Economics in Avatar: The Last Airbender
By Alex Coonce
If you’ve ever watched Nickelodeon, you’ve probably seen Avatar: The Last Airbender at least once. The show takes place in a world with four sovereign states: the Northern and Southern Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Air Nomads, and the Fire Nation. Each is home to a specific type of “bender”, or someone who can control one of the four elements: the Water Tribes produce waterbenders, the Earth Kingdom earthbenders, and so on. Although the show features people producing fire out of thin air and a giant floating bison, it also contains a lot of real-world parallels, not least of which is its relevance to historical economic systems.
The large, industrialized Fire Nation is a classic example of an imperialist nation. Much like Great Britain for the brunt of its history, the Fire Nation has invaded its surrounding nations in order to mine their resources and boost its overall world power. As a result, the Fire Nation is disproportionately rich while previously stable economies such as the Earth Kingdom’s collapse. 
If you look at these two maps of 20th-century trade routes and the British Empire, you’ll notice that Britain controlled almost every major trading port in Asia and Africa. By essentially monopolizing world trade, Britain cut down the competition from other nations and became the most powerful nation in the world. This is the same method used by the Fire Nation on the show, and the nation is able to thrive and sustain its huge military-industrial complex at the expense of the rest of the world.
The Earth Kingdom is a large nation with an agriculture-based economy, bolstered by the kingdom’s complex system of trade and commerce. The people of the Earth Kingdom possess advanced technology suited for transporting goods and services back and forth across the kingdome. In this regard, the Earth Kingdom has an economy closer to that of the United States during the early 20th century-- laissez-faire and good for big business. As a result, much of the kingdom is impoverished even while the economy itself is strong. This is made worse by the heavy taxation placed upon its citizens by the invading Fire Nation. However, overall, the Earth Kingdom’s economy is considered one of the strongest and most stable in the world and remains the primary producer of goods and resources in the world.
The Northern and Southern Water Tribes are two tribes of waterbenders located at the Northern and Southern poles. As the Water Tribes are relatively isolated from the rest of the world, and lacking the resources to create a fully trade-based economy, trade is kept within each respective tribe. As the Northern Water Tribe is more technologically advanced and has a higher population, it is more prosperous than its southern counterpart, participating somewhat in world trade. However, the Water Tribes rely primarily on their own natural resources, so their economy is relatively self-sufficient.
The Air Nomads are a small group of airbenders who live nomadic lifestyles, with temporary homes in the four air temples located on each side of the world. They are also only faction without a fully-fledged economic system. Like many of our world’s early civilizations, the Air Nomads are completely self-sufficient, relying on their own resources and practicing sustenance agriculture. The immaterialism of their culture and lack of permanent home makes it nearly impossible for any type of consumer-based economy to develop; in fact, the Air Nomads don’t even have a monetary system. In this regard, they are the stark opposites of the Fire Nation. It is also the reason their population is so much smaller than the other three nations. However, their small economic bubble is ultimately the reason the Fire Nation is able to wipe out almost the entire race without making a dent in the world’s economy.
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