How Malfoys earned money?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 186842

---  No Limberger <no.limberger at ...> wrote:
>
> randmath23 wrote:
> >I was wondering how the Malfoy family earned their money.
> >I cannot find in any of the Harry Potter books that gives any
> >indication of what type of job the Malfoys engaged in.
> 
> >...
> 
> No.Limberger responds:
> Given that wizards and witches can perform magic, the
> notion of needing to earn money seems to run counter to
> being magical in the first place; unless it has to do with
> laws governing the use of magic (limits) and/or how
> skillful each wizard & witch's magic is.  ...
> 
> ...
> 
> Thus, between variances in magical abilities and limited
> property availability, a WW economy is established.
> How, specifically, the Malfoys earned money I don't
> know, but given their predilection for dark magic, it
> may have been earned in various unscrupulous ways
> over the centuries in what would essentially be a WW
> black market. ...
> 
> It's a very interesting topic regardless.
> 
> -- 

bboyminn:

I address the general economic aspects in another post, but
there are some new things I will touch on here.

First, we know there are FIVE Exceptions to Gamp's Law of
Elemental Transfiguration. The only one mentioned is food,
you can't make food out of nothing; you can't just make it
magically appear. I suspect that equally you can not 
create base metal, or Elemental metal that will endure.
Gold is on the chart of atomic elements; you can't create
gold from lead, or from potatoes or anything else. 

There are core rules that effect magic. 

Now, in other 'magical' series like Eragon, there are similar
rules. In this case, you can't accomplish something with 
magic unless you could also accomplish it without magic.

In one scene Eragon needs gold, he know that most elements
are disbursed through the environment in small qualties.
Meaning, if you dig long enough, you can probably find a 
trace of gold anywhere in the world, but not enough to 
pay for all the digging.

So, Eragon careful draw elemental gold from the soil, it
takes a long time and a lot of energy but he eventually as
a few small nuggets that he uses to repay an old debt.

I suspect HP wizards could do something similar, they could
draw trace elements from the soil, but not in quantities 
sufficient to be worth the effort. Other valuable items like
silver, precious and semi-precious stones, and similar are
usually not in their final form, or they are trapped in rock.
If a gem is trapped in base rock, you can't pull up the gem
unless you pull up the base rock too, and that could mean
moving a whole mountains. Again, not as easy or as practical 
as it might seem.

So, the point is prospecting could be easier for wizard, but
the amounts would be limited, and while easier than for a
muggles, it would by no means qualify as easy. 

So, limited but not impossible wealth by these means through
magic.

So, again, I suspect that Malfoy and other wizard who have
wealth, simply wheel-and-deal to parlay that wealth into more.

The rest of the wizard world, like the rest of us muggles,
must work for a living, and there seem to be plenty of jobs
in the wizard world. As many jobs as there are in the muggle
world. Every business need tremendous support to supply it
with the good and materials to keep running. We need wizard
farmers, wizard carpenters, wizard stone masons, furniture 
makers, and import/export, broom makers, foresters, etc...,
virtually any job you can think of an the wizard world has
an equivalent. 

Yes, all these tradesmen and craftsmen would use magic to 
accomplish the task, but those who were skilled at it would 
certainly be more in demand than those who tried to do-it-
yourself. 

It seems like very full world, if for the moment, you overlook
the need for raw materials.

Steve/bboyminn