Rich Wizards, Poor Muggles

Question

Why, oh why, don't the Weasleys "conjure" up some diamonds/gold/etc, sell 'em to Muggles, and get rich? They could buy a mansion (like the Malfoys), and live there happily ever after.

I know there's Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration that prohibits one from conjuring food (which doesn't make much sense to me, either). Even if it applied to gold, what about all the other elements/compounds/materials? Could the law really be 'don't let a wizard conjure something if it'll make them richer'? That's totally nonsensical.

Why does Wizard society still have poor people, especially if they're talented?

Answer 1

Keep in mind there are two types of monetary wealth in the HP world.

Muggle wealth is the money that we are all familiar with, and can only be used to purchase goods and services from Muggles.

Wizarding money is used to purchase goods and services from Wizard society.

For the most part, there's very little that members of Wizard society want or need from Muggles. Property, housing, and food really seem to be about the extent of it for the vast majority of Wizard families. Most families already have established properties and houses, and using magic would, in most cases, make expanding or modifying houses much easier. Which leaves food, for those families who don't already grow or raise their own. However, food can most likely also be obtained from other members of Wizard society (in a market as crowded as Diagon Alley there's almost certainly some grocers, and as further evidence many wizards are so unused to Muggle society that they are incapable of fitting in for even short trips, which implies that they are not making regular trips to the supermarket for food). Add to this mix the convenience of traveling to Wizardly destinations via Floo network, and it seems that the need to purchase from Muggles is a relatively rare occurrence.

Even if a Wizard or Witch did want something from the Muggles, and conjured up gold, or jewels, they'd have to find some way to convert them into Muggle currency. Selling a small fortune in valuable merchandise is not a quick and easy process if you attempt to do it legally, especially if you are shabbily or even oddly dressed, and seem completely unfamiliar with the relative value of currency.

In short, it is no doubt possible for a Wizard to get very rich in Muggle currency, but it is not necessarily easy, convenient, or altogether useful to do so.

As for Wizarding money, it is almost certain that it cannot simply be summoned or transmuted. The whole point of currency is to act as a convenient marker for goods or services that have value and are worth exchanging for goods or services of similar value. In order for currency to be a convenient marker, everyone using it must agree to its relative value, and agree to keep that relative value stable. I think it can be assumed that there are checks and balances in place to insure that magical forgery of the currency is difficult, if not impossible, and that anyone caught doing so would be severely disciplined.

If conjuring gold, or transmuting glass into diamonds, or some other means of conjuring "wealth" would be possible, then those materials simply would not be valuable to Wizards. Why would one wizard buy or trade for diamonds that another wizard conjured or transformed, when they could almost certainly do the same themselves?

Answer 2

Because wizards creating money would produce a huge inflationary process in the Muggle society. So probably the Ministry of Magic would ban selling any magically created objects to Muggles under the pain of Azkaban. They have the Improper Use of Magic Office and Aurors, remember? Messing with them is thus a bad idea, unless you are an evil all-powerful overlord.

As for intra-wizard trade, any merchant that does not want to go broke would probably have means of detecting forgeries, just as in our Muggle world they do :)

Answer 3

Magical gold comes up at the World Quidditch Tournament where the Irish leprechaun mascot throw it out to the crowd - it disappears by the next morning. This seems to be a common thing with magically created items (not the same as items that are enchanted) - they are transitory.

Also, there are wizarding laws about showing magic to muggles, which a family like the Weasley's are going to follow, even to their disadvantage.

Answer 4

I'm going to put several answers together, and add in a bit of own bit.

First of all, here's a few facts.

1. If money was easy to come by, no one would work at all. Thus, money would become worthless.
2. The wizards don't want to do anything to mess up the muggle world.
3. It doesn't look like anything is ever really created, but rather, summoned from other locations.

Given these, it seems likely that there must be some laws protecting the money system, some that even the worst wizard will have to follow. Of course, we don't have positive proof that any such law exists, except that there are rich wizards, poor wizards, and magical gold disappears. The following bit I'm going to put in what I would do if I were in charge, and hope that the wizarding world has implemented a few of these things.

1. Wizard gold much have something done to it to ensure its authenticity.
2. There must be a spell similar to the decree against under age magic that prevents one from summoning gold, period.
3. Any creation of gold is similarly temporary.

I would also argue that wizards in general ARE richer than muggles. With the exception of the Weasleys, we don't see any poor wizards, and we do see several rich wizards. I don't know how this plays into things, but...

Answer 5

In-universe there are several places where it is implied that objects of seeming value can nevertheless be detected to be fakes, and therefore worthless. Examples:

• Leprechaun gold (disappears after a few hours; Gringott's goblins can detect it on close inspection)

• Geminio-made copies (anything Harry and his friends touched in the LeStrange vault multiplied, but Griphook specifically said the copies were worthless; obviously the difference is detectable)

• The Sword of Griffindor (most likely another example of the Geminio charm; again, a ex-Gringott's goblin was able to tell it was a copy in the book)

Thus, it is perfectly possible to transfigure something worthless into something apparently valuable, or even conjure something valuable out of nonbeing; however, it's always possible to tell the difference no matter how good you are. It would be like making counterfeit money; sooner or later the fraud will be detected, so the best you can do is run a passing con on someone you'll never see again (which happens in the books as well).

Answer 6

For the same reason every programmer in our world is not rich. We are considering programmers selling code to non programmers here. Most of it is to do with talent and who you are working for (google, bank, small startup). Some of it is do with simple politics. Same goes for lawyers, accountants, coffee makers, bartenders etc.

Now let's consider programmer to programmer (or banker to banker etc.).

In the wizard world, remember that while everyone can do magic not everyone is good at it. Hence, if you want to buy a cauldron, you go to someone who makes the best cauldrons and offer them something of your own creation or provide them with a service -barter. To eliminate barter, money was invented and it works just as muggle money does. Producing counterfeit money is a crime.

If you know how to conjure silver, go sell it! If a lot of people know that art then it won't fetch you a lot of money (demand/supply).

Answer 7

As usual, the answer in Wizarding world is "because bad government!".

Q: It seems that the wizards and witches at Hogwarts are able to conjure up many things, such as food for the feasts, chairs and sleeping bags. . .if this is so, why does the wizarding world need money ? What are the limitations on the material objects you can conjure up ? It seems unnecessary that the Weasleys would be in such need of money. . . (Jan Campbell)
A: Very good question (well done, Jan!!). There is legislation about what you can conjure and what you can't. Something that you conjure out of thin air will not last. This is a rule I set down for myself early on. I love these logical questions!
(src: "World Exclusive Interview with J K Rowling," South West News Service, 8 July 2000)

Answer 8

Certainly not HP canon, but...

If we're talking about objects with intrinsic value (like gold), in most fantasy settings magical creation of wealth is typically handled by two basic limits of magic:

1. If it's summoned, it must be summoned from somewhere (usually not someplace of the caster's choosing unless it's something they own). This means the summoning of wealth is the equivalent of theft.
2. If it's magically created, the spell typically has a limited duration or is otherwise obviously artificial (couldn't be melted down like real gold, for example). This means creating it out of thin air is essentially fraud.

The reason these rules are usually in place is because too many things about the world stop making sense if they don't, and the world is completely unrecognizable to the reader. If I can create gold to solve my problems, well, I can create anything to solve any problem, and there are largely then no problems at all. That's a pretty boring story. It's not a unlimited-money-is-boring problem. It's an omnipotent-magic-is-boring problem.

As far as fiat money (aka, paper money), laws regarding counterfeit money would apply. Magically created money, no matter how sound, would not be money. It would be counterfeit because it wasn't produced legally. Presumably, the measures of wealth in HP's world would bear magical anti-counterfeiting spells on them similar to the anti-counterfeiting techniques on our world's money.

Answer 9

If I understand correctly, almost the entire "canon" is from Harry's point of view. It's only what Harry observers and understands. Obviously this could be very limited and possibly wildly incorrect in many aspects. Especially for a relative outsider like Harry was.

Therefore any assumptions about the economic "culture" are guesswork at best.

Or being once very poor herself the author wished to make a point that people aren't poor because of the limitations or powers of a society but because society chooses that they be poor.

Answer 10

Despite Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, I think it would be possible to conjure non-magical food. And as the Philosopher's Stone demonstrates, making permanent gold is possible.

But these sort of magical abilities are probably just as rare as geniuses like Nicolas Flamel himself are. In other words, Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration refers more to infinitely difficult abilities and not impossible abilities. And conjuring food that isn't permanent is probably a bad idea for your health.

Moving away from conjuration, who says it's even possible for an adult wizard to exchange muggle money for wizarding money. This could also explain Remus Lupin's poverty. Even if he had a muggle job, he would be unable to buy wizarding stuff. Such a law would also be good for the wizarding economy as muggleborn parents would put legally gained money into the wizarding economy, yet wizards would be unable to put illegally gained money into it.

That said, I could see a Malfoy creating Leprechaun Gold and getting muggle money in exchange. Then using that muggle money to buy agricultural goods in the muggle world. And then sell those agricultural goods in the wizarding world. The problem would be to appear legal in the wizarding world, especially with the Goblins running Gringotts and thus knowing quite a bit about your finances. So this wouldn't be a quick way to get rich; it's a way to get rich over multiple generations.

Then again, if you have no need for Gringotts, there are numerous ways to get rich quickly, but I'll bet those are exactly the kind of wizards that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement keep track of. All in all, I would expect that magical crime wouldn't be worse than it is in the muggle world.

And I think that someone like Remus Lupin is much poorer than the Weasleys. The Weasleys seem to have managed to provide for 7 children. Imagine if they only had to provide for one child: I bet they would immediately be seen as Wizarding Middle Class.

Answer 11

I think there's a very good reason for restrictions regarding gold/money/etc - If one could conjure those things - why work? You could have money for everything you'd ever wanted with a flick of your wand. The wizarding world would collapse in such a scenario.

Answer 12

I don't see anyone mentioning the Sorcerers Stone. In the book someone (I believe it was Dumbledore) says that the stone offers limitless life and money, which suggests that creating permanent gold is possible, but possibly only for artifacts like the Stone.

Answer 13

I don't remember which book, but in one of them Bill or Charlie explains to Harry that you can't create things out of nothing. When you make something appear, you're really just moving it from somewhere else. So when they conjure up, say, tablecloths, the tablecloths disappear from somewhere else, probably wherever they keep them in the house.

So they couldn't conjure up anything of value, unless they already had it, or they would be stealing from somewhere else.