Capitalism, Socialism, and Fan Complaints About the Role of Giant Eagles in "The Lord of the Rings"

Economist Bryan Caplan explains how standard socialist complaints about free markets are similar to longstanding fan claims that Tolkien's Giant Eagles didn't do enough in the war against Sauron.

NOTE: This post contains some plot spoilers for The Lord of The Rings and other Tolkien books.

In a fascinating recent blog post, economist Bryan Caplan highlights some similarities between standard socialist complaints about capitalism, and long-running fan claims that the giant Eagles didn't do enough to fight Sauron in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Most obviously, fans have long argued that the Eagles should have just flown the Ring of Power to Mount Doom and dropped it in, thus sparing the Fellowship of the Ring great suffering, and saving the may lives lost in the War of the Ring. The so-called "eagle plot hole" is a longstanding focus of debate.

Caplan lists some other things fans believe the Eagles should have done:

"Why didn't the eagles transport Gandalf everywhere instead of making him ride a horse?"

"Why didn't the eagles fight at Minas Tirith?"

"Why didn't the eagles fly Bilbo and the Dwarves straight to the Lonely Mountain?"

"Why didn't the eagles grab Azog from his command post in the Battle of the Five Armies and drop him to his death?"

Caplan suggests less criticism of the Eagles for what they could have done but didn't, and more gratitude for all the good they did do:

Give the eagles a break! The eagles are already doing a ton of great stuff for Middle Earth! They're giant eagles. Top of the food chain. They could easily just roost safely in their eyries and live out their lives in peace. Yet without asking for the slightest compensation, these heroic birds…

…saved Gandalf at Isengard,

…fought the Nazgul at the Black Gate,

…rescued the Dwarves from the trees when they were surrounded by Goblins and Wargs,

… and delivered the coup de grace at the Battle of the Five Armies.

The eagles aren't perfect, but they are awesome. Instead of asking the eagles to do even more, how about a little freakin' gratitude?

It's worth adding that never once did the Eagles get rewarded for all the good they did. At the end of the Lord of the Rings, King Elessar (as Aragorn is now called) takes care to acknowledge and reward all the various humanoid peoples and races who fought against Sauron. But the Eagles get nothing.

Caplan applies similar reasoning to common attacks on markets:

I submit that this is a handy allegory for popular complaints about markets. They offer vastly greater benefits than the eagles of Tolkien. To start, these glorious markets…

…fill our stores with cornucopian wealth,

…create endless new products,

…endlessly improve the products we already have,

…offer great convenience,

…build massive amounts of spacious, comfortable housing,

…pay salaries ten, twenty, a hundred times our physical needs,

…offer a vast range of jobs: the whole continuum from low commitment to high commitment, low risk to high risk, low social interaction to high social interaction, low comfort to high comfort,

…will pay you something to do practically anything,

…incentivize the world's most creative and industrious people to share their gifts with the world,

…while respecting the principle of voluntary consent. Truly, no one makes you shop at WalMart.

Yet in politics and popular culture, markets gets even less love than the eagles. Instead, we get childish complaints:

"Incomes aren't equal."

"Wealth isn't equal."

"This product could be better."

"Why can't this stuff be free?"

"My pay sucks."

"My co-workers suck."

"My boss sucks."

"We're so materialistic."

What makes such complaints about markets so childish?

First, most of them apply at least as well to every other economic system. Actually-existing socialism is anything but equal. Its products are notoriously crummy. The pay stinks. Lots of co-workers and bosses still suck. And the victims of socialist poverty are notoriously "materialistic" because they spend most of their time struggling to fulfill their basic material needs.

Second, the market itself offers practical solutions for many of the complaints. Free immigration and free construction are mighty battering rams against inequality. Don't like your pay, coworkers, or boss? Find a better match using the First Law of Wing-Walking. Given time and persistence, this Law totally works. Abhor materialism? It's easier to focus on the finer things in life if the coarser things in life are dirt cheap.

Like Tolkien's eagles, markets aren't perfect, but they are awesome.

Just as the peoples of Middle Earth are vastly better off with Eagles than without them, so real-world people are vastly better off with markets than would likely be the case with any other economic system. Indeed, real-world socialism looks a lot like Mordor under the rule of Sauron. Ditto for real-world fascism and statist nationalism.

Caplan's line of argument doesn't work as well against people who agree free markets have great value, but argue we need marginal tweaks and constraints to make them better or eliminate negative side-effects. For example, perhaps governments should do more to limit externalities, help the poor, or provide public goods. But it is a compelling point against wholesale rejections of free markets in favor of socialism and other such alternatives.

I will also take this opportunity to point out that the Eagles are even better than Caplan suggests. The main complaint against them - that they could have easily destroyed the Ring of Power by flying it to Mount Doom - is totally unwarranted. The following is an adaptation of a 2017 Facebook post I wrote on this subject:

There is no "Eagle plot hole" because the Eagle plan was a terrible idea all along! Giant Eagles are very conspicuous. The Eye of Sauron would literally have seen the Eagle coming from a thousand miles away. He would surely have sent up his Nazgul to investigate; they would sense the presence of the Ring, and capture it.

If the Eagle somehow managed to evade the Nazgul and got to Mordor, Sauron (by that time aware of the presence of the Ring) would have ordered all the thousands of orcs in Mordor to shoot at it. If even one of them manages to put a lucky arrow or ballista bolt through the Eagle's eye, the game is up. Sending in a whole squadron of Eagles (as suggested in some variants of the plan) just makes them even more conspicuous, which means that Sauron would detect them sooner.

And, by the way, the Eagles could not defeat the Nazgul, even with the advantage of numbers, because the latter are immune to non-magical weapons (and, presumably, also non-magical talons and claws).

In addition, as Gandalf explains, the Ring is a major temptation for "those who have already a great power of their own." Giant Eagles are very powerful, and would be tempted to take the ring for themselves, much as Boromir was (only more so, because they are more powerful than he is). An Eagle could easily overpower the Ringbearer, then take the Ring and try to use it, thereby rendering itself visible to Sauron. This scenario also ends with Sauron recapturing the Ring (or at best with a corrupted Giant Eagle becoming the new Dark Lord).

In sum, the supposedly brilliant Eagle plan would have ended up handing the Ring to Sauron on a silver platter. The reason why Gandalf didn't bring it up at the Council of Elrond is that he would have been embarrassed to present such a stupid idea to the Elves and Rangers. He would surely have been laughed out of Rivendell! And the same fate should befall the fanboys who keep bringing this up.

Some may argue that this is still a plot hole because Tolkien did not explain in the book why this plan won't work. But he also didn't have the characters analyze every other possible hare-brained scheme for destroying the Ring, such as having Dwarven sappers tunnel into Mount Doom. No one claims that Tolkien's failure to address these theories is a plot hole. The same goes for the Eagle plan.

And, just as the Eagle plan turns out to be a dangerous-to-pursue mirage, the same goes for visions of a utopian socialist future. Sadly, unlike the Eagle plan, several such visions were actually tried out in practice, with horrific results.

Comments

[Noscitur a sociis]

Some may argue that this is still a plot hole because Tolkien did not explain in the book why this plan won't work. But he also didn't have the characters analyze every other possible hare-brained scheme for destroying the Ring, such as having Dwarven sappers tunnel into Mount Doom.

Tolkien did have the council analyze a number of alternatives, including giving the ring to Tom Bombadil. The (much better) alternative of using of the eagles for air travel would be obvious to a reader who has read The Hobbit, and it should be obvious to the people there too since, you know, Gandalf tells them about an eagle rescuing him (from the lair of an evil wizard!) in the same scene, and it seems like it would have been fair to have Boromir or someone propose it, only to have it shot down for the reasons you outline.

[Ridgeway]

I think the point people are missing is that the eagles were not some Middle-Earth version of Uber. Even Gandalf cannot control them; he is actually very deferential toward them.

They are more like angels. They can intervene in the world for good, but only do so at their own discretion and timing.

[Jmaie]

"And, by the way, the Eagles could not defeat the Nazgul, even with the advantage of numbers, because the latter are immune to non-magical weapons (and, presumably, also non-magical talons and claws)"

Their mounts* would have been vulnerable, thus grounding the Nazgul.

* Especially the small winged horse ridden by the witch-king in that gahd-awful 1980 cartoon version...

[Magister]

It seems likely that contacting the giant eagles to take the Fellowship even just part of the way to Mount Doom might have been slower than walking there (which admittedly worked out worse than they seemed to expect). But it seems odd that the hobbits, having heard that Gandalf was rescued from Orthanc by a giant eagle and knowing about Bilbo's adventures, would not ask about them. It may also be that the giant eagles had their own problems to deal with.

(Why only nine members of the Fellowship? What were 13 dwarfs and a hobbit going to do against a dragon that crushed an entire dwarf kingdom? I have to think that Elrond and Gandalf were privy to prophecies that said these ideas were going to work out, or that Gandalf was planning to interfere even more blatantly than he did to make these plots, I mean plans, work.)

Nobody ever complains that they didn't recruit ents to fight Sauron, since it's pretty clear that the ents would have had no inclination to do so, no matter how long they had to discuss the matter. Maybe the problem is that the giant eagles don't have any established traits except to show up when they are conveniently needed for the plot.

Comparing pervasive markets with giant eagles who generally appear only when they are really needed by the author? Meh. Given the arguments against giant eagle involvement, there are no "giant eagle failures" to compare to "market failures".

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Agreed, and before you say that the Eagles could have at least carried the Fellowship to Mordor, recall that the key part of any plan was being inconspicuous. A giant eagle or eagles flying around outside their usual hunting grounds would have been noticeable – recall that both Sauron and Saruman had either spy-birds or giant flying monsters to monitor the skies.

[Ed Grinberg]

Kind of a stretch, if you ask me. And there's no need for it. Toward the end of the trilogy, Tolkien himself pretty explicitly attacks socialism in this chapter:

The four hobbits make their way back to the Shire, only to find that it has been taken over by men directed by "Sharkey" (whom they later discover to be Saruman). The hobbits, led by Merry, raise a rebellion and scour the Shire of Sharkey's evil.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_the_King#Book_VI:_The_End_of_the_Third_Age

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Tolkien felt obliged to deny that this was a parody of England's postwar Labour government.

[Finrod]

"everything but Rules getting shorter and shorter"

[Magister]

Saruman's petty vengeance? Tolkien adamantly denied that any of his books were allegories.

[Bored Lawyer]

Maybe the eagles are just a bunch of bird-brains.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

No, they were shining beak-ons of freedom.

[ReaderY]

An analogy to water might be apt.

Water can be extremely beneficial in moderate quantities. But there is such a thing as too much of it. Too much can be deadly. People can drown in it.

And people are drowning, they aren’t going to want to hear people prattling on about all the many benefits water has and how good it is and how it doesn’t get enough appreciation. They want help getting out of it.

[Michael P]

That’s a great analogy. By extension, different varieties of socialism want to impose either a desert or a hydraulic empire, and American leftist don't want Black people to know how to swim.

[tkamenick]

"longstanding fan claims that Tolkien's Giant Eagles didn't do enough"

Honestly, I'd never heard that complaint. The complaint I've always heard is that the eagles were a repeated, lazy, deus ex machina. That they did TOO much.

[Syd Henderson]

The Eagles did rescue Frodo and Sam after the Nazgul were safely gone.

[Finrod]

Not entirely true regarding the Eagles never getting any reward. From chapter 18, The Return Journey:

"Where are the Eagles?" [Bilbo] asked Gandalf that evening, as he lay wrapped in many warm blankets.
"Some are in the hunt," said the wizard, "but most have gone back to their eyries. They would not stay here, and departed with the first light of morning. Dain has crowned their chief with gold, and sworn friendship with them forever."

[Finrod]

JRR Tolkien, the man himself, explains why they didn't fly the Eagles to Mordor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Uz0LMbWpI

[M L]

Pretty good argument although some might say that always taking fantasy and sci-fi as super duper serious politics could also be a tad childish. I would never but some might.

"Free immigration and free construction are mighty battering rams against inequality."

Well this part's a bit off, since mass immigration is a mighty bettering ram for inequality, a $500bn annual wealth transfer from working class to wealthy.