Psy
12th March 2011, 06:20
Overthinking It (http://www.overthinkingit.com/) comes up with interesting articles and My Little Pony Political Economy (http://www.overthinkingit.com/2011/02/24/my-little-pony-political-economy/) has to the most interesting one to date.
Now many may think the idea of analyzing the fictional political economy of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is silly but the article does address this
One potential objection to an economic analysis of MLP: FiM is whether such analysis is even warranted. The economy of a fictional world may be abstracted without consequences in some stories; after all, any flow of capital in Harry Potter is insignificant in comparison to the existential battle between good and evil that is at the core of the story. However, many of the stories in MLP: FiM focus on the performance of economic tasks: crop harvesting, production of baked goods, and the maintenance of the town. Other episodes are about characters finding their roles in society. These kinds of stories rely on a plausible economic base to be meaningful.
In fact, most of the stories written by Faust and her staff, although ostensibly about the power of friendship, also happen to be about the allocation of scarce resources (Ticket Master), correcting inefficiencies in the organization of labor (Winter Wrap-Up), or averting famine in the city of Ponyville (Swarm of the Century). Several of the threats in the seriesthe prospect of eternal night, an infestation of locust-like pests, and a blanket of dragons smoke over the townare presented in the context of permanently crippling Ponyvilles economic productivity. Unlike The Smurfs, which proposed a fantasy world centered on a collectivist community, Equestria has a market economy through which a wide variety of goods and services are bought and sold. And in this economy, there is an equivalent to industrial technology: unicorn magic.
What makes this very interesting is bring up Smurfs that would be a Marxian fictional political economy, except for the lack of mechanization of labor that is also missing in My Little Pony Political Economy. In both while you had contraptions we did not see any wide spread mechanization of labor to bring forth a leisure society. In both the proletariat is missing and instead dealing with artisans.
Now many may think the idea of analyzing the fictional political economy of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is silly but the article does address this
One potential objection to an economic analysis of MLP: FiM is whether such analysis is even warranted. The economy of a fictional world may be abstracted without consequences in some stories; after all, any flow of capital in Harry Potter is insignificant in comparison to the existential battle between good and evil that is at the core of the story. However, many of the stories in MLP: FiM focus on the performance of economic tasks: crop harvesting, production of baked goods, and the maintenance of the town. Other episodes are about characters finding their roles in society. These kinds of stories rely on a plausible economic base to be meaningful.
In fact, most of the stories written by Faust and her staff, although ostensibly about the power of friendship, also happen to be about the allocation of scarce resources (Ticket Master), correcting inefficiencies in the organization of labor (Winter Wrap-Up), or averting famine in the city of Ponyville (Swarm of the Century). Several of the threats in the seriesthe prospect of eternal night, an infestation of locust-like pests, and a blanket of dragons smoke over the townare presented in the context of permanently crippling Ponyvilles economic productivity. Unlike The Smurfs, which proposed a fantasy world centered on a collectivist community, Equestria has a market economy through which a wide variety of goods and services are bought and sold. And in this economy, there is an equivalent to industrial technology: unicorn magic.
What makes this very interesting is bring up Smurfs that would be a Marxian fictional political economy, except for the lack of mechanization of labor that is also missing in My Little Pony Political Economy. In both while you had contraptions we did not see any wide spread mechanization of labor to bring forth a leisure society. In both the proletariat is missing and instead dealing with artisans.