Legal Commentary

One of the nice things (one of the only nice things) about recovering from surgery is that my two-year-old daughter has been very sweet and patient about my "boo-boo," and is happy to spend time on the bed with me watching TV -- provided she gets to control the program. We've been watching a fair amount of Thomas the Tank Engine lately, thanks to On Demand. And I've gotta say, it's fascinating, from a historical/law-and-economics perspective.

What is the lesson of Thomas the Tank Engine? It strikes me as being a pro-market show, but a genuine, Hayekian coordination-of-information free-market type of capitalism, with maybe a dose of TR-ish trustbusting spirit. Simultaneously, surely it is also a critique of the kinds of market imperfections that arise in a more oligarchical, monopoly-permitting market. Think about Sir Topham Hatt for a bit. He is a caricature of a robber baron, but he's not simply an unrestrained successful capitalist in an open and competitive market, a Gates or Carnegie. Rather, he runs everything on the island of Sodor: the railroads, the towns, all other means of transportation, etc. He's not villainous, exactly; but his tentacles extend over the entire economy of the show. On Sodor, Hatt truly controls all the means of production.

Now, it would be easy to think of the show as having some kind of socialist subtext. After all, the heroes here are the engines, and usually not the good ones, but the slightly clunky old ones -- the kinds that would be on the losing end of the from-each-according-to-their-abilities equation. At the same time, no sound system of socialist central planning would permit the kinds of inefficiencies that the show seems almost to champion. I mean, the engines don't even obey the brakemen!

No, I think the real lesson is ultimately that Hatt, however endearing he may be, is the misbegotten result of a society in which aristocracy and capital are too closely linked, such that these kinds of inefficiencies are allowed to flourish. Surely, in any sensible free-market economy, we wouldn't see the kinds of outrageous behavior we see here: competent but mediocre trains like Thomas allowed to keep their jobs indefinitely, all sorts of accidents occurring without apparent market consequences, and good, efficient, modern engines generally only kept on if they are willing to regress to the mean and quit achieving their potential. Surely, in any sensible economy, Hatt would be exposed to meaningful competition, and Thomas would be destined for a children's park somewhere, or directly to the scrap-heap. In that sense, I think the show champions neither socialism nor oligarchy, but serves by (bad) example to champion a sound, open, properly functioning market. I'm not sure whether the show is strongly anti-monopoly as such, or whether it merely opposes the kinds of social environments in which even lousy business people can rise to a position of market dominance by virtue of nothing more than an accident of birth.

In any event, it's good for hours of thoughtful contemplation. Surely it's the kind of lesson I'd be happy to have my daughter learn and reflect on, even if she may ultimately disagrees. Currently, she has not shared any of her economic conclusions about the show, and is more focused on the music and pretty pictures; but I'm sure that day will come. When she learns how to read and write, she is of course welcome to use the comments section if she sees things differently; we don't play favorites around here.

Doubtless someone out there can point me to better and deeper Thomas-related economic analysis. In the meantime, this blog post not only offers some of its own views, but also takes on the troubling questions raised by Bob the Builder. Food for thought, folks.