Mummified Political Economy: Institutional Gaps

[Editor’s note: This is part 3 of a three-part series. You can read part 1 here, and part 2 here.]

Good institutions can be hard to come by, however, especially in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. Institutions are at various stages of development in the story, from the ad hoc criminal justice system, the availability of goods and services in markets, the legal structure that incentivizes competition among private actors for the extraction of public resources such as Hamunaptra, and underdeveloped public goods relative to demand.

The Mummy begins with Evelyn rescuing Rick from a death sentence that seems as arbitrary in how the law is delivered as in how it is undone. All Evleyn needs to do, apparently, is name the right price to buy someone out of jail – or an execution. Although this works out for Rick, Evelyn, and Jonathan, one is left wondering about the people who cannot buy their way out of an arbitrary incarceration and execution, as well as those who can. 

After the Medjai first attack the riverboat carrying the two teams to Hamunaptra, Evelyn, Rick, and Jonathan lose all their supplies, tools, clothing, and horses. Fortunately, they are able to successfully buy replacements at a nearby community. Unfortunately, the market was not large enough to replace Evelyn’s lost toolkit, a niche product for which there is not sufficient market demand to incentivize suppliers to provide it on a regular basis. Instead, Rick steals a replacement toolkit from the American team and so demonstrates how in the absence of market exchange, some individuals may turn to theft instead, as people compete over scarce resources.

The lack of reliable transportation systems also presents a problem in both films, including interruptions to riverboat services through attack and fire, the loss of horses on the wrong side of the river, and in the sequel The Mummy Returns, Imhotep taking exclusive control of the only available train system. However, at least in The Mummy Returns, the opportunity for exchange saves the day (and presumably Alex), when Rick is able to barter for private transportation systems that have evolved alongside – or to address – the poor provision of public transit.

Incomplete markets are not the only institutional challenge the protagonists face, however. The Medjai spend three millennia guarding Hamunaptra to prevent Imhotep’s re-birth, but in an infinitely repeated game, it was truly only a matter of time before a determined librarian evaded their defense system. In the case of both Beni and Rick, the benefits of returning to Hamunaptra outweighed the costs, as the gold cellars and treasure without a clear claimant inspired several groups to compete over the lost city. 

Perhaps instead of trying to forever hide Hamunaptra from the public eye, the Medjai could have established a property claim to the site after the pharaohs were gone. The site could even have been designated as a national treasure and protected as a public good (or a public bad that everyone must avoid). In fact, perhaps there were property rights before British imperialism – demonstrating how good institutions are hard to get back, especially when parties cannot trust each other.

Either way, clearer property rights might have dissuaded extraction by Egyptologists and librarians that would eventually trigger the Hom Dai. The Medjai could have prevented trespassers and even reinvested the treasures of Hamunaptra back into the community. Instead, we observe the problem of the commons, where goods are ransacked and destroyed by interlopers, and the entire necropolis – and the wealth of Ancient Egypt – sinks into the sand dunes at the end. The opportunity cost of losing such a cultural inheritance would be immeasurable. On the other hand, several characters establish salvage rights to what they take out of Hamunaptra – despite Imhotep’s protests to the contrary.

Conclusion

Despite these economic losses, characters engage in the best strategic behavior they can. Evelyn uses game theory to outmaneuver the warden when bargaining for Rick’s life on the execution block, and she does the same with the rival Egyptologist when the American fortune hunters stake a claim to the dig site that Evelyn, Rick, and Jonathan had found first. Evelyn recognizes that adventuring is not a one-stage game, but a series of interactions that take place over a long time and require cooperation. It will have to remain an unanswered question: what would have happened had Evelyn pursued the study of economics rather than Egyptology and archaeology?

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