Scarcity, Opportunity Cost and Competition impact our decision-making moment to moment. This makes economics the basis of life as we know it, after God. Nothing that people value is free, someone pays the cost. To gain that thing of value, scarce resources are given up and cannot be given up again for a different thing of value. And we all are competing to capture those scarce resources.
Even assuming the Galactic Empire really was evil, and a revolution to overthrow it was truly necessary, the method by which the Rebel Alliance achieved it was almost completely counterintuitive. In the effort to free the galaxy from the oppression of the Empire (which most didn’t even notice, mind you), the destruction of the Death Star actually would have caused more harm than good. With its significant impact on the market described by the video, it would not only have unintended consequences, but also be essentially pointless because of the Empire’s control over trade. We see this in the fact that even though the first Death Star was destroyed, the Empire still amassed the resources to construct another one. This shouldn’t have come to a surprise to anyone; why wouldn’t they build another planet-destroying space station when they have the money and access to a galaxy’s worth of resources? And of course they were able to amass those resources when the suppliers of the materials needed have no choice but to engage in trade with the Empire (assuming a command economy). If the Star Wars galaxy operated on a free market economy, the Death Star would have never existed in the first place.
Share your unique economics experiences. What did you have to give up to gain that which at the moment seemed so necessary to you? Imperfect information spanked you and now diminishing marginal utility smacks you upside the head, eh?
Even assuming the Galactic Empire really was evil, and a revolution to overthrow it was truly necessary, the method by which the Rebel Alliance achieved it was almost completely counterintuitive. In the effort to free the galaxy from the oppression of the Empire (which most didn’t even notice, mind you), the destruction of the Death Star actually would have caused more harm than good. With its significant impact on the market described by the video, it would not only have unintended consequences, but also be essentially pointless because of the Empire’s control over trade. We see this in the fact that even though the first Death Star was destroyed, the Empire still amassed the resources to construct another one. This shouldn’t have come to a surprise to anyone; why wouldn’t they build another planet-destroying space station when they have the money and access to a galaxy’s worth of resources? And of course they were able to amass those resources when the suppliers of the materials needed have no choice but to engage in trade with the Empire (assuming a command economy). If the Star Wars galaxy operated on a free market economy, the Death Star would have never existed in the first place.
ReplyDelete