More Vampire Economics, Please
I’ve been woefully remiss on my moviegoing recently, but last month I did manage to catch a screening of Daybreakers. The best compliment I can pay it is that it reminded me a lot of an early 80s John Carpenter film — not one of his best, but sturdy and pulpy and entertaining — and, most surprisingly, genuinely inventive in the all-vampire society it conjured up. The problem, though, is that clever as that society was, it was obviously designed by people without serious understanding of governments and markets manage resources.
That sounds like a really obtuse criticism, and it is, in a way. Like I said, I thought the movie was a hoot. But it’s also a reason the film was only a hoot, and not a matinee classic. The movie is based around the problem of diminishing natural resources in a market-oriented democracy; without a basic understanding of how those things work, it’s hard to craft a really compelling vision of a world suffering from those problems. The film’s premise is that vampires have taken over the world, converting most of the world’s human population into fanged, deathless nightwalkers. So there are all sorts of retrofits for vampires who love blood and can’t stand sunlight: an underground “subwalk” to get around, vehicles with blacked out windows and camera systems for daylight driving, food vendors that sell coffee with a hint of blood.
Neat, right! Well yeah, but the film’s story really focuses on the politics/economics of the blood shortage; one company has been snapping up the whole human population and bleeding them dry, leaving blood in short supply. That’s a problem, because vampires can’t survive without a supply of blood. But how is the blood rationed? Who makes those choices? What are the various policies that the vampire government has proposed to deal with the problem? Early in the film, we see a debate between two vampire politicians, one who thinks that humans should be bled dry — after all, they’re food, right? — and another that thinks that people are vampires, too (basically), and should be treated humanely, with respect. The most interesting thing, though, is that there’s a news scroll at the bottom of the screen, and as the debate is wrapping up, a headline noting the blood shortage scrolls by, followed by the line, “Vampire economists say…”
And then it cuts away.
This happened at the beginning of the film. And it drove me COMPLETELY. NUTS. for the following 90 minutes. What do vampire economists think about the blood crisis? I really want to know! Is there a vampire central blood bank? Are there interest rates? Does it get used as currency? Maybe they went off the blood standard at some point?
Okay, that’s probably getting a little too nerdy. But the implication is that there’s this whole social structure organized around blood allocation. Yet all we see is a single company that stupidly burns through its resources without any interest in, say, setting up more efficient, long-term sustainable blood farms; surely a ripe human should be able to pump blood into the system for 60 or 70 years. The movie takes place just a decade or so after the vampire takeover — has no one bothered to try bleeding the humans a little more slowly, to keep them alive, and creating new blood, for longer? How many people does it take to keep one vampire alive for a year, or a lifetime? Wouldn’t there be a move for a blood entitlement, and how would demographic factors shapethat program?
Yes, it’s wonky stuff, and far too wonky, in this form, for a major motion picture, but you see where I’m going with this, right? Framed properly, questions like these could have driven in a much more interesting direction, making for a film that not only had some neat ideas, but actually had something to say.
But meaningful things to say about what, is my question. As I’m understanding the dynamics of how the blood resource works, there really aren’t any reasonable analogs to resources humans exploit, and certainly to ones which generate controversy. I mean, the obvious thing would be to make blood a surrogate for oil, but considering the inability of humans to replenish the oil supply even to a tiny degree, and the geopolitics of oil possession that give oil its controversy in the first place, I don’t see how. Perhaps trees/lumber is the closest reasonable analog but the problems confronting the use of forest, while certainly controversial, aren’t remotely the same as a resource in a genuine scarcity crisis. So while I would love to see a vampire economics movie for its own sake and because it would be interesting or cool, I don’t know that it would have something to say in the way I think you mean.
— Freddie · Feb 27, 08:18 PM · #
But everyone knows the impending blood shortage is just a conspiracy by human-huggers, vampire scientists out to earn grants, and those pushing vampire socialism. Trying to actually ration or tax human consumption would cripple the economy, better to seek a technological solution.
More seriously, that’s too bad, I was mostly hoping to see the film to see how it played out. The film that most aggravated me economically was actually Robots where the big bad corp stops selling spare parts to low-income robots, so obviously the solution is to bring back the reclusive genius founder of the company and restore good-hearted corporate rule. The obvious answer of just competing with the frigging company having the heroes sell the parts wasn’t ever considered. Nor did they consider some sort of wacky sci-fi communitarian approach, raid the company, release the spare part blueprints for all with instructions for low-level production. Heck have the heroes split and do both or try any other of a range of ideas. But no, we just need to save the benign corporate rulers from the malign ones. Yay.
— Greg Sanders · Feb 27, 08:18 PM · #
Freddie: Despite my joke above, I do think that there’s not a particularly relevant analogue, but it would seem to work as a classic tragedy of the commons. Actually, no, I think the supply of fish in the sea probably is a relevant example.
However, the single company thing keeps it from making any sense. If it’s just one company, there’s no reason this would hard. Just do what the Saudi’s do, ration the supply to drive up prices, by a lot of weaponry to protect yourself from anyone that would seize your stuff, and occasionally increase the supply a bit if it looks like there’s a risk people will turn elsewhere. This makes even more sense if the resource is renewable or not. Exploiting and selling it as fast as possible is just moronic from both a short term and log term perspective.
— Greg Sanders · Feb 27, 08:33 PM · #
Editing fix, sorry about that, should have read the preview more closely:
Just do what the Saudi’s do, ration the supply to drive up prices, [buy] a lot of weaponry to protect yourself from anyone that would seize your stuff, and occasionally increase the supply a bit if it looks like there’s a risk people will turn elsewhere. This makes even more sense if the resource is renewable
or not. Exploiting and selling it as fast as possible is just moronic from both a short term and log term perspective.— Greg Sanders · Feb 27, 08:37 PM · #
Haven’t seen the movie yet, but just based on your excerpt it sounds like the political conflict is just stupid. If Vampires are immortal and they need Human blood to live then the first politician is a blithering idiot. The 2nd guy isn’t much smarter if he’s making it a morality based argument. No matter how you feel about humans as a vampire you can’t simply bleed them dry, you’d be ensuring your own extinction.
— Eric K · Feb 27, 09:27 PM · #
Take is from a lowly Econ M.A. recipient: The market for human blood would entirely parallel the market for cow’s milk. THE END.
The only question is whether humans would be free and the price of blood high, so that they would be incentivized to voluntarily give up enough excess pints of supply to feed the demand – or whether they would be treated essentially as farmed animals – valuable biological machines used to produce an essential commodity by using the lowest-priced inputs.
Oh wait, we saw something like that already, it’s called, “THE MATRIX”.
The whole premise of there being a higher-level economics / shortages angle is ridiculous.
— Indy · Feb 27, 11:57 PM · #
“The market for human blood would entirely parallel the market for cow’s milk.”
Which would require about 45 minutes of exposition.
— Matt Frost · Feb 28, 02:01 AM · #
What I don’t understand is why the vampires couldn’t extract sperm and egg from the humans they are farming and start creating a next generation of humans to farm. Sure, it would take some time, but it’s not like the technology is super advanced.
— Freddie · Feb 28, 05:15 AM · #
Freddie,
Exactly! And that would’ve been a lot more interesting! The movie sets itself up as this crude-but-thoughtful socio-political horror-thriller (or what’s known as a CBTSPHT), but then only really explores the most obvious conflicts — between family members who take different sides, between vampires with different reactions to using humans to stay immortal — in the most obvious way.
— Peter Suderman · Feb 28, 04:22 PM · #
I figure most vampire economists would take exception to a Keynesian policy prescriptions. After all, in the long run vampires are not all dead!
— dan · Mar 1, 02:23 AM · #
You could, if you wanted, tell a Marxian allegory (either capitalists vs workers, aristocracy vs productive class, or government bureaucrats vs productive class, eloi vs morlocks) with vampire economics.
Basically, you have class A (vampires) who get lots of benefits (beautiful, superpowers, immortal) but are dependant on class B (humans) to do it. There’s good class mobility, but it’s unidirectional: Humans can become vampires relatively easily, which gets them all the benefits of vampires but removes their ability to produce blood.
From there, you have a lot of potential outcomes. If humans are oppressed, what do vampires do to prevent humans from opting out of humanity and joining the privileged class? If humans are free, how high does the price of blood need to rise to convince people to remain human, and what are the consequences to vampires who can’t afford it?
— J Mann · Mar 3, 05:48 PM · #
Isn’t this like a headline in the real world beginning with “Human economists say…”? What other kind of economists would there be? Also at least the economy in this movie isn’t based on perpetual motion like the one in The Matrix.
— a · Mar 9, 05:16 AM · #