If you haven't seen the new Avengers movie, then maybe this isn't the relaxing blog on economic theory that should be for you. Also, spoilers ahead.
Quick disclaimer: I am definitely not an economist by any possible stretch of the imagination. BUT I do like reading and listening about economic theory. And when you can combine it with a super hero movie, well...
Also, I LOVED the movie. You should see it. Even though Thanos doesn't know what he's doing.
So the main villain in Infinity War is Thanos. His whole motivation is he wants to eliminate half of the population of the universe because overpopulation is resulting in resource depletion. So he wants to destroy half of all intelligent life in order to save everyone. It's your classic "the ends justify the means" dilemma, which good movie villains often have because it makes the conflict more real.
Or at least, it WOULD make the conflict more real in this case if Thanos' particular argument wasn't kind of stupid.
Because population is not as directly tied to consumption as Thanos seems to think. And you probably won't create a Utopian universe by randomly killing 50 percent of everyone anyway.
1. Earth's population is leveling off. We're not going to overrun anything.
There are several reasons we're not going to overrun our own planet. For one, when women get a higher education, they have fewer children. Also, people have fewer children when infant mortality rates start dropping. And finally, the longer the lifespan, the lower the fertility levels. Granted, aliens would probably be somewhat different from humans. But it seems like if Thanos really wanted to control populations, he could have just built some schools and hospitals.
2. If Thanos is truly all-powerful, why not just make half the universe infertile?
This would seem like the most logical thing he could have done. I mean, he didn't need to do the whole genocide thing. I get what they were trying to do. Villains are scarier when you can relate to them at least a little bit and understand where they're coming from. But I can't help but feel like Thanos would have slapped himself in the forehead and been all, "Oh, yeah! I totally could have just kept people from having children! Stupid me."
3. Killing half the universe means killing half the workers and would probably destroy everyone's economy, not save it
You aren't going to make anything a utopia by reducing its population in half. Who's going to work in the fields now? Are those field workers going to now get all that extra food? Or are they going to turn around and try to trade it in exchange for clothes? And if you have a ton of extra food, doesn't that lower the VALUE of the food? Meaning you need a TON of food to trade in exchange for like one shirt? Then, next season, they simply grow less food because ain't NOBODY making a profit off that stuff anymore. Then you're all the way back to square one where hardly anyone has anything.
Color me skeptical, but I don't actually believe Gamora's home planet is all of a sudden a paradise just because half of the houses are all of a sudden empty.
Also, WHAT THE HECK HAPPENS TO THAT HOUSING MARKET NOW!? Your house isn't worth NOTHING anymore! You know why? Because someone could just go camping in an abandoned house now because no one is living there! All that money that you were sinking into your house is now WASTED because your house is worthless, and Bank of America is going to still try to collect from you even though your mortgage is under water now. But hey, maybe you can earn a living by selling some of your OH WAIT, NOTHING YOU OWN HAS ANY VALUE ANYMORE BECAUSE EVERYONE WHO VANISHED LEFT ALL THEIR STUFF, WHICH IS NOW PROBABLY FREE.
Like, I can imagine Thanos showing up to Earth to look over his "paradise" and everyone is super pissed and wondering when he's going magically create an economic system that actually fits 50 percent of the population.
THANOS! WHERE ARE MY WORKERS, THANOS!? Hey! All of the autoworkers in Detroit got laid off. You know why, Thanos!? IT'S BECAUSE NO ONE NEEDS CARS ANYMORE BECAUSE ALL OF A SUDDEN WE HAVE TOO MANY OF THEM.
Thank goodness they can purchase food to-OH WAIT, THEY DON'T HAVE MONEY BECAUSE THEY GOT FIRED. WHERE'S MY MONEY, THANOS!?!
4. Population controls itself
In a Steady State Economy (SSE) the amount of resources controls the population. In essence, population controls itself. Why exactly does Thanos need to care about murdering half the universe? Won't people naturally just straight up live with the consequences of over-consumption? Like, if there are too many rabbits, the wolf population will spring into action and decimate them. Likewise, if there are too many wolves, their numbers will go back down until there are enough rabbits to support them. If humans cut down all the trees on the planet, then...well let's not think too hard about that.
In an SSE, it essentially comes to the same thing. Thanos wouldn't even need to get the soul stone to do that. Whaddya know!
