Economics Ideas In Star Wars Movies And Their Relation To The Real World
Often times it takes a lot to understand how an economy keeps itself running on all cylinders along with the multitude of different ways that they interact within the various countries throughout the world. It is even more difficult to understand how economics can come into play in a galaxy far far away. But luckily if someone was to take a step back and look at how the economics within the original six Star Wars movies runs, we can often see how these economics can relate to the real world. Some of these ideas relate to the idea of trade, monopolies and the three major factors that fuel economics (economic integration, national sovereignty and democracy).
The first idea that someone can dive into examining within the Stars Wars movies is the value that trade holds within the galaxy and how they work towards making it the “freer the better. ” As we continue to see in everyday life, there comes the fact that certain trade conflicts between countries/worlds can end up leading to a significant amount of tension. When we begin to examine this idea a little closer within Star Wars, we can see the idea of hyperdrive coming into play. Hyperdrive allows travelers to evade the constraints of relativity and can lead to them traveling outstanding distances within moments. In return this allows for a higher level of income per person than would be possible in a galaxy of planetary autarky. Autarky is defined as the policy of establishing a self-sufficient and an independent national economy.
Playing off of this idea we can see that within the galaxy, there are some planets that have a significantly wide variety of species and resources. Such planets would be able to do well for themselves without trade within the galaxy. But on the other hand there are planets such as the desert planet of Tatooine or the ice planet Hoth would end up being very barren without the amazing possibilities of imports from other worlds within the galaxy. The idea of trade also allows these so called “desolate” planets to end up specializing in the production of a given valuable commodity. For example, the minerals that the planet of Tatooine can provide. Along with the specialization, these worlds can shift their focus onto shifting their entire surface over to farming or urbanization.
With the idea of trade within the different worlds of the galaxy comes with the fact that monopolies can be formed such as the Trade Federation. The federation ends up coming into play in Episode I when they have the idea to invade the peaceful planet of Naboo. The idea of “trade franchises” also come with a multitude of very troubling ideas. Trade franchising is defined as an arrangement in which there is a supplier who supplies a product or product family to any dealer who could also avail the identity of the supplier. The first time we can see this idea is that the person or group known as the “monopolist” or the Trade Federation tend to charge premiums as goods travel throughout the galaxy instead of those benefits filtering back into the economy of consumers and producers. They also end up encouraging the ideas of criminality by those seeking to circumvent (to go around or bypass) the monopolies that have been put into place on them. For example the smuggling of spice, a narcotic, by Han Solo, on behalf of the gangster Jabba the Hut.
The idea of globalization prevents certain countries and/or worlds from achieving more than two of three desirable goals of economic integration, national sovereignty and democracy. The price of participation in the galactic economy is the acceptance of rules that irk planetary governments. In Episode II, a “Confederacy of Independent Systems” moves to secede from the Republic in response to regulations seen as placing an undue economic burden on poorer planets.
Often times we don’t look at movies in depth and just emerge ourselves into cinematic history. But as we take a closer look into the original six Star Wars movies, we begin to see how macroeconomics is able to apply itself into each and every movie. Even though it may seem very complex on how each of these ideas applies themselves, they tend to be very simplistic. This comes with the fact that trade not only applies in the current world but it also applies itself with the use of hyperdrive within the different galaxies and the faster the goods are transported, the more money someone can make. Along with trade we can see the monopoly that the Trade Federation has on every given world. Finally there were the different economic factors that came within the original six movies and these were the economic integration, national sovereignty, and democracy. This all leads to the idea of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
