Equestria's economy and hierarchy

[GuyWithAName 106]

I am wondering how the world goverment/ruling works.

It's not communistic becuase of a few reasons:

*"princesses" (possible dictators or more equal than overs)

*discretion between pony types

 

Also they seem to have a mayor...

...and a ton of guards...

...little suspicious?

 

 

 

a little something I found :3

 

Edited March 14, 2014 by epic0cow

[Scootalove 10,692]

I think Equestria's government is a Constitutional Monarchy, and as for their economic system it has to be the standard coin system where they pay for goods and other resources by paying with coins.

[GuyWithAName 106]

I think Equestria's government is a Constitutional Monarchy, and as for their economic system it has to be the standard coin system where they pay for goods and other resources by paying with coins.

ah yes, but a monarch doesn't just have princesses with intelligence, but if luna  and celestia had no power, who makes the sun rise? but there could be something else, and what I am saying is a big IF and is not particularly accurate.

[silvadel 1,393]

Equestria actually is getting a bit more complex.  You have dynasties like the Rich family and the Apple family who are starting to control wide swaths of the economy and are working towards having the kind of dynamic that our large corporations have.  I would have to guess that the princess's hold over places like Manehattan are reduced vs other places. 

 

Simply being an alicorn didn't help Twilight find a cab.

Edited March 14, 2014 by silvadel

[Khaoios 1,970]

Wow...........now that's one way of describing the classes of economy, lol.  Yet, that's pretty interesting, OP  Now, the classification of its political rule, is like Scootaloo said, Constitutional Monarchy"

 

BTW, you spelled "hierchay" wrong.........its actually "Hierarchy".

Edited March 14, 2014 by Promethean Alicorn

[GuyWithAName 106]

Wow...........now that's one way of describing the classes of economy, lol.  Yet, that's pretty interesting, OP  Now, the classification of its political rule, is like Scootaloo said, Constitutional Monarchy"

 

BTW, you spelled "hierchay" wrong.........its actually "Hierarchy".

Thank you, corrected spelling, also meh.

[Frith is Magick 1,471]

Equestria resembles Canada in political structure. I would say that all alicorns are royals, but not all royals are alicorns. This much is obvious from the Grand Galloping Gala where we see the absolute elite. We also know that Alicorns are automatically ranked as princesses (Twi's ascension), but it is also an earned status (she had to work for it and master the Magic of Friendship). From there I believe there are elite families who form the majority of the government, ultimately answering to Luna, Celestia, and likely Twi in the future. The princesses have power, but are not recognized at the local levels (Twi in Manehattan).

 

Their economic system seems mixed. They have coinage (holy shite, ponies have bitcoin), but there is also an element of barter (this seems to be largely with gems though). My assumption is that they have a complex barter system, goods are exchanged based on how much each party values the goods or services, but bits exist to facilitate exchanges where direct trade is not desired and as a means of storing the value of labour. We have yet to see any signs of a central bank, unless I missed something, which leads me to believe that bits are similar to Bitcoin in that their value depends on how much the market decides it is worth. The exchange of goods and services makes sense in Equestria, especially a small town like Ponyville, as it creates an interdependency, with ponies specializing and contributing based on their cutie marks.

[OptimisticNeighsayer 479]

Equestria has clearly been shown to be a comparatively unregulated capitalist system, with signs of having a constitution of sorts to limit its monarchy, and probably also with a good deal of devolution of power.

 

 

 

We have yet to see any signs of a central bank, unless I missed something, which leads me to believe that bits are similar to Bitcoin in that their value depends on how much the market decides it is worth.

Kids aren't going to be interested in the nitty-gritty workings of the Equestrian economy, so of course there's not going to be any overt sign of a central bank. Plus, Equestria doesn't exactly have the tech to make a comparison of bits and Bitcoin fair, and we also have yet to see the volatility in value that seems to accompany Bitcoin.

 

 

 

The princesses have power, but are not recognized at the local levels (Twi in Manehattan).

The other princesses have certainly been recognized at local levels.  My headcanon is that no adult pony takes Twilight as a princess seriously because she doesn't have her own kingdom (yet) and she doesn't flank herself with an entourage of guards or exhibits other trappings of being a royal. 

[Frith is Magick 1,471]

 

 

Kids aren't going to be interested in the nitty-gritty workings of the Equestrian economy, so of course there's not going to be any overt sign of a central bank. Plus, Equestria doesn't exactly have the tech to make a comparison of bits and Bitcoin fair, and we also have yet to see the volatility in value that seems to accompany Bitcoin.

Even if the real reason is that banking would not be of interest to kids, It is still absent, so an explanation is needed until there is evidence of a central banking authority. As to the comparison between bits and bitcoin, technology is not an issue. The comparison lies in how value is decided, by the market, and the absence of technology could explain the low volatility of the Equestrian Bit.

[aoEAF2FBvC0MIo2Q 3,676]

I really wouldn't expect much of an explanation over such things.

 

Anyway, let's just go on and see where this takes us. Banks originally started out as merely a place to keep your money or other assets safe, not as a place to borrow money. The necessity for this came from people wanting to be reassured that they would still have some money in a safe vault in case they ever got robbed or their assets destroyed in some shape or form from, say, a natural disaster.

 

Before paper money became a thing, people traded gold coins most notably. When someone stored their gold in a bank vault at the time, the vault owner would give the customer paper representations of the gold for when they wanted to withdraw. Soon enough, people started trading with these paper representations due to convenience.

 

This is where things get interesting. The vault owner at some point decided to lend money to people at interest. Not gold coins but the paper representations that, in fact, did not represent any gold. With the wealth of the vault owner skyrocketing as well as the explosive inflation that followed, people got suspicious and all of them at once went to the vault owner to trade in their paper for the gold they supposedly represented. The vault owner didn't have the gold. This is the birth of what's called Fractional Reserve Banking where this very same thing is practiced but in a more regulated way. Supposedly.

 

That banks are so far totally absent could mean that the people of Equestria may not have a real need for a bank vault to begin with due to Equestria not having enough crime to get enough ponies to want to do this sort of thing. Another possibility is that all that happened already and the practice got banned instead of adopted.

[Nine 707]

Equestria is metaphysically different from Earth, and their government/economy as such is only superficially comparable to our own.

 

That's the truth.

[GuyWithAName 106]

Equestria is metaphysically different from Earth, and their government/economy as such is only superficially comparable to our own.

 

That's the truth.

meh, it's still fun to compare and stuffs. Also it's interesting about how it works for them, not necessarily comparing

[Nine 707]

meh, it's still fun to compare and stuffs. Also it's interesting about how it works for them, not necessarily comparing

I don't mean to be a flat tire, but I like a separation between politics and ponies. Kinda like that other separation. The one between church and state.

 

Because they both might be good, but not together. Like spaghetti and milk. Or spaghetti and pockets.

 

Or milk and pockets.

 

.. okay I think I'm done

[GuyWithAName 106]

I don't mean to be a flat tire, but I like a separation between politics and ponies. Kinda like that other separation. The one between church and state.

 

Because they both might be good, but not together. Like spaghetti and milk. Or spaghetti and pockets.

 

Or milk and pockets.

 

.. okay I think I'm done

okays, but don't underestimate food mixes because they sound abnormal...

... or I will hunt you down.

[Jammo 986]

It's a bizarre case where a personality cult run by an unopposed monarchy government works out best for the people.  

[Scootalove 10,692]

ah yes, but a monarch doesn't just have princesses with intelligence, but if luna  and celestia had no power, who makes the sun rise? but there could be something else, and what I am saying is a big IF and is not particularly accurate.

I understand. You make a good point there.

[Cwanky 17,749]

Sorry but this topic can't be given proper justice without citing this prominent and well written article:

 

Solidarity is Illusion: The Political Economy of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

 

The My Little Pony toy line has always been a flashpoint for debates on gender representation and consumerism, and its latest incarnation in the animated series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is no exception. Kathleen Richter at the Ms. magazine blog mounted an attack on the show, calling it “homophobic” and “smart-shaming” – criticism that comes off as a bit incoherent because the show is neither of those things. Creator Lauren Faust, who previously worked on The Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, writes in her rebuttal to Richterthat in developing this series she wanted to show that:

Cartoons for girls don’t have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness. Girls like stories with real conflict; girls are smart enough to understand complex plots; girls aren’t as easily frightened as everyone seems to think.

In that respect she has succeeded. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (hereafter referred to as MLP: FiM) is sharply written and gorgeously animated, and features positive role models in female characters who defy stereotypical gender roles. The show also teaches lessons about confidence, self-expression, and overcoming adversity.

 

But the strong feminist themes of the series are built on a foundation of political contradictions. The most fantastic element of the show is not that ponies can talk or that dragons exist; it is the illusion that an egalitarian society can be maintained among groups with massive biologically inherent gaps in ability and economic utility. By even the most cursory of sociological and economic analyses, the society in MLP: FiM should be highly stratified along class and racial lines. And there are clear signs of that stratification, except they are obscured by a propagandistic focus on the power of “friendship”.

Now I know the question you all must be asking: “But don’t the historical theories of capital accumulation presuppose a world defined by scarcity and industrial development?” Of course they do. The setting of MLP: FiM, a land called Equestria (and specifically the city of Ponyville), is populated by three types of ponies. There are the earth-ponies, the most mundane type which most closely resemble real ponies. There are pegasi, flying ponies that are able to manipulate the weather.

 

And finally, there are the unicorns, horned ponies that have a wide portfolio of magic powers, including telekinesis, alchemical transformation, and teleportation. There are also other sapient species in Equestria, such as cows; the concept of one intelligent species keeping another for milking purposes is quite disturbing if interrogated closely enough.

 

One potential objection to an economic analysis of MLP: FiM is whether such analysis is even warranted. The economy of a fictional world may be abstracted without consequences in some stories; after all, any flow of capital in Harry Potter is insignificant in comparison to the existential battle between good and evil that is at the core of the story. However, many of the stories in MLP: FiM focus on the performance of economic tasks: crop harvesting, production of baked goods, and the maintenance of the town. Other episodes are about characters finding their roles in society. These kinds of stories rely on a plausible economic base to be meaningful.

 

In fact, most of the stories written by Faust and her staff, although ostensibly about the power of friendship, also happen to be about the allocation of scarce resources (“Ticket Master”), correcting inefficiencies in the organization of labor (“Winter Wrap-Up”), or averting famine in the city of Ponyville (“Swarm of the Century”). Several of the threats in the series—the prospect of eternal night, an infestation of locust-like pests, and a blanket of dragon’s smoke over the town—are presented in the context of permanently crippling Ponyville’s economic productivity. Unlike The Smurfs, which proposed a fantasy world centered on a collectivist community, Equestria has a market economy through which a wide variety of goods and services are bought and sold. And in this economy, there is an equivalent to industrial technology: unicorn magic.

Other stories which make use of magic in their settings usually have a caveat which prevents easily equating magic with industrial technology. Perhaps magical power is biologically tied to rare individuals, or is physically debilitating, or has effects that are dangerous and unpredictable, or is restricted by a higher power. Any of these caveats would make magic problematic as a source of increased economic efficiency. However, none of these applies to magic as presented by MLP: FiM.

 

For a case study, take the episode “Applebuck Season”, which teaches the lesson that it’s OK to ask others for help if you need it. On closer examination, there’s an economic lacuna hidden in the premises and everyday workings of the episode. The story follows Applejack, an earth-pony, as she attempts to harvest her family’s apple orchard by herself after her brother is injured. The process of apple harvesting is shown in very specific, step-by-step detail: Applejack walks to a tree, kicks it to knock the apples loose, collects them in an apple basket, and then walks to another tree and repeats the process.

 

However, at the end of the episode, Applejack accepts the help of Twilight Sparkle, a unicorn. In the final harvesting scene, Twilight Sparkle is shown using telekinetic magic to pluck hundreds of apples from dozens of trees simultaneously; then she floats all the apples across a great distance to their buckets. Combine this with her ability to teleport from place to place at will and the process is staggeringly more efficient than what a mundane earth-pony can achieve. Applejack’s livelihood depends on selling these apples at market – she even claims in one episode that she needs to pay for her grandmother’s hip replacement. So the question becomes: why hasn’t she been run out of business? Any unicorn running an apple orchard would be able to harvest with a significantly lower investment of labor, and therefore be able to sell those apples at a discount far beyond what any earth-pony could hope to achieve.

 

The situation would be less problematic if this degree of ability were limited to Twilight Sparkle alone. However, unicorns as a race inherently possess some level of magical power. Twilight Sparkle may be in the upper echelons of ability, but Rarity, the other unicorn in the central cast, can telekinetically stop and redirect high velocity projectiles; she also transforms a tree branch into a series of perfectly manicured leaf sculptures with a single thought.

 

The pegasi can perform functions that the unicorns cannot, such as repositioning clouds to create rain or flying to guide migratory birds. But where does that leave your proletarian earth-pony? It certainly wouldn’t be as co-equal participants in the economic life of Ponyville. There are rudimentary stabs at the development of mechanical technology by earth-ponies, as seen in the character of Pinkie Pie. In fact, Pinkie Pie is the best representation of the tension between the show’s strong feminist themes and its questionable economic foundation; although she appears to be the ditzy party animal of the group, she also displays considerable skill in science and engineering. She devises a technical solution to Ponyville’s infestation problems in a scenario where magic has failed, and in the episode “Griffon the Brush-Off” she channels Leonardo da Vinci and builds a flying machine in order to keep up with the pegasus Rainbow Dash. However, Pinkie’s flying machine is smashed by a jealous griffon, showing that technology can be destroyed or expropriated more easily than innate magical ability can.

There is ample evidence that Equestria is already highly stratified, and the mantra of “friendship is magic” is nothing more than a mythic-religious creed designed to perpetuate false consciousness among the ponies. For confirmation, take a look at the professions of the main cast. The two earth-ponies work in agriculture and the service industry. Of the pegasi, Fluttershy can be classified as a naturalist and Rainbow Dash aspires to be a pro athlete.

 

In contrast, the two unicorns work in the professions that have the most cultural and political cachet. With the fashion designer Rarity, Faust does avoid portraying the mindless consumer typical in girls’ cartoons; Rarity’s character traits show that she is more than a clothes horse and has an engagement with the fashion industry “not as a shopaholic but as an artist.” And as a business owner, she is certainly a figure to aspire towards. But how much of her success can be attributed to the fact that textile production and delicate piecework is much easier when you have magic at your disposal?

 

As for Twilight Sparkle—the protégé of the ruling monarch Princess Celestia—she seems to control the means of knowledge production in Ponyville. She has access to unfettered telecommunications through Spike, her dragon companion. She also lives in the town library; how many books in that library were written by unicorns as opposed to the other pony races? (Not to mention the voices of griffons and dragons and cows, which are most likely also marginalized in the Equestrian narrative?) Whenever a non-magical pony tries to write, the image is comical at best; they must hold their implements awkwardly in their mouths. Unicorns, on the other hand, can easily manipulate and create texts using magical power. Twilight Sparkle drafts documents simply through the power of her mind.

 

With this inherent publishing bias in Equestria, how slanted is the historical narrative towards the unicorns? Small wonder that “Winter Wrap-Up”, a story entirely about Twilight Sparkle’s attempt to find her role in society, ends with her discovering that she is best suited for managing the laborers in Ponyville and succeeding at a task that the earth-pony mayor has been trying for years to accomplish. The episode’s titular song also betrays Twilight Sparkle’s bourgeois anxiety at the fact that her magic (and thus her economic advantage) is restricted in this single situation by social convention.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjhcsQzjScQiJJ94uw05KQ

 

The fact that Equestria is governed by a monarch that is also the creator-goddess of the world is the real capstone of Equestria’s thinly-veiled social stratification. Princess Celestia possesses the horn of the unicorn and the wings of the pegasus. However, since pegasus and unicorn have all the physical characteristics earth-ponies have, the earth-ponies’ representation in the embodiment of their own deity can only be assumed; it’s a virtual presence at best. Do earth-ponies experience body dysmorphia when they realize they don’t have horns or wings like their princess-creator and the other races of Equestria? If your society is governed a literal god-empress, the focus on “friendship” may be nothing more than an attempt to suppress racial consciousness and dissent.

 

And in fact, perhaps Ponyville can be seen as a site of resistance for earth-pony culture; the prohibition against magic during Winter Wrap-Up is a gesture, however token, against the complete dominance of their goddess’s magic in their daily lives. A stronger and more visible sign of dissent is sadly improbable in Equestria; the difficulties of overthrowing a ruler who literally controls the movement of the sun would prove daunting to even the staunchest revolutionary. Unless, of course, Pinkie Pie were to construct a machine that replicates this function…

 

Oscar Moralde is a filmmaker and writer whose work can be seen at The Hypermodern and The House Next Door.

 

http://www.overthinkingit.com/2011/02/24/my-little-pony-political-economy/

 

 An author on fimfiction reposted the article, which is where that chart comes from.

 

http://www.fimfiction.net/group/197720/equestrian-republic/thread/40124/solidarity-an-illusion

 

Whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Moralde's premise and ideas, his article raises notable and good points. We have to live with what the show tries to teach and show others both intentionally and unintentionally.  One man's heaven is another man's hell. As I have said before, if we truly aspire and respect Equestria and MLP:FiM, we have to learn to accept it both for its strengths and its less than desirable flaws.

I will be sure to contribute plenty more to this discussion later, but this is a good starting point.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Cwanky

[GuyWithAName 106]

okay then, that's a nice find

Sorry but this topic can't be given proper justice without citing this prominent and well written article:

 

Solidarity is Illusion: The Political Economy of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

 

The My Little Pony toy line has always been a flashpoint for debates on gender representation and consumerism, and its latest incarnation in the animated series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is no exception. Kathleen Richter at the Ms. magazine blog mounted an attack on the show, calling it “homophobic” and “smart-shaming” – criticism that comes off as a bit incoherent because the show is neither of those things. Creator Lauren Faust, who previously worked on The Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, writes in her rebuttal to Richterthat in developing this series she wanted to show that:

Cartoons for girls don’t have to be a puddle of smooshy, cutesy-wootsy, goody-two-shoeness. Girls like stories with real conflict; girls are smart enough to understand complex plots; girls aren’t as easily frightened as everyone seems to think.

In that respect she has succeeded. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (hereafter referred to as MLP: FiM) is sharply written and gorgeously animated, and features positive role models in female characters who defy stereotypical gender roles. The show also teaches lessons about confidence, self-expression, and overcoming adversity.

 

But the strong feminist themes of the series are built on a foundation of political contradictions. The most fantastic element of the show is not that ponies can talk or that dragons exist; it is the illusion that an egalitarian society can be maintained among groups with massive biologically inherent gaps in ability and economic utility. By even the most cursory of sociological and economic analyses, the society in MLP: FiM should be highly stratified along class and racial lines. And there are clear signs of that stratification, except they are obscured by a propagandistic focus on the power of “friendship”.

Now I know the question you all must be asking: “But don’t the historical theories of capital accumulation presuppose a world defined by scarcity and industrial development?” Of course they do. The setting of MLP: FiM, a land called Equestria (and specifically the city of Ponyville), is populated by three types of ponies. There are the earth-ponies, the most mundane type which most closely resemble real ponies. There are pegasi, flying ponies that are able to manipulate the weather.

 

And finally, there are the unicorns, horned ponies that have a wide portfolio of magic powers, including telekinesis, alchemical transformation, and teleportation. There are also other sapient species in Equestria, such as cows; the concept of one intelligent species keeping another for milking purposes is quite disturbing if interrogated closely enough.

 

One potential objection to an economic analysis of MLP: FiM is whether such analysis is even warranted. The economy of a fictional world may be abstracted without consequences in some stories; after all, any flow of capital in Harry Potter is insignificant in comparison to the existential battle between good and evil that is at the core of the story. However, many of the stories in MLP: FiM focus on the performance of economic tasks: crop harvesting, production of baked goods, and the maintenance of the town. Other episodes are about characters finding their roles in society. These kinds of stories rely on a plausible economic base to be meaningful.

 

In fact, most of the stories written by Faust and her staff, although ostensibly about the power of friendship, also happen to be about the allocation of scarce resources (“Ticket Master”), correcting inefficiencies in the organization of labor (“Winter Wrap-Up”), or averting famine in the city of Ponyville (“Swarm of the Century”). Several of the threats in the series—the prospect of eternal night, an infestation of locust-like pests, and a blanket of dragon’s smoke over the town—are presented in the context of permanently crippling Ponyville’s economic productivity. Unlike The Smurfs, which proposed a fantasy world centered on a collectivist community, Equestria has a market economy through which a wide variety of goods and services are bought and sold. And in this economy, there is an equivalent to industrial technology: unicorn magic.

Other stories which make use of magic in their settings usually have a caveat which prevents easily equating magic with industrial technology. Perhaps magical power is biologically tied to rare individuals, or is physically debilitating, or has effects that are dangerous and unpredictable, or is restricted by a higher power. Any of these caveats would make magic problematic as a source of increased economic efficiency. However, none of these applies to magic as presented by MLP: FiM.

 

For a case study, take the episode “Applebuck Season”, which teaches the lesson that it’s OK to ask others for help if you need it. On closer examination, there’s an economic lacuna hidden in the premises and everyday workings of the episode. The story follows Applejack, an earth-pony, as she attempts to harvest her family’s apple orchard by herself after her brother is injured. The process of apple harvesting is shown in very specific, step-by-step detail: Applejack walks to a tree, kicks it to knock the apples loose, collects them in an apple basket, and then walks to another tree and repeats the process.

 

However, at the end of the episode, Applejack accepts the help of Twilight Sparkle, a unicorn. In the final harvesting scene, Twilight Sparkle is shown using telekinetic magic to pluck hundreds of apples from dozens of trees simultaneously; then she floats all the apples across a great distance to their buckets. Combine this with her ability to teleport from place to place at will and the process is staggeringly more efficient than what a mundane earth-pony can achieve. Applejack’s livelihood depends on selling these apples at market – she even claims in one episode that she needs to pay for her grandmother’s hip replacement. So the question becomes: why hasn’t she been run out of business? Any unicorn running an apple orchard would be able to harvest with a significantly lower investment of labor, and therefore be able to sell those apples at a discount far beyond what any earth-pony could hope to achieve.

 

The situation would be less problematic if this degree of ability were limited to Twilight Sparkle alone. However, unicorns as a race inherently possess some level of magical power. Twilight Sparkle may be in the upper echelons of ability, but Rarity, the other unicorn in the central cast, can telekinetically stop and redirect high velocity projectiles; she also transforms a tree branch into a series of perfectly manicured leaf sculptures with a single thought.

 

The pegasi can perform functions that the unicorns cannot, such as repositioning clouds to create rain or flying to guide migratory birds. But where does that leave your proletarian earth-pony? It certainly wouldn’t be as co-equal participants in the economic life of Ponyville. There are rudimentary stabs at the development of mechanical technology by earth-ponies, as seen in the character of Pinkie Pie. In fact, Pinkie Pie is the best representation of the tension between the show’s strong feminist themes and its questionable economic foundation; although she appears to be the ditzy party animal of the group, she also displays considerable skill in science and engineering. She devises a technical solution to Ponyville’s infestation problems in a scenario where magic has failed, and in the episode “Griffon the Brush-Off” she channels Leonardo da Vinci and builds a flying machine in order to keep up with the pegasus Rainbow Dash. However, Pinkie’s flying machine is smashed by a jealous griffon, showing that technology can be destroyed or expropriated more easily than innate magical ability can.

There is ample evidence that Equestria is already highly stratified, and the mantra of “friendship is magic” is nothing more than a mythic-religious creed designed to perpetuate false consciousness among the ponies. For confirmation, take a look at the professions of the main cast. The two earth-ponies work in agriculture and the service industry. Of the pegasi, Fluttershy can be classified as a naturalist and Rainbow Dash aspires to be a pro athlete.

 

In contrast, the two unicorns work in the professions that have the most cultural and political cachet. With the fashion designer Rarity, Faust does avoid portraying the mindless consumer typical in girls’ cartoons; Rarity’s character traits show that she is more than a clothes horse and has an engagement with the fashion industry “not as a shopaholic but as an artist.” And as a business owner, she is certainly a figure to aspire towards. But how much of her success can be attributed to the fact that textile production and delicate piecework is much easier when you have magic at your disposal?

 

As for Twilight Sparkle—the protégé of the ruling monarch Princess Celestia—she seems to control the means of knowledge production in Ponyville. She has access to unfettered telecommunications through Spike, her dragon companion. She also lives in the town library; how many books in that library were written by unicorns as opposed to the other pony races? (Not to mention the voices of griffons and dragons and cows, which are most likely also marginalized in the Equestrian narrative?) Whenever a non-magical pony tries to write, the image is comical at best; they must hold their implements awkwardly in their mouths. Unicorns, on the other hand, can easily manipulate and create texts using magical power. Twilight Sparkle drafts documents simply through the power of her mind.

 

With this inherent publishing bias in Equestria, how slanted is the historical narrative towards the unicorns? Small wonder that “Winter Wrap-Up”, a story entirely about Twilight Sparkle’s attempt to find her role in society, ends with her discovering that she is best suited for managing the laborers in Ponyville and succeeding at a task that the earth-pony mayor has been trying for years to accomplish. The episode’s titular song also betrays Twilight Sparkle’s bourgeois anxiety at the fact that her magic (and thus her economic advantage) is restricted in this single situation by social convention.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjhcsQzjScQiJJ94uw05KQ

 

The fact that Equestria is governed by a monarch that is also the creator-goddess of the world is the real capstone of Equestria’s thinly-veiled social stratification. Princess Celestia possesses the horn of the unicorn and the wings of the pegasus. However, since pegasus and unicorn have all the physical characteristics earth-ponies have, the earth-ponies’ representation in the embodiment of their own deity can only be assumed; it’s a virtual presence at best. Do earth-ponies experience body dysmorphia when they realize they don’t have horns or wings like their princess-creator and the other races of Equestria? If your society is governed a literal god-empress, the focus on “friendship” may be nothing more than an attempt to suppress racial consciousness and dissent.

 

And in fact, perhaps Ponyville can be seen as a site of resistance for earth-pony culture; the prohibition against magic during Winter Wrap-Up is a gesture, however token, against the complete dominance of their goddess’s magic in their daily lives. A stronger and more visible sign of dissent is sadly improbable in Equestria; the difficulties of overthrowing a ruler who literally controls the movement of the sun would prove daunting to even the staunchest revolutionary. Unless, of course, Pinkie Pie were to construct a machine that replicates this function…

 

Oscar Moralde is a filmmaker and writer whose work can be seen at The Hypermodern and The House Next Door.

 

http://www.overthinkingit.com/2011/02/24/my-little-pony-political-economy/

 

 An author on fimfiction reposted the article, which is where that chart comes from.

 

http://www.fimfiction.net/group/197720/equestrian-republic/thread/40124/solidarity-an-illusion

 

Whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Moralde's premise and ideas, his article raises notable and good points. We have to live with what the show tries to teach and show others both intentionally and unintentionally.  One man's heaven is another man's hell. As I have said before, if we truly aspire and respect Equestria and MLP:FiM, we have to learn to accept it both for its strengths and its less than desirable flaws.

I will be sure to contribute plenty more to this discussion later, but this is a good starting point.

 

okays