How does the free market and economy work in the Harry Potter Universe?

My head hurts even trying to think about that. I always wondered about it but stopped myself shortly thereafter

and you wonder why your still a virgin

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Then you have those wizards that work for someone else. What constitutes "doing work" to wizards and witches?

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There are lots of shops and stores in the Wizard world, places on Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade for example. I'm sure there are other places like that we just never got introduced to

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Couldn't a good wizard just make a "spell macro" and do all of what they need to get done?

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I guess you could make a spell to duplicate money, but there are also spells and also ways to check or mark what is an original and what is not, we see many a charm in the wizard world designed to uncover phonies. I suppose it'd be just like counterfeit money in our world, you can get away with it sometimes, but it's illegal.

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The other wizards at the Ministry, what do they do? Are they monitoring the floo network, underage wizards, wizard laws?

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Yes they do these things and more. We saw lots of people working delivering government documents, ruling in courts, the whole mystery department as well. Plus as you mentioned the floo network, portal registration, apparition instructors, underage magic watchers, aurors, ect... Also there would be plenty of jobs in the wizard world that are similar to muggle jobs. Waiters, cashiers, cooks, police, event coordinators, marketing people ect...

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What was Voldemort's occupation? He had to get his power from somewhere. What did Dumbledore do before being a teacher? Did he just duel for money?

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If you remember Voldemort wanted to be a teacher after school but Dumbledore wouldn't hire him, also a guy with evil followers stealing and doing dark magic doesn't really need a job, he can just kill and take what he wants. As for Dumbledore he went into teaching out of school. He also did a lot of things for the Ministry, sat on courts and stuff, they even wanted him to be minister.

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And then we have Gringotts. Patrons basically store your money, gold, and heirlooms away in a vault. Is there any interest? Do goblins monitor the money so that there are no such things as duplication charms and spells used to cheat the system? Is there a way to invest the money?

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I kinda went over this, yea there's ways to cheat but also ways to check for cheats and counterfeits. As far as interest goes I'm not sure but I'm guessing it would work the same as our banks.
You'd also need quite a number of wizards to take care of magical creatures and the stuff they destroy (like Charlie Weasley)

Also the Ministry of Magic is a very large organization. Imagine how many people they'd have to have employed just to keep muffles from finding out about the magical world? The Ministry for sure employs a lot of people. And than remember there are far less wizards and witches than there are mugglles in the world. So there may be less jobs but also less people.


I hope all of that made sense I'm on my phone so sorry if its all misspelled or confusing...

Eta: forgot to even mention reporters, we met a few of them an the daily prophet is a big paper... Also there have to be people in charge of the owl network

The Unions would back Voldemort

/poliboard

Seems pretty socialist as everyone goes to work for the ministry of magic except for a few small business owners who are no doubt taxed to the hilt.