
fit that model.

 would be a 
> wizarding population of 15,000 to 18,000. (Because I think that 
> Dumbledore's age of 150 years is a long rather than an average 
length 
> life time, even for wizards.) 
> 
> Even raising it to your 20,000, the finances don't work out for all 
> those periodicals and Quidditch teams and industries.

Exactly. I think the wizarding population of Britain, to support the 
culture we see, would have to be ten times that, even more. True, 
there were only a few families around Ottery St. Catchpole, but I 
think that the population would be concentrated around certain areas -
- London, for example, where the ministry is and Diagon Alley. There 
could be thousands of them living unobtrusively in London. I've been 
there. There are plenty of folks there who look like they might just 
qualify.

 The industries 
> seem to me to be very small operations, but even so... I figured, 
> with a LOT of assumptions: that Ollivander charges an average of 7 
> Galleons for a wand (that was the price of Harry's), that he owns 
his 
> store and workshop outright, no rent, no real estate taxes, and 
that 
> a small family needs 1000 Galleons a year to live even a thrify 
> middle-class way of life, that the profit on wands is one-third (he 
> has to pay wand-makers as well materials)

I believe that Ollivander is the wand-maker himself. And he goes out 
and collects the materials too (he remembered a particular unicorn, 
for example). It's very much a cottage industry, which is the way all 
industries were pre-industrial revolution.

, that 1000/7 is the number 
> of entering first-years getting their first wands (seven years of 
> school, seven Galleons for a wand, convenient coincidence). The 
> revenue from selling 143 wands would be 1000 Galleons so he would 
> have to sell 428 wands a year, or three times as many as wizarding 
> folk are born each year. 

While more people buy wands than just first year Hogwarts students, 
he probably doesn't sell all that many more than 150 or so. But I 
don't imagine Ollivander as being a typical example of a wizard shop-
owner. He seems to be extremely old and he has supernormal memory 
etc. I think he's very unusual. I imagine him living in the dusty 
back room of the shop, almost totally engrossed in that little world. 
His needs and wants would be few, then. Other shop owners, say the 
guy who runs Quality Quidditch Supplies, would be a different story 
indeed.

> 
> All I can figure is that the publications and Quidditch teams and 
> industries are really just 'paying hobbies' (in the case of sports 
> teams, that's called 'semi-pro'). 

This just doesn't work with what we see, in my opinion. Everything we 
see would lead us to believe that it's a real economy. Some are rich, 
some are poor. The goods they provide aren't conjured up at will, 
they're carefully constructed and produced for purchase for real 
money. Think of all those boxes of sweets in Honeydukes basement. 
Someone had to make them, box them, transport them, etc. I can't 
believe that someone boxes all those sweets as a hobby. You'd 
certainly have to pay ME if you wanted me to do it. Same with being a 
dishwasher at the Leaky Cauldron.


> the wizarding folk do for a living? If they could conjure up all 
> their housing and food and clothing and furniture (they *can* 
conjure 
> up their transportation: Apparation)

By far most witches and wizards do not Apparate. It's carefully 
controlled and can be dangerous. The broomstick is the transportation 
of choice. That and Floo Powder, but you have to PURCHASE the powder, 
so using that form of transport requires money too.

, they wouldn't need money to 
> live on, but the Weasleys wouldn't be so poor, right? So my guess 
is 
> that every wizarding adult gets a stipend from the MoM (free 
tuition 
> at Hogwarts for the kids, but not a stipend, or having so many 
> children wouldn't make the Weasleys poor). If the government is 
> handing out money in the form of stipends (the dole), it would be 
> irrational for them to be taking that money back in the form of 
> taxes... 

Interesting idea. It just doesn't ring true to me--the economy we see 
is very much a real one, with things bought and sold, and as you say, 
the Weasley's really ARE poor. We don't see food etc. conjured up 
from nothing, with the exception of a sauce, and we don't know if 
that was conjured or simply moved from pan to bowl by wand, nor do 
people conjure money. It would seem that there are more limits on 
magic than we see, perhaps because the people at Hogwarts are the 
cream of the crop, so to speak, so they can actually do MORE magic 
than most common folk. Your average witch or wizard in Diagon Alley 
is fairly low on the magical ability scale and relies as much on 
sweat and toil as much as on magic on a day to day basis.

Okay, now I'm seeing the makings of an interesting essay for the 
Lexicon here. Maybe I'll do some writing tonight...

Steve Vander Ark
The Harry Potter Lexicon
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon