this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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Why is any wizard at all working?
I would assume the goblins can tell if money/gold is created magically and is therefore worthless. Also, it seems to be a situation similar to Star Trek where people work more for the sense of accomplishment than out of sheer necessity (since they presumably can create food, clothes and housing with magic).
Why would I need money if I could create everything by magic?
Well, the characters in the books/movies need to buy brooms, wands and books for example. The first two are specialized magical artefacts that any wizard probably can't just create. The books contain specialized knowledge, but it's unclear why the pages can't just be copied. Maybe there's a magical copyright so trying would just create blank pages.
Ok, let me spin your idea a bit further:
How are books made? If by hand: this could also be done by magic then. Same goes for brooms.
The only Item that is not obtainable by magic would be knowledge. So I need money for getting knowledge. But why do people, who provide it, need money in the first place? What do they buy with it?
Well, as for brooms and wands, it's stated that they consist out of rare materials like phoenix feathers.
Concerning books: At least for books on magic, there seem to be constant revisions of spellbooks, so probably the newest editions would be harder to come by. A lot of magic seems to be trial and error, as evidenced by the additions Snape did to his own potions handbook as a pupil.
It's weird he didn't share that knowledge when he was potions teacher though.
Probably because the standard textbook formulae are good enough to teach the curriculum to the students, and trying to teach something extra complex to a bunch of 14 year olds for a marginal object-level improvement isn't worth it. Presumably potions class doesn't teach you specific potions formulae, but rather teaches you the techniques and underlying concepts of potions so you can go to potions college with a firm grasp of the fundamentals.
I mean, we can tell that the things that people can make with magic are limited. Hence why the Weasleys live in a cramped house that seems to not fall over only because of magic while the Malfoys live in a mansion. So we end up with the same problem as the normal world - resources and skilled labor are limited, and therefore large groups of humans must figure out some way to distribute them.
Now, it seems like magic is a great productivity enhancer, hence why (to my knowledge) we never see a severely impoverished wizard who can't, for example, afford food or shelter. So the wizarding world appears to be, more or less, post scarcity, and any wizard who wants to live a simple life in the forest is presumably free to do so. But then, presumably, they also wouldn't much be part of the wizarding world in general and we would therefore never see them in the books.
But why wouldn't many wizards do this? Why is it never discussed as a serious possibility? Well for the same reason why very few people in the real world live in off-the-grid homesteads where the grow all their own food. Most people enjoy the luxuries of a society which works together. Yes, you can grow your own carrots in a garden, but it is much easier and more convenient to go somewhere and just pick them up off a shelf. But in order to enjoy this luxury which was created by others' labor, you must also contribute so that others may enjoy similar luxuries - ie, get a job.
Of course, some people really like growing their own carrots, and would be fine living on a homestead. But you run into a further problem, which is that very few other people want that. They want to enjoy a butter beer at the pub or to watch a quidditch match or to live in a house that isn't about to fall over except by magic. And since the amount of labor needed to enjoy such luxuries is very reasonable, and because everyone else in society is out enjoying these luxuries, almost everyone feels compelled to get a job so that they don't miss out and can have a robust and vibrant social circle.