Game of Thrones' Economics: Auburn University's Matthew McCaffrey says it's not all Fantasy

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Game of Thrones' Economics: Auburn University's Matthew McCaffrey says it's not all Fantasy

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"The game of thrones in general is a game of cronyism because it's all about forming political alliances, especially with people who can make you better off economically speaking," says Auburn University Economics Instructor Matthew McCaffrey.

McCaffrey has recently written about the economics involved in the popular Game of Thrones novels by George R.R. Martin as well as the HBO series based on the books. He sat down with ReasonTV's Tracy Oppenheimer to discuss the various economic concepts that develop alongside the character-driven plot line, such as sin taxes, coin clipping, and the ever-present cost of borrowing.

According to McCaffrey, Martin extensively researches historical economic systems to make "the Realm" as plausible as possible.

"As part of his process he ends up uncovering a lot of historical details that usually get lost in a fantasy book of this kind," says McCaffrey, "just practical difficulties of running a kingdom, how public finance works, how the game of thrones corrupts the people who play it and how it ends disastrously for the people who don't play it well."

About 5 minutes.

Produced by Tracy Oppenheimer. Camera by Alex Manning.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

In the game of spoilers, you spoil and you die.

[Auric Demonocles]

God damn it. End of the third book was very underwhelming.

[Drake]

The end of "A Storm of Swords" was underwhelming? I must have read a different book.

[Auric Demonocles]

You must not have had a bunch of jerks spouting off about "can't wait till you get to the [redacted] [redacted]" all the time. Even from that little, it's painfully obvious what is going to go down.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

I'm not real worried about spoilers at this point. I've actually stopped at Storm of Swords. Given how many characters Martin's brought into subsequent books, I figure it's just easier for me to wait until the last book comes out, do a "and then, a bunch of stuff happened!" elipse, get the background of the other books from wiki, and then enjoy it.

[puturetokyj22]

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[Raston Bot]

GRRM had to start from scratch and develop new faces. So yes, much like the beginning of the first book, the end of the third is a bit slow. The fifth kicks ass though as he develops one of the more interesting characters.

[mnarayan]

What are you, a crazy person? Fifth book sucked so much it hurt.

[Raston Bot]

Pit fighters, Boltons and Freys, Raventree, White Harbor, Stannis' march, Victarian. You're the one who's crazy.

[Live Free or Diet]

Difference of opinion is what makes for a horse race.

[ColeLH]

You would have to say it was better than the fourth, though. That one really sucked. Comparitively...

[some guy]

Daenarys marries Tyrion and Jon Snow after taking back King's Landing. Jamie kills Cersei. Arya kills Jamie. Bran kills himself.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Joking or not, you're dead (to me).

[Auric Demonocles]

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

[mnarayan]

Through the first few books I figured Jon Snow was Daenarys' nephew, but lately that's looking less likely. This makes the depiction of Rhaegar as some sort of paragon of honor particularly bizarre since he apparently (literally) raped a woman to death.

[UCrawford]

Rhaegar did that? I thought it was Gregor Clegane who raped Rhaegar's wife to death...Rhaegar was accused of killing Brianna Stark, sort of, but I suspect they'll find that it was a consensual relationship and that the rape/murder story was just done to let Brianna save face.

[Free Society]

Lollys Stokeworth gets superdooper gang raped. Leave it to GRRM to make a comic relief character out of a mentally retarded gang-rape victim.

[some guy]

My favorite part is when she goes all "hulk-smash" during the final victory parade. And the part where she turns out to be the bastard child from Tyrion's first rape victim was pure genius.

[Raston Bot]

that was righteous.

[Raston Bot]

But the best part is GRRM naming the bastard Freddy. Ostensibly, an homage to Freddy Krueger.

[Alyna_Cleo]

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[Jon Lester]

khimkiforest dot com. You will care.

[margaretkelly078]

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[Auric Demonocles]

"Growing Strong"? Damn, House Tyrell, I already thought you were lame, and you went and upped yourself.

[Virginian]

By far the most weakauce of the major houses.

[Virginian]

*weaksauce

Ours is the Fury
Winter is Coming
We Do Not Sow
Hear Me Roar
Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken
Growing Strong
Family, Duty, Honor
As High as Honor
Fire and Blood

[robc]

Stark is the only house that isnt bragging in their motto.

[SugarFree]

Unless you consider it a warning to those not as equipped as the Starks to survive it.

[Libertywolf78Z]

House Martell, "Unbowed, unbent, unbroken", really isn't bragging though as they can back it up. "Three dragons and tens of thousands of men in your hosts? Ha! We fart in your general direction, Targs!"

[Sevo]

OT (missed the morning links):
People more than happy to have other peoples' taxes raised! Warrants headline in lefty rag:
"Poll finds support for Prop. 13 change"
http://www.sfgate.com/default/.....559564.php
And, of course the ignoramuses don't realize that *they* will pay the taxes, since there is no other source.

[Raston Bot]

Anyone else surprised they cast DeNunzio from Caddyshack as Grey Worm?

[Francisco d Anconia]

Okay, all you whiney bitches, including Suderman, who didn't like Into Darkness...

I saw it yesterday. Was it Gone with the Wind? No! Was it heavy on action? Yes! Was it a little over the top? Sure! Was it as good as the first? No! Was it bad? Not even close! Was it the worst Trek movie? Not by a long shot! Was it Star Trek? Absofuckinglutely!

So for all you fucking uppity, holier than thou, wanna be movie critics who thought "the lighting was off on the third scene and the dialog of Kahn was too monotone or it's not up to your exceptionally high Trek standards"...FUCK OFF AND DIE IN A FIRE!

Very entertaining movie. I'll watch it again. It IS Trek!

[prolefeed]

It had some snort-worthy moments of non-willing non-suspension of disbelief -- like the (wildly imprecise and technologically backward) chrome plated handle used to accelerate a starship to warp speed -- but it was pretty good. Not quite as good as the movie it is the sequel to, but worth watching.

[bostonaod]

it was entertaining indeed, and I did thoroughly enjoy it for what it was, but as far as the plot went I was pretty lost regarding the you-know-whats in the you-know-whats

[CE]

It was better than the first Teen Trek, and most of the other Star Trek and TNG movies.

[GetABrainMorans]

The BEST part of Into Darkness? Benedict Cumberbatch. The man is awesome. If you haven't caught Sherlock on BBC I'd highly suggest it

[Drake]

I liked it, but...

1. The opening 5 minutes made no dense at all. None.

2. I came to realize that they aren't going to take the time to develop characters, themes, or even the basic rules of the new Star Trek universe in these movies. They are just going to recycle stuff from the series and earlier movies. With very minimal introductions they threw in Khan, tribbles, Klingons, etc... Mix it with loud noises, a fast pace, CGI and call it a movie.

At some point, watching recycled 40-year-old ideas just isn't enough.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Yeah, but inserting all that stuff from the series is what made it somewhat endearing. Did you catch the reference to Harry Mudd? Ya gotta smile.

[Acosmist]

I'm amazed people didn't catch that reference. They blared all the retarded references so much.

[Rasilio]

Actually the tribbles were one of the more interesting things.

Some people tried to make the Klingons an anachronism as they had not yet been introduced in the original series yet, however they had been introduced prior to that point in Enterprise and so would have been a known quantity. However in "The Trouble with Tribbles" it was made quite clear that no one in Star Fleet had ever encountered a tribble and there is little to no reason to believe that the timeline changes would have changed their discovery date sufficiently enough that they would be a common research animal.

[Matrix]

not to mention the Gorn reference!

And the Klingons would not have head ridges at this point in time unless they somehow found a cure early.

Still, very good movie despite continuity errors and plot holes.

My only real gripe is the last 15 minutes.

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys send the pretty girl to interview this dork. Reason, what do I have to do to get a pretty girl interviewer?!

"The game of thrones in general is a game of cronyism because it's all about forming political alliances, especially with people who can make you better off economically speaking," says Auburn University Economics Instructor Matthew McCaffrey.

Yes, I think that is a critical component of that fun little political system we call feudalism.

On foreign borrowing: The Lannisters didn't start the process of borrowing from the Iron Bank of Braavos and the Faith. Littlefinger borrowed most of the money then "paid the king's debts in promises and put the king's gold to work." When the Lannisters get the throne, suddenly they have all of this debt, not to mention several million gold dragons they owe to themselves from loans Littlefinger took from Tywin Lannister. Now the Iron Bank is backing [redacted] in the hopes of getting their gold back.

And of course the LvMI guy equates "free markets" with a bunch of slavers in Essos because, you know, Lewis Ellen Rockwell and the other racists.

But in seriousness, he could have talked about how Daenerys managed to upset not only the Essos slave-based economy with her attacks on Slaver's Bay, but possibly the rest of the world. The only non-adversely affected Free Cities are Braavos and Pentos. Both have outlawed slavery, though in Pentos it is more abolition in the law rather than in facts.

[GetABrainMorans]

I was surprised I went this far down in the comments list before seeing a post about how hot Tracy Oppenheimer is. She is though... pretty damn hot.

[GetABrainMorans]

You see, Robert Baratheon had spent all the Crown's money, because he's like BOOOOSH! And the poor younger ruler who came into his place might have done some bad things, but only because he was inheriting a crappy situation from his predecessor

/progtard

[RyanXXX]

This coming episode is the one book readers have been waiting for.

"And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that Lord of Castamere....."

[Anonymous Coward]

But now the rains weep o'er his hall,
with no one there to hear.
Yes now the rains weep o'er his hall,
and not a soul to hear.

[Libertywolf78Z]

I had to read that part a few times before believing it actually happened. It will be interesting how they will pull it off on TV.

[Bill]

Now that we have seen the power of the Red God, Martin can bring back any character he wants. Maybe that's why he feels so free to kill them off.

[Bill]

I was pissed when I found out they delayed it due to Memorial Day weekend.

[Jerryskids]

On Topic: Hyperinflation in Diablo 3 Online, wherein Blizzard has had to devalue and redenominate the in-game currency because - surprise! - players acted rationally according to the centrally-planned economy Blizzard created. Quite interesting even if you don't play computer games the way God intended them to be played.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Didn't this happen in Diablo 2, where the online economy eventually morphed into a strict barter system?

[RFID]

Yes. Gold was worthless in D2, and most trading was done with the mid and high level runes. The runes were basically a currency, actually, with gold only being used for repairs/potion buying.

[An0nB0t]

Barter quickly gave way to market money after launch when Stones of Jordan became the de facto community currency. I gave up D2 long before runes came into the game, but I remember thinking how odd it was that the Blizzard folks in charge of the economy had screwed up something so simple as creating a stable currency.

Ah, young Anonbot, if only you knew then what you know now.

[Leo]

They are the "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels, not the "Game of Thrones" novels.

I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

[RalphieT31]

Thats why the books are so great. So many different aspects of intrigue. I thought that technically the tremendous debt to the iron bank of braavos was under the baratheon name.Even though Cersei is the one who snubbed the iron bank representative, the crown's debt is still the Baratheon's. I believe the rep's name is Tycho Nestoris. He then soughts out Stannis and starts to fund him and his allies such as The Night's watch/ wildling alliance by the end of the fifth book. So I guess even though the debt is under the Baratheon name, everyone knows its really Lannister debt thanks to Robert's spending and Cersei's refusal to pay.

[RalphieT31]

and thank of course littlefinger's magic trick of clapping his hands and making all this money appear. Littlefinger is such a grand schemer, putting the crown in so much debt, destroying everybody in every way

[Tony G]

George Martin loves two things: the Jets and Barack Obama (take a look at his blog: http://grrm.livejournal.com/).

I think his writing is probably an indictment of capitalism, rather than a lament for its corruption.

Love his books, despise his politics.

[RyanXXX]

An indictment of capitalism? Where did you get that idea? It's a feudal society

[Tony G]

al?le?go?ry
/?al??g?r?/

Noun:

A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

See Orwell's 'Animal Farm,' or Melville's 'Billy Budd'

[An0nB0t]

Thank you, but that wasn't Ryan's question.

What evidence do you have that ASOIAF is an allegory for capitalism? Animal Farm was a straightforward example of such--where specifically do you see textual parallels between Orwell's work and that of Martin?

[dnixx]

Absolutely none.

"I'm not writing an allegory" -- George RR. Martin on George Strombo.

But he adds that his beliefs permeate some of his work. For example, he was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war. His views on war and violence are reflected in A Song of Ice and Fire.

And, by the way, that Martin supports President Obama takes nothing away from the video above.

George RR Martin on George Stroumboulopoulos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHfip4DefG4

[dnixx]

Absolutely none.

"I'm not writing an allegory" -- George RR. Martin on George Strombo.

But he adds that his beliefs permeate some of his work. For example, he was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war. His views on war and violence are reflected in A Song of Ice and Fire.

And, by the way, that Martin supports President Obama takes nothing away from the video above.

George RR Martin on George Stroumboulopoulos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHfip4DefG4

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[some guy]

GRRM already said he'll never answer either of those questions.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Wow! Do you have any idea where you are?

You might escape with all of your virtual limbs intact, but only because this is a dead thread.

If you are here to make friends, you just failed.