Star Wars and Economics

Is The Last Jedi actually the capitalist utopia?

**POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD**

I've had arguments with people over economics and politics before. But never have I properly thrown my hat into the ring of popular culture. Well here goes.

THE STORY

One of Luke Skywalker's most significant lines in the new Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, is "it's time for the Jedi to end".

I interpreted his reasoning to be that the force must remain in balance. Like all good stories, there's a balance between good and evil, chaos and control, light and dark. Superman has Lex Luthor, Thor has Loki, and the Jedi have the dark side.

Unfortunately, this 'balance' in the Star Wars universe involves a lot of war and a lot of casualties.

Maybe Luke had finally realised that the Jedi were part of the problem. The more powerful they became, the more the force had to balance them out with an equally powerful counterpart:

·         The Jedi Council at its peak gave rise to the Sith;

·         The Sith, after eliminating the Jedi and creating the Empire, gave rise to Luke and Leia and the Rebellion;

·         Luke, upon destroying the Empire and creating his own Jedi Academy, gave rise to Kylo Ren and the First Order; and

·         Kylo Ren, having been trained as a Jedi to become far more powerful than just some kid with the force, required the force to more greatly empower Rey.

Rey herself says "something inside me has always been there, but now it's awake", i.e. her power "awakening" was the force's response to Kylo Ren and his destruction of Luke's Academy. Even Snoke seemed to know of this balance, at one point saying “darkness rises and light to meet it. I warned my young apprentice that as he grew stronger, his equal in the light would rise”.

Every time one side grows, the force gives greater power to the other side to balance things out. But the mantra of both the Jedi and the Sith essentially seems to be "peace through superior firepower" (yes, that's a quote from Point Break), so it keeps resulting in war, not peace.

Whereas if there were no Jedi Academy, the force would have given both Kylo and Rey only moderate abilities that wouldn't create galactic war.

Which means the Jedi – the ones we thought were the good guys – were actually part of the problem. Luke says “to say that if the Jedi die, the light dies, is vanity”. So if the Jedi were to disappear, the light and dark side would still exist, but they would remain in balance at a much smaller scale. Individuals would undertake their own personal battles with light and dark but it would never escalate to galactic war – the force wouldn't allow it (until one side attempted to tip the scales by starting their own Council or Empire or Academy or Order).

And even though Luke ends with the line “I will not be the last Jedi”, I think this was just a reference to the fact that he wouldn’t be the last to wield the force for the light (otherwise he’s kinda contradicting his whole preceding message). But he would be the last one to attempt to institutionalise the force for the light. Consequently, it'll just be individuals wielding the force, not institutions. Because any attempt by the Jedi to 'regulate' the force actually made things worse.

THE ECONOMICS

You can see where I'm going with this ... 'big government' on either side creates more problems than it solves.

Is this not a capitalist's dream? Get rid of big government and let the magic of the force (the free market) create balance and fairness.

In the real world, this doesn’t seem to work. Whatever powerful force you believe exists, you have to concede it doesn't intervene well enough to ensure balance and fairness in human affairs. Without at least some regulation, there would be chaos, or at the very least, the inequality between the powerful and the powerless would be infinitely worse. Hence the need for government.

But in the Star Wars universe, there is an all-powerful force that actively intervenes in the galaxy to ensure balance is achieved. So any attempts by the Jedi/dark side to control that force end up failing.

Yes, the Star Wars prequels, especially Revenge of the Sith, are arguably a huge commentary on the Bush-era USA PATRIOT Act and seizing power through fear. So that side of politics is unambiguously portrayed as bad. But even the prequels seemed to suggest the Jedi were overly cold and dogmatic too.

So now the new trilogy seems to be suggesting the galaxy would be better off without any of them.

Ayn Rand would be so proud.

Merry Christmas, rebel scum!