Wizard Economics

[tex23236]

No: HPFGUIDX 33622

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., <broken at p...> wrote:

> 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?

There may be magical ways of finding the wizards' consensus without 
formal ballots. likewise, if there is for example, a sales tax, it may be 
collected and distributed magically without JKR needing to discuss it.

>       b. If not, how do people like Charlie, who work with Magical field
 research, get paid?

The money may get distributed magically from magically collected
taxes after buget concensus is magically determined.  Also, there may 
be endowments.  That's what I figgure is the case for Hogwarts: The 
four founders funded it, for the most part.

> 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. 

Wizard occupations we have seen: 
1) those employed by Hogwarts
2) Shopkeepers and innkeepers in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade
3)Bureaucrats in MoM
4) The guys on the Night Bus, also, the Hogwarts Express may have a 
   crew.
5) There may also be farmers who provide raw materials for the 
   craftsmen in the shops.
6) Other activities to cause circulation of wizard money within the 
wizard world.
> 
> 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. 

This means that the Muggle world has something the wizards want to
buy with the Muggle money, i.e. there is trade with the Muggles; or 
else Gringotts would be choking in "useless" Muggle money.

>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.

I figure this is probably the case. Large family=poverty.
> 
> 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.

Probably a large endowment.

Tex23236