Five things Udta Punjab teaches you about economics

First things first: if you haven’t seen the movie yet, you should really go this weekend. Really good performances all round, and Alia Bhatt in particular is in a not-to-be-missed role.

Now, you might think that Udta Punjab is about one thing, and one thing only.

But for folks like us, we couldn’t help but take a look at an alternate angle: economics!

Here are five ways in which you could try and claim that watching the movie was like learning economics in college.

1.  If you want to build a business empire, choosing a product that has massively inelastic demand really, really helps

   

    

2. A high volume, high margin business necessarily involves a monopoly. Competition will likely be, well, eliminated.

   

    

3. Politicians know. And they’ll want their cut. Money talks.*

   

4. Truly effective reform of anything, anywhere can’t happen unless it begins from within. That applies to this movie, to people’s movements, or to countrywide reforms. Top down approaches tend to not work.

   

5. And finally, you’d think people would have figured this out by now, but if it needs to be said, we’ll say it: suppressing censorship never works.

   

*Yeah, ok, you didn’t need to watch this movie to know that.

Author: Ashish

Blogger. Occasional teacher. Aspiring writer. Legendary procrastinator. View all posts by Ashish