The Economic Lesson of Ghostbusters
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Link to video
https://www.aier.org/article/the-economic-lesson-in-ghostbusters-everyone-missed/
A friend of mine who is a Ghostbusters fanatic — the song was performed on his wedding day — once observed an overlooked theme in the 1980s classic.
“It’s a pretty libertarian movie,” he told me.
My friend is not a libertarian, mind you. But he was onto something.
The first time we get a glimpse of the theme in the movie is after the original three Ghostbusters—Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Akroyd), and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis)—get fired by the university that employed them.
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He's reading into it what he personally likes. Which is fine—that's how you're supposed to watch a movie. But those guys in real life aren't exactly hardcore libertarians. Pushing that political perspective wasn't and never has been on their agenda. His lit theory needs a lot of work.
It's an American 80s blockbuster. Those movies were all about scrappy upstarts getting away with flipping the board because they were good at what they did. We used to love the everloving shit out of that archetype. It's the story of America itself. So it's American, not Libertarian.