Playboy billionaire Tony Stark: villain or hero?

By Prasad Fadke

Tony Stark’s character has an interesting introduction in the Marvel Comics Universe. A genius, billionaire playboy Tony Stark, has inherited Stark Industries, the world’s leading arms manufacturer, from his father. After realizing the kind of destruction his weapons have been causing, Tony chooses to stop manufacturing weapons — and this for me is the most important message of the movie. Tony hasn’t been forced by the government, but it is by his own volition that he stops manufacturing arms. The first Iron Man movie mostly focusses on how Tony develops his tech and prevents Stane, his business partner who has gone rogue, from misusing the Iron Man technology. The most unique aspect of this movie comes at the end, as Tony Stark calls a press conference and declares himself ‘Iron Man’. This is something unprecedented in the world of superhero movies, as they usually prefer to work under a mask as vigilantes avoiding public scrutiny and government control of their alternate persona. Tony however comes out fearlessly.

This is nicely carried forward to the next movie Iron Man 2, as Tony is seen flaunting his tech at Stark Expo which, predictably, annoys the government. In a Senate hearing, Stark is accused of owning ‘a specialized weapon’ and is asked to turn over the weapon to the government. This is where the movie delves into ‘property rights’ which is one of the tenets of libertarianism. Property rights are just as important as individual rights. When you own property, no one else should have right to confiscate it without your consent. In India, there are several instances of government confiscating tribal land for infrastructure or industrial purposes which created a permanent mistrust of government in minds of these people, which culminated in many of them turning to violent means to protect their rights. Imagine living in a constant fear of your property being confiscated whenever the government deems it ‘necessary for public good’. Will a society living under such fear be able to productively use its property?

Going back to the movie, interestingly the Senate calls on Justin Hammer, the government’s weapons contractor, who makes a very eloquent speech about how the suit is a threat to the people. Further the government presents evidence of attempts at replicating the suit across the world to further exaggerate the threat. Tony hacks into their display and shows the video clips of these attempts which the government was trying to hide while selectively showing the ones that strengthened their case. The clips also include Hammer’s own miserable attempts to copy the suit. This entire scene is a case in point of the government’s duplicity when claiming personal property for the sake of national security. In the end Tony declares, “You want my property? You CAN’T have it! But I did you a big favour. I’ve successfully privatized world peace!” to a thunderous applause.

In a nation struggling with ‘right to bear arms’, Tony’s successful defense of ‘right to bear the suit’ sums up the libertarian case of property rights.

Another unique aspect of the Iron Man movies was that it was one of those rare occasions where a corporate billionaire is shown in good light. The general character sketches of billionaires in Hollywood are those of greedy, profit-seeking, elitist people who are usually arrogant and rude to those around them. But let us pause for a moment and wonder why being greedy and profit-seeking is considered so bad? Why is Tony a hero when most other Hollywood billionaires are villains? After all, he flaunts his Lamborghinis and throws lavish parties to satiate his narcissism. After all, that money wasted on booze could have been used to feed several hungry people right?

Tony, after retiring from the weapons industry, turned to the energy sector disrupting it with his arc reactor technology. No one has yet been able to replicate his technical ingenuity, and Stark Industries has a monopoly. Now is that so bad? Tony might be able to rake up huge profits with his efficient and clean technology which signals to the energy behemoths around the world that if they want to earn more profits, this is something they need to do. Tony might be able to charge huge prices today but with trillions of dollars fuelling the R&D, soon there will be several companies that will come up with similar tech and then there will be competition. Not only will this make arc reactor cheap but also available in abundance around the world. Had the government stepped in and stopped Tony from exploiting people via his monopoly and restricting his profits, few people would have invested in the arc reactor.

Examples of the same are abundant in the real world. Temporary monopolies arise due to revolutionary technology. These monopolies use the scarcity to highly price their products or services and these high prices drive in more competition which ultimately makes them affordable. Automobiles, cell phones, computers all of these were out of reach for the people when they were invented but today almost everyone can be seen carrying a touchscreen mobile. The results are more tangible when it is about taxi fares or life-saving drugs. So is being greedy and seeking profits that bad? Are billionaires like Tony Stark the villains or the heroes? The diplomatic answer would be, it’s a matter of perspective.

Prasad Fadke is currently a final year undergraduate student at IIT Kharagpur pursuing B.Tech in Aerospace Engineering and hails from Vadodara. He developed inclination towards libertarianism in college itself and wish to see it in mainstream politics. He has been an active participant of dramatics and debates in his college.

This article was originally published on Spontaneous Order

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