Well, this is what the Libertarians think of Harry, FWIW
Harry Potter: The new Atlas Shrugged?
by Eryk Boston
Special to LP News
There is a pure joy in seeing libertarian principles expressed by unexpected sources in a world teeming with those who love power. This is especially true when the expression is focused on the next generation. Thus, I am almost rapturous about book five in the Harry Potter series, The Order of the Phoenix.
The first blessing of the Harry Potter series is that it is an example of a gifted writer making an obscene fortune by creating a product people love. It has recently been confirmed that J. K. Rowling is now wealthier than the World's Greatest Welfare Mother, the Queen of England. That alone is enough to warm my capitalist heart.
But far more important is that the first printing of The Order of the Phoenix will be 8.5 million copies. Subsequent printings could number in the tens of millions. Millions of young kids, and many not-so-young kids, read these books repeatedly and absorb every detail. And this is one of the most anti-government books I've read since Atlas Shrugged.
I'm not the first person to point out that the Harry Potter books have a libertarian flavor. The wizarding world in the series has a private banking system and no apparent zoning laws. Wizards have the right to carry a wand -- more dangerous than any firearm -- at all times for the express purpose of self-defense. The schools are largely independent (until this book). Dumbeldore, the most powerful wizard alive, actively avoids a position in government. Independent action is celebrated. Notably absent is any mention of a system of taxation.
There is a formal government, but its purpose has been primarily to hide the wizarding world from muggles (i.e. you) and to control abuse of magic that could harm others. Until now, the high-ranking government ministers in the tales have generally been either pompous jerks or bumbling fools. With the exception of the time when the Minister of Magic knowingly put an innocent man in prison as a public-relations stunt, the authorities have almost been comic relief.
In this book, they cross the line into being dangerously corrupt. They deliberately conceal a mortal threat to the world. They engage in campaigns of character assassination against political enemies. By the end, the Minister's personal assistant resorts to the use of torture to retain power and reveals that she sent assassins to take out Harry Potter. The book is meticulous in detailing the wrong they do, the malice in their intent, and the harm they cause.
While Lord Voldemort is the great evil of the series, Dolores Umbridge, the aforementioned government assistant, is the true villain of the book. She becomes the new Defense against the Dark Arts professor and institutes a government-approved curriculum -- ostensibly intended to teach defense, but in reality designed to create helpless and dependent students. Her first class and her appalling "We raise our hands!" teaching method is enough to cause flashbacks in any victim of government schools. She becomes a case study in power lust as she seizes control through the assumption of titles, rituals of obedience, censorship, personal enforcers, and the issuance of new decrees whenever her intentions are thwarted.
But the joy of the story is how the students and professors respond to this tyranny. The very title of the book refers to a private organization meant to fight Lord Voldemort, despite the cowardice of the state.
I won't include any spoilers, but I can say that kids who read the book will get a fine lesson in civil disobedience, passive resistance, occasional active resistance, and the price of seeking power by state fiat. Faced with classes designed to rob them of an education, the students organize to educate themselves in clear violation of the new decrees. State interference with the press is bypassed by utilizing an alternative method. The official effort to silence a news story results in the entire school reading it in one day.
And that is the key to Umbridge's downfall. As a fan of natural consequences, I found great delight in seeing her plans collapse under their own weight as soon as she got exactly what she wanted. This book will do much to instill in a generation of children an aversion to illegitimate state authority and an acceptance of righteous resistance.
As a bonus, decades of government school's efforts to make Americans illiterate could be destroyed overnight as millions of kids line up to buy an 870-page tome. Add all five books together, and they are longer than War and Peace by a wide margin. Plus, there are two more to come. While the books are widely enjoyed by children, neither the plot nor the vocabulary of the books can be said to be childish.
If you haven't already, read the books. Just get the first book and start reading. You'll soon have read all five, and find yourself happily spellbound in Harry's world -- waiting eagerly for book six.
http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0309/harrypotter.html
