[HPforGrownups] Re: Is Hogwarts Public or Private?

[broken at pixicore.org]

No: HPFGUIDX 33594

*delurks* It's always been clear to me that JKR never clarifies much in terms of Wizard economy in her books. All we really know, from canon, is that some wizard families are rich and some are poor, and while this is often related to how long the family's been around, there are exceptions (ie, the Weasleys). But other questions are raised, and I'm going to address some of them in this public brainstorm...

1) Do Wizards pay taxes? 
      a. If so, to whom? The ministry of magic would be the most likely answer, but we have been with Harry for four years and are yet to see some kind of magical elections process. Could it be *gasp* taxation without representation?
      b. If not, how do people like Charlie, who work with Magical field research, get paid?

2) Do Wizards engage in regular Muggle professions, such as dentistry or architecture, but with the use of Magic? I'm not very keen on this theory, since we know that the only Wizard settlement in the UK is Hogsmeade, and the impression one gets from Canon is that it's a very small village. With this in mind, I can't imagine that places like London house a "wizard underground" network, where wizard dentists only attend wizard patients, et cetera, but within the city of London. The only practical solution would be that wizard dentists live and work in London and attend both magic and muggle patients, then convert their muggle money in Gringotts (as JKR indicated can be done). But would someone like Lucius Malfoy attend Muggles? What, exactly, does he do? I've previously thought that, as a governor, Lucius gets paid--and that's all he does, making the title of "governor" equivalent to "cushy government job for rich families". The fact is, I don't really see a practical way for Wizards to have their own working economy within England if Hogsmeade is their only village. 

3) Hogwarts most likely requires a tuition--Harry asks Hagrid at one point in Book 1 how he's going to pay for Hogwarts, since the Dursleys never would, and Hagrid then tells him about his parents' Gringotts account. I'm assuming that this is where he draws money to pay the school. Muggle parents would pay by converting their money in Gringotts. Now, as for the Weasleys, who knows? Perhaps the reason they have little spending money is that most of Arthur's income goes to paying for his many children's tuition fees.

4) Now, Hogwarts is clearly affected by the Ministry of Magic to some extent, and if we consider that to be the wizard government, then it would mean that Hogwarts is a public school (British terminology). I still can't figure out how money works, though--Yes, they have house-elves to do their work, but we've seen that House Elves are a rare commodity even though they don't get paid a salary (Molly Weasley tells us she wishes she's had one, but that only rich families do). One assumes that they have to be bought somewhere, for what is most likely an exhorbitant amount of money. So Hogwarts definitely has quite a large bank account somewhere.

Erm. Yes, that's it for now. *relurks*


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