Johan Norberg: Therefore there will be no electric cars in the Game of thrones

How is it that liberals love ”Game of thrones”? The conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat suggested some time ago that it is because they subconsciously yearn away from rationality and modernity, to the honor and glory, the kings and queens.

It is a bit like claiming that you look at ”Psycho” for that one really longs to be stabbed while taking a shower. The rulers of the ”Game of thrones” has exposed people to so brutal war, and bottomless misery, it's not even going to talk about the series as escapism. ”A royalty is just a pirate who has been particularly fortunate in its looting”, as Davos Seaworth notes.

shows the extent to which ”Game of thrones” has become a projection of our own political views. The who do not read in Donald Trump in the teenage sadistkungen Joffrey looked rather than Hillary Clinton in the mercilessly aspiring she loathes her Lannister.

And the refugees white phantoms, that come with the clash of cultures and death, or are they more like the free people that only seek a better life beyond the wall, and, therefore, is becoming all the more sympathetic the more we get to know them?

(Personally – thank you for asking – I think our populist era was the best in the prophetic choice of the regent of the Järnöarna in season six, where Yara not preferable're talking objectively about infrastructure investments, but utklassas of the Euro that comes from nowhere, taunting the fine rhetoric and talking about his big cock – to the deafening cheers.)

violence and dragons in George R R Martins epic – Erik Helmerson liverpool continued to wear (DN 17/4) – have poor imagination. Stuff you can find in all the fantasy. Martin has created a more multipolar world and a story that can be read on multiple levels, far beyond the simple Trump/Clinton-analogies after worken. Partly for that Martin borrows from medieval history, but also perhaps to our era have started approaching his middle ages. The books may more than 2 000 hits in the academic papers recorded in Google Scholar.

Martin is, of course, marinated in ”the Lord of the rings”, but what makes him interesting is his fundamental objection to it: He declares only that king Aragorn ruled legitimately in all their days, but describe never his fiscal policy, or how he dealt with the remaining orcs – integration, assimilation or genocide?

That the control is difficult, ”good intentions does not make you a good king”, as Martin points out. The most brutal realism of ”Game of thrones” is not that anyone can die at any moment, without anyone can make a pancake of all things, despite their good intentions. Society is complex and that we do in one end leads to unforeseen consequences in the other.

many disasters. Forest, the children created the white vålnaderna to defend themselves, but they became instead their deadliest enemy. Nuclear weapons (dragons) gives you security, but if they end up in the wrong hands they can become your end. And also the a little better the kings engaged in a trivial game while climate change threatens all with destruction.

Also the closest thing we will a good sagoregent, drakdrottningen Daenerys main differences, learn that it is difficult to control.

One obvious limitation of the rulers power in ”Game of thrones” is fiscal. Where they are in other fantasy literature seems to have mages in ministries of finance do they have to get the budget to go together. In an economy built on feudalism and the devastation it is always a challenge. When the largest army in history to the Sansa Starks the rescue is her first and ask what they should eat.

King Baratheon borrows so much of the family Lannister to become the de facto ruler. But once in power gets into debt she loathes her Lannister limitless of Järnbanken in Braavos – which points out that the figures weighs heavier than fairy tales about the blodsrätt.

to save him from suspension, with the result that Järnbanken freezes all the loans and create Greklandskris in the whole of Westeros. In order to get the church to write off their loans to the crown sounds she loathes her the creation of an armed militia. These fanatics takes however, the more power, the tillfångtatar she loathes her and forcing her to do a nude botgöringsvandring, spat upon by all.

the closest we come to a good sagoregent, drakdrottningen Daenerys main differences, learn that it is difficult to control. She spends despots and abolishing slavery where she pulls forward, but soon realize that nation-building is not easier in Meereen than in the Middle east. There will be no flowering of democracy, but chaos and poverty. Revenues of the elites organizing the rebellion and freed slaves sell themselves back to the old gentlemen.

Daenerys speaks inspiring that she wants to smash the power wheels, which crumbles the little people in. ”After you have crushed the wheel”, ask her advisor Tyrion lannister, ”how do you ensure that it continues to be debunked?”. He wants to have that little conversation that Aragorn never needed to take, on constitutional reforms and order of succession. Daenerys responds only with anger. Her vision is limited to replacing an evil queen against a good – which begs the question, what prevents her or my successors to be evil (as her father, ”the mad king”)?

Erasmus or Voltaire would be forced to scrub the many latrines in the Citadel before they got glutta in the exciting books.

backward. The latest important innovation is the steel, 6,000 years ago. In a third of the time we have in this world managed to walk on the moon, shooting black holes and develop dataanimering who get the dragons to look real. Only Westeros medicinvetenskap have come somewhere, but it's mostly because Martin did not want his characters would die in their 20s.

Poverty has probably to do with the long and unpredictable winters that are sabotaging the food supply, but another explanation is precisely institutional. The competition between the european states, cities, universities and churches was crucial for the renaissance and the enlightenment – challenging ideas and innovations were always able to find a safe haven somewhere. But before the ongoing war Westeros centralized in the hundreds of years during the Targaryendynastin. As well as the chinese emperor during the country's 500-year stagnation was the ruler block development everywhere.

in Addition, the monopolisation of the Citadel master of science and the education system. Each castle is assigned to a master, which conversion level of knowledge. Many research topics are taboo, the books are kept locked away and women are excluded. And with the information technology (brevkorparna) is controlled by the masters. Erasmus or Voltaire would be forced to scrub the many latrines in the Citadel before they got glutta in the exciting books.

look for us in the nine cities of refuge on the other side of the Narrow sea to find any dynamics. They are cosmopolitan trading cities reminiscent of högmedeltidens Italian city-states. The richest of them is Braavos, which was founded by runaway slaves and characterized by ethnic diversity, religious tolerance and a well-developed financial system.

So, my answer to the question of who ultimately sits on the Järntronen is in the first place that I can't possibly imagine any simple-to-Daenerys-and-Jon Snow variant of the good monarch's return. But above all, it doesn't matter. Regardless of who controls the Westeros continent will continue to stagnate until there is nothing more to war about. The renaissance, the enlightenment, and the self-driven electric cars will be made in Braavos.