Like libertarians, Dumbledore is tolerant of unpopular minority groups, and he often speaks up for victims of discrimination. For example, he works to save the lives of the last giants of Britain. The giants, given their brutish natures, do present a serious threat to the safety of both Muggles and wizards, and so Dumbledore takes it upon himself to learn what is necessary to interact with these slow-witted and impulsive creatures, find a place for them to live, and suppress a “safety movement” to have them killed. Dumbledore is also willing to hire teachers at Hogwarts who belong to despised minorities, such as the half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, the werewolf Remus Lupin, and the centaur Firenze. Finally, Dumbledore consistently opposes purebloodism and wizarding claims of superiority, saying that “it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!”8 Dumbledore has, Prinzi concludes, a libertarian attitude toward personal freedom and the equality of each member of the wizarding world.
Dumbledore clearly does place a high value on protecting the individual autonomy of each person. But again, libertarians aren’t the only political theorists who sing the praises of liberty. Many political theorists—liberals, for instance—would endorse the emancipation of house-elves and equal rights for minority groups. If Prinzi wants to convince us that Dumbledore has the heart and the mind of a libertarian, he should provide evidence that Dumbledore’s personal outlook has content that is distinctly libertarian. What sets political libertarianism apart from other strands within the liberal tradition is its commitment to the primacy of personal liberty. A libertarian not only believes in a moral right to personal liberty, but construes this right in a strikingly robust way.9 Let’s consider three notable ways that libertarians restrict government interference with personal liberty, then ask whether Dumbledore advocates similar restrictions. Prinzi seems to think he does.
First, libertarians oppose laws that restrict people’s liberty “for their own good.” Liberal regimes often require the use of seatbelts or motorcycle helmets, prohibit steroid use by athletes, forbid people from swimming at certain beaches without a lifeguard, and extract money for retirement savings. They justify these practices, at least in part, on the grounds that these rules prevent people from harming themselves. But a properly respectful government, libertarians believe, will not be paternalistic; it will let its citizens make their own decisions, even if those choices will predictably have negative consequences. Second, libertarians oppose laws that outlaw “victimless crimes” or “harmless immoralities” such as prostitution, gay sex, recreational drug use, and gambling. They believe that a government should not limit freedom simply because an act is considered immoral. A state is under a positive obligation to protect the liberty and the property of its citizens, but as John Locke might have put it, a “civil magistrate” should not concern himself with the “care of souls.”10 Third, libertarians are deeply critical of bureaucratic attempts to help the disadvantaged or to redistribute wealth in order to reduce economic inequality. When a state takes money from the “haves” and gives it to the “have-nots,” libertarians see this as “state-sanctioned theft” or “forced labor.” Many libertarians would agree that a private act of charity—a personal donation to Oxfam, say—is morally praiseworthy. But if a government forcibly takes your hard-earned money and gives it out as “welfare,” that’s simply robbery by another name.
At its heart, political libertarianism has a muscular conception of the moral life. It thinks in radically individualistic terms; strongly admires personal intelligence, creativity, strength, and initiative; views freedom as the “master” political value; is strongly skeptical of government power and bureaucratic solutions; and places considerable faith in the “invisible hand” of the market to create wealth and prosperity.
With this brief sketch of libertarianism in hand, let’s return to our discussion of Dumbledore’s political views. Prinzi’s third argument—his appeal to Dumbledore’s “hands-off management style”—could be construed as his strongest attempt to reveal that Dumbledore not only shares several values in common with libertarianism, but has a notably libertarian mind-set. Dumbledore has, as Prinzi puts it, a “willingness to let the people under his charge live and be free.”11 Libertarians, as we’ve seen, believe that the state should not legislate paternalistic rules; rather, it should permit its citizens to make their own decisions, however unwise. Dumbledore, Prinzi claims, also takes this view. As headmaster, Dumbledore largely permits faculty and students to “do as they please,” despite the many poor decisions they often and predictably make. Dumbledore presumably doesn’t endorse Professor Binns’s deadly dull lecturing, Hagrid’s use of dangerous magical creatures, or Professor Sybill Trelawney’s wacky teaching methods. Nor, even more significantly, does Dumbledore intervene to protect students against humiliation, bias, and cruelty. For instance, he permits Severus Snape to hang Neville Longbottom upside down in front of class, to take significant points from Gryffindor unjustly, and to withhold medical treatment from Hermione Granger when one of Draco Malfoy’s spells inadvertently makes her teeth grow humiliatingly long. Dumbledore can’t be accused, to say the least, of being a meddling headmaster.
Even more conspicuous than the many unfortunate things that happen at Hogwarts under Dumbledore’s watch is his approach to Harry. It seems to us, as we read through the series, that one of Dumbledore’s most striking features is his absence. Dumbledore doesn’t raise and educate orphaned Harry. He hardly contacts a lonely Harry during his painful summers with the Dursleys. He doesn’t stand by eleven-year-old Harry’s side as the boy confronts Voldemort for the first time—or, for that matter, the second and third times, in the Chamber of Secrets and in the graveyard at Little Hangleton. Dumbledore does give Harry, true enough, the tools necessary to fight Voldemort. But these tools do not guarantee young Harry’s victory; they leave so much for Harry himself to do. Why isn’t Dumbledore there, right beside Harry? Even when Dumbledore is physically present, Harry often finds Dumbledore terse and emotionally distant. What does all of this say about Dumbledore?
Harry isn’t the only one who finds Dumbledore inexplicably distant and disengaged. Amycus Carrow, the Death Eater, mocks Dumbledore: “Always the same, weren’t yeh, Dumby, talking and doing nothing, nothing.”12 Red Hen, a popular Potter commentator, calls Dumbledore “one of the very biggest (non-chocolate) frogs” in the wizarding world, who has squandered the chance to reform wizarding society for decades.13
Prinzi has a more charitable interpretation. He thinks Dumbledore makes a principled choice not to micromanage other people’s lives or to constantly Apparate in to save the day. It isn’t that Dumbledore is lazy, weak, or indifferent. Instead, Dumbledore believes that a leader is under significant restrictions against the use of coercive power, and he is willing to work within these self-imposed moral constraints. Dumbledore has, Prinzi thinks, a very robust conception of personal autonomy, one that implies that leaders ought to refrain from interfering with the choices other people make. Prinzi is even willing to claim that the motive that leads Dumbledore to stand by as Hogwarts teachers mistreat students is deeply libertarian. Dumbledore has, Prinzi thinks, the libertarian’s “muscular” view of human life; he admires self-reliance and views life as a testing ground that gives people the opportunity to learn the life skills and develop the personal resolve necessary to make it in a tough world. As Dumbledore says to Severus Snape, “It has been essential . . . to let [Harry] try his strength.”14
Prinzi’s argument that Dumbledore’s management style reflects a libertarian mind-set is unconvincing, though. For one thing, as libertarians would point out, managing a school is very different from running a government. Although libertarians oppose the government’s use of coercion, they often find coercion appropriate within the family and within private institutions like Hogwarts. And the idea that personal freedom should be the “master value”—whether or not it makes sense in politics—makes no sense in running a school for teens and preteens. Libertarian ideals are grounded in
the idea that adults should be permitted to govern their own lives, because they have the ability to deliberate and make their own choices. But this reasoning can’t sensibly be applied to eleven-year-old children whose intellectual powers are still developing.15
For the sake of argument, though, let’s permit the analogy between Hogwarts and a political society, and let’s take Dumbledore to be the head bureaucrat of this society of teachers and students. Even if we grant this assumption, Prinzi’s argument doesn’t succeed. For libertarian thinking wouldn’t lead a person to do what Dumbledore did, namely, stand by as students are bullied, mistreated, and endangered by faculty. Libertarianism is not anarchism.16 According to libertarian thinking, a person in a position of political power is under a moral obligation to intervene to protect those under his supervision from abuse. This is the central purpose of a political state. A clear-thinking libertarian bureaucrat would have intervened to prevent teachers from endangering students or treating them cruelly or unfairly. Also, a good libertarian leader would have required professors to live up to their contractual obligations to educate students. Dumbledore’s failure to address the abusive behavior and the lousy pedagogy of bad teachers doesn’t reflect standard libertarian thinking.
Prinzi claims that Dumbledore permits faculty to mistreat pupils because doing so will foster self-reliance in students and so strengthen their moral fiber. But this reasoning is deeply inconsistent with libertarian thinking. Libertarians believe that the political state should not take it upon itself to make its citizens into better people. The state is not charged with making its citizens decent, responsible, tough, courageous, or anything else—only safe. The reason that libertarians praise the virtue of self-reliance is not because they want bureaucrats to teach it, but because they recognize that in a society in which people do not receive significant protection from a well-intentioned, paternalistic state, this virtue is crucial. It’s clear that Dumbledore does think he has the obligation or at least the prerogative to inculcate moral virtues in his students. But then it’s important to notice that his “management style” does not reflect beliefs about the proper structure of a government. It reflects his views about the proper behavior of headmasters.
Barton’s Libertarian Interpretation of the Potter Series
Prinzi’s arguments do not stand up to analysis. So, what about Barton’s libertarian interpretation? He argues that “J. K. Rowling’s strikingly negative portrait of the Ministry of Magic and its bureaucrats” is evidence that the Potter series as a whole has an implicit libertarian political agenda. Is this true?
As Barton persuasively argues, the Potter books offer a scathing portrait of the Ministry. It’s difficult to imagine a more hard-hitting indictment than Barton’s own point-by-point analysis:What would you think of a government that engaged in this list of tyrannical activities: tortured children for lying, designed its prison specifically to suck all life and hope out of the inmates; placed citizens in that prison without a hearing; ordered the death penalty without a trial; allowed the powerful, rich or famous to control policy; selectively prosecuted crimes (the powerful go unpunished and the unpopular face trumped-up charges); conducted criminal trials without defense counsel; used truth serum to force confessions; maintained constant surveillance over all citizens; offered no elections and no democratic lawmaking process; and controlled the press?17
When confronted with political leadership as brutal and oppressive as this, it’s easy to find yourself wondering, exasperated, whether the proper cure isn’t to strip government of its power. But if this is the cure Barton means to encourage, his argument is unsound. A justifiable sense of exasperation at the Ministry of Magic is not an “invective against government” itself. More to the point, there isn’t any compelling reason to think that the Potter series succumbs to this exasperation.
To start with, the Ministry of Magic is not altogether corrupt. It includes good people and good laws. Arthur Weasley, though hampered by a very sketchy grasp of how Muggle artifacts work, is hardworking and honest. Dumbledore himself, except for a brief hiatus, holds the position of the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, a bureaucratic position, and he is not a bungling incompetent. In Order of the Phoenix, the majority of the members of the Wizengamot, a judicial body, vote in Harry’s favor when he is brought up on bogus charges. The Ministry of Magic, although it includes many Orwelliansounding bureaus, has been largely effective in keeping the existence of wizards secret from Muggles for many centuries and in restraining wizards from using their magical powers to rule the world. The Ministry also supports and enforces many sensible rules. For instance, when Harry is charged with violating the rule against underage wizardry in the presence of a Muggle, the rule makes a sensible exception for cases of self-defense. Not to mention, it is the Ministry that had the wisdom to appoint Dumbledore to the post of Headmaster of Hogwarts.
No doubt, the Ministry of Magic is far too often bungling, incompetent, and even positively corrupt. Several top Ministry officials, including Minister of Magic Pius Thicknesse, become Voldemort’s puppets by being placed under the Imperius Curse. Many high-ranking officials, such as Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge and ex-Head of Magical Law Enforcement Barty Crouch Sr., are autocratic and power-hungry. Others, such as Dolores Umbridge and Albert Runcorn, are downright evil. And some are just “doddery old fools,” like the members of the Committee on the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures.18 In summary, the premise of Barton’s argument is an exaggeration but very close to the truth—the Ministry of Magic is a lousy bureaucracy.
The most questionable aspect of Barton’s argument, though, is not its premise but its inference. Why conclude, from the fact that the Potter series presents a portrait of bad governance, that the series advocates a minimal, “nightwatchman” libertarian government? Is it that Barton assumes that less of a bad thing is better, and so a smaller Ministry would be better? If so, his reasoning should lead him to favor political anarchism, which calls for the total abolition of government. Even if we set this glib retort aside, why think that when it comes to government, smaller is necessarily better? If seven of the Justices on the Supreme Court were corrupt and demonstrably biased in their judgments, the proper response would be to replace the judges, not to down-size to a two-justice court. In brief, the proper antidote to bad governance is better governance, and it would take an argument, a very complex argument, to show that a government with a libertarian structure is the proper cure for the types of corruption and inefficiency evident in the Ministry of Magic. Does the Potter series make or even gesture at this argument?
We are willing to grant that a careful evaluation of the Ministry of Magic provides strong grounds for thinking that a good government would put in place stringent safeguards to protect citizens from torture, barbarous punishments, unfair trials, and bureaucrats wielding truth serum. But it is a further question, once these safeguards are in place, whether a good government would do no more than protect the liberty, the property, and the bodily integrity of its citizens. Where is the evidence that the Potter series accepts a right to liberty as robust as the libertarian theory does? Or that the series, as a whole, is antiwelfare, or antipaternalism, or anti-United Nations, or as confident in the free market as standard libertarianism?
Barton claims—rather exuberantly—that J. K. Rowling “will do more for libertarianism than anyone since John Stuart Mill.”19 Who knows? His prediction, though not particularly plausible, could turn out to be true. But if a considerable number of readers do happen to infer, from the Potter series, that libertarianism is the best political theory, they will be guilty of the same leap in logic as Barton.
It’s worth noting that if there is a libertarian agenda in the Potter series, it is not likely to be there because of the author’s intent. Rowling began writing the Harry Potter series while she was on welfare and has expressed no regret for that. Indeed, in voicing her own political views, Rowling has not supported libertarian values. On the contrary, she supported B
arack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, donated £1 million to the British Labour Party, and has said that her real-life hero is Robert F. Kennedy—hardly a paragon of “small government”!20
The Potter books do raise important questions about what a good government and good political leadership would be like. No doubt, the Ministry fails to respect, among other things, freedom and equality, and it would be very interesting to ask, “What’s the best way to fix the Ministry of Magic?” But libertarians will have to do more than point to the poor example set by the Ministry or to the good example set by humble Dumbledore to argue soundly for a libertarian philosophy.
NOTES
1 Travis Prinzi, Harry Potter and Imagination: The Way between Two Worlds (Allentown, PA: Zossima Press, 2009), p. 236.
The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles Page 13
