The Economics of Wall-E

Wall-E is one of my favorite romantic comedies. I like pretty much any movie which involves robots, but on top of the cute cybernetic characters it’s also a brilliant film. It’s visually stunning, and for some reason Pixar characters can really ham up emotions without irritating me, so that it tugs on the ‘ol heart strings.

It turns out there are also some economic themes to explore. One big one is: how does mankind have the ability to make giant self-sustaining intergalactic cruise ships, but can’t figure out how to recycle aluminum down on Earth? Is all the space junk floating around the planet’s exosphere a tragedy of the commons?