Economic status in star wars:
Rate the following:
1. Han Solo, owner and operator of a two-man light freighter. Very much in debt to big bad gangsters.
2.Uncle Owen & Aunt Beru, owner and operators of a family moisture farm in the desert. Money is tight, but they are able to expand the workforce each season.
3. Ben Kenobi, crazy old hermit who lives out beyond the Dune Sea
4. Princess Leia, of the peaceful world of Alderaan.
5. Darth Vader, strong right-hand of the Emperor.
6. Princess Leia, after Alderaan is destroyed by Darth Vader
7. Lando Calrissian, administrator of Cloud City, an orbital mining platform that is small enough to largely escape Imperial notice.
8. The Might Chewbacca, Han Solo's first mate.
My conjecture: These people are all rich in comparison to most people in the galaxy. They all have enough to eat, those with spaceships have enough cred for fuel, those with emplacements have enough to hire labor.
Even the farmers in star wars are gentry.
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Possibility: we see those who are well off and have the resources to do stuff doing stuff because they can, and we see people who are poor and downtrodden and desperate to do stuff because they have needs; because that's where dramatic stories live.
ReplyDeleteMost people may well be comfortably middle class/working class, but we don't see them because -- adventure stories.
Han is a freelancer, living paycheck to paycheck; Has valuable assets but on the verge of losing it all, with basically no chance of pulling it off. 1/5
ReplyDeleteThe Berus are poor as land owners go, but have a sustainable business. 2/5
Ben lives off the land. 0/5
Leia, princess. 4/5
Vader, COO of the biggest and corruptest gov't. 5/5
Leia, princess of nothing. 3/5, assuming credit; 1/5 otherwise.
Lando, muckety muck. 3/5
Chewbacca, sole employee or a dying business. 1/5
I think this might be true in the outer rim at least. I generally assume people live in the "just getting by" category.
ReplyDeleteOrganics are all gentry.
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch You're only saying that because droids outnumber them ten to one, droids do all the work, do not receive wages, and can never become Jedi.
ReplyDeleteRalph Mazza Sounds about right. The cyborg guy working for Lando is never much of a character, in part because he's going to be fine even if Cloud City turns to imperial control. You still need someone between the organics and the droids.
ReplyDeleteWell, not “only”...
ReplyDeleteJay Treat Regarding Ben: He also has a couple of lightsaber and can, at any time, rejoin the galactic fringe. He's got access to resources he's not using, is kinda my point.
ReplyDeleteThe rest seem right. Is the scaling system from anywhere?
Brian Ashford Yeah. Just Getting By seems not so good a place to be.
ReplyDeleteFair. Not that I know of, but it is essentially logarithmic.
ReplyDeletePrincess Leia is certainly loaded (or at least has access to Rebellion money when necessary).
ReplyDeleteBut Kenobi, I think, doesn't have money at all. Oh, he's good at promising payment, but he never uses his own money for anything; I'm pretty sure he just doesn't have any.
Clearly he doesn't have any sort of emergency stash. In order to pay for a ride off Tatooine he gets Luke to sell his speeder to make a down payment.
Also, Kenobi doesn't even toss the bartender a coin or anything after his violent little barfight (this is something that Han Solo does, even though he's deep in debt).
So I think Kenobi doesn't even have spare change on him. He's a moocher.
/waves hand
ReplyDelete"You don't need to charge me for this latte. I can go on my way."
"I don't need to charge you for this latte. You can go on your way."
Isaac Kuo Is moocher the word for a man who can use lethal force without repurcussion, talk the cops into ignoring his moving violation, convince smugglers to go into a fortress, and up end the world view of an impressionable youth in a few minutes?
ReplyDeleteI think he's just a mediocre white man.
Just a comment on the Lars family.
ReplyDeleteLuke doesn't believe Uncle Owen's pie in the sky claim that he'll be able to hire a few more hands after the next harvest. Why should we? The old farmer is obviously a dreamer, just of a different type than his nephew.
Also, can't even dare to dream that he's going to make enough to move off this dead end desert planet and buy a farmstead somewhere that has actual plant life.
Yeah, they're not as bad off as Rey, Finn, and Poe from the sequel trilogy (who have virtually nothing), nor outright slaves like Shmi and Anakin in the prequels, but they are definitely hardscrabble farmers right out of the Westerns that inspired Lucas.
William Nichols Kenobi for President God Emperor!
ReplyDeleteMichael Miller Not new organic hands, no. But we see the Lars family buy new helpers in the form of R2 and C3PO.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols Yes, but Luke also claims that Owen has been using these same excuses for years.
ReplyDeleteIt seems likely that Artoo and Threepio are replacements for previous droids that ceased to function in the grueling conditions (hence all the junk in Luke's garage) or were taken by Sand People during a raid.
After all, the need for someone who understands the binary language of moisture vaporators is hardly something new. That's the primary task of the farm! While it's possible that Owen has brought new capacity online, there's no real indication of anything "new" at the farm.
In fact, when he asks Beru about Luke and the two new droids, he says "Well, he'd better have those units in the South Ridge repaired by midday, or there'll be hell to pay."
Notice the word "repaired." That's not somebody expanding, that's someone fighting desperately to hang on to the only crappy tract of land they can call their own.
Coruscant is a planet that's all city. You don't get that without an awful lot of middle-class types.
ReplyDeleteUnless Coruscant is like Rome
ReplyDeleteI think you are essentially right, Michael Miller
ReplyDeleteWhy do you need mddle class folk on Coruscant? If Droids and other robots produce all the economy needed, plus "taxes" incoming from a million worlds, then Coruscant doesn't need jobs....
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols now we're getting into definitional territory. However, to get back to your core point. I believe it suggests that there are literally a trillion people on Coruscant with a better standard of living than people 1,2,3 and 8 above.
ReplyDelete