Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy!

[olivierfouquet2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 147414

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "starjackson1" <starjackson1 at y...> wrote:
>
> Here is an abstract from an interesting article published on the 
> Social Science Research Network about Government in the Harry Potter 
> universe:
> 
> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=830765
> 
> Author:  Ben Barton

I found the article poor on HP and poor on political science (or on whatever academic 
thinking it purports to be part of). Not only does it ignore Tonks, Shacklebolt, Bones, 
Ogden, and Arthur Weasley (all working for the Ministry and all worthy of praise, at least in 
Harry's opinion), it also concentrates almost solely on the Ministry law-enforcement role, 
completely ignoring every other form of collective action. Most curiously, it completely 
ignores the eminently positive institution that is Hogwarts. While it is not clear what the 
exact nature of Hogwarts is, and especially how it is funded, it is not a private institution 
(or else of a very peculiar kind, since "everyone who shows magical ability before their 
eleventh birthday will automatically gain a place at Hogwarts" and with a fund to help them 
to boot) and has a monopoly status on education that is not disputed. So it is not exactly 
your emblematic libertarian institution. 

In fact, how could one deduce from HP that it "makes exceptionnaly well the points that a) 
that government is best which governs least and b) self-reliance and respect for individual 
rights should be paramount" when we have Dumbledore saying he designed a fair number 
of wizarding laws himself (or so I recall, I can't find the quote) or begging Fudge to act at 
the end of GoF?

Moving on to JKR personality, the author makes much of her poverty but disregards (or 
ignores) the fact that when asked who she would impersonate with Polyjuice Potion, she 
answered she would be Tony Blair for one hour and implement all the policies she favors. 
Again, not your typical libertarian fantasy. Not to mention her involvment in Romania, or 
the fact that she wrote to the scottish members of the European parliament about it 
(thereby making the point that there at least some sort of government she favours).

Finally, about political science, the author doesn't even try to link JKR criticism of the 
Ministry to libertarianism specifically. Indeed, I don't see what JKR wrote that could not be 
fully endorsed by any person with a minimum commitment to democracy and rule of law.
So a bad article all in all, the Patronus Potter series is far better.

Olivier