What do wizards do?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 53917

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, imhotep1 <imhotep1 at r...> wrote:
> 
> I have been wondering what exactly wizards DO with their time. ...
> I mean, I know they must work and have jobs, Here's my logic:
> 
> First we need a rough estimate of the wizard population. 
> ...edited...  This leads to the following equation:
> 1000 students / 7 years = 143 students per year
> 143 students per year * 200 years = 28,600 wizards
> 
> ...edited...
> 
> ...  employed with MoM.  
> 
> ... entertainment industry.  
> 
> We know there are at least 91 (13 teams * 7 players) ...
> play professional quidditch, and probably a support staff ... )  
> 
> ...a bunch of people work in publishing, ...
> 
>  people ... in advertising and publicity. 
> 
>  the medical practice, ...
> 
>  those ... fortunate enough to own their own business 
> 
> There are also housewives ...
> 
> Then there are the trades. 
> 
> Finally there are the non-glamorous jobs: conductor & driver of 
> the Knight Bus, food service, dishwasher, and so fourth.  

>  ... a market for farming...
> 
> ... I don't see is enough ... production occupations to support
> the wizarding population.  Twenty-six-thousand ... people, and
> .. the occupations I have outlined, .. most of them must be 
> employed doing transfigurations and enchantments of things ...
>
> And what do they actually create.  ...  Without some sort of worker
>  base (farmers, factory workers, ... ) no one actually produces 
> anything new, ...
>  
> ...edited...
> 
> ...) but does anyone have any  ideas.  Are their wizard farmers? 
> Do most of the Wizarding folk slave away in wizarding factories
>  enchanting and transfiguring wizarding things for wizarding folk? 
> Do my numbers seem accurate to you, or does half my home state play 
> professional baseball?
> 
> -Jeremy

bboy_mn:

First, regarding your estimates of the wizard population, your
estimate is good enough to make your point and serves as a nice
illustration, but the wizarding population is just like the student
count at Hogwarts, it is an unsolvable problem. Believe me many people
here have spend hours and hours analysing it and calucalating it from
every possible angle then debating it for days on end, and the answer
is always the same, we have opinions but in all honestly we don't know
and can't know.

Next, employment is like an iceberg, what you actually see is only the
tip of it.

Let's take an example: Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor

It looks to me like Mr. Fortescue runs it, so that accounts for the
employment of 1 person. Maybe his wife helps, so now we account for 2
people. Conclusion: the ice cream business employs two people ... Or
does it?

Who built the store? Where does his milk come from? ...who processes
the milk? Who delivers it? ...his sugar? ... again, who grows it, who
processes it, who distrubutes it? ...his fruit and flavorings? ...his
store fixtures? ...his tables and chairs? ...his bowels, cups,
glasses, forks, spoons, straws, napkins, utensils, mixing bowls,
general storage, cold storage, glass for his windows, wood for his
floors, stone and mortar for his building, shingles for his roof,
paint for his walls, signs, menues, ink to write the menues, paper to
print the menues on, some one to print the menues, someone to supply
the printer with his printing press and all the people who were needed
to support the printing press manufacturer, etc...

Now it looks more like 500 people were involved in creating the
business and at least, very conservatively, a 100 (or more, more
likely) are needed to keep it going.

You can do the same thing for every business, and you will find the
same thing I have illustrated here. You have to employ loads of people
to keep even one small business running.
- broom manufacturers = wood cutters, carvers, wood finishers, metal
crafters, metal creators, painters, artists, packaging and packagers,
etc...
- Ogen's distillery - how many people to run and SUPPORT a distillery?
- farmers of all types - fruit, vegetables, meat, meat processors and
meat distributors, grain, seed, cotton, wool, flax, transportation,
equipment manufacturers, etc...
- traders, importers, exporters, warehousers, transporters
- shoe makers - sources of leather, tanners of leather, cutting tools,
 etc...
- furniture maker -furniture sellers, distributors, craftsmen,
woodsmen, saw mills, hardware manufacturers, etc...

Shall I keep going? 

To a certain extent the wizard world is a self-sustaining society.
They create everything needed to sustain a society; food, clothing,
housing, etc...

Yes, there are common labor jobs; some guy sits in the Weasley Wheezes
Joke factory enchanting trick wants all day. A whole load of people
work in the trick food department. There are farmers. Although they
use a lot of magical methods to accomplish the necessary tasks. Then
there are specialty farmers (just like in real life) who grow the rare
herbs needed to supply the apothocaries, and in the same vein, there
are wildcrafters who gather wild herbs. 

Well, I can keep going like this but I would just be repeating the
samething over an over again using different examples. It takes a lot
of people to sustain the wizard world, and those resource people are
drawn from all over world including the muggle world.

I estimate (instinctively) the wizard world at many times more than
you did, and I have no problem finding jobs for all of them. But to
find those jobs, you have to look deeper than the surface.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn