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2021-11-05
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Ghostbusting Economics: The Great Cultivator Labor Shortage

Summary:

Or, an economist writes some meta. I explain how the Sunshot Campaign transformed the cultivation world's economics by creating a severe cultivator labor shortage. This labor shortage can help explain why:

-Jiang Cheng never married
-Mianmian survived to the end of the book
-Wen Zhuliu was so deeply grateful to Wen Ruohan
-Lure flags were the hottest item on the post-Sunshot market
-Rumors of Wei Wuxian’s defection were so threatening to Jiang Cheng
-Sect Leader Yao was probably a better boss than you’d think
-Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan deeply believed in their dream of starting a new sect

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Work Text:

While I’m an economist by trade, I normally turn my economics brain off while thinking about MDZS. However, there is one theory about the economics of the MDZS jianghu that has crept into my head and won’t go away. My theory? The Sunshot Campaign transformed the labor market for cultivators by creating a labor shortage where there were not enough qualified cultivators to fulfill the demand for cultivation services. This shortage shaped the choices that both sect leaders and disciples made in the post-Sunshot world. Of course, economics cannot explain characters’ decisions on their own: social context and culture matters, and characters’ personal values and desires and worldview matter. However, economic considerations do shape the material stakes characters face in making many of their most important decisions. In particular, a post-Sunshot labor shortage could help explain why:

  • Mianmian survived to the end of the book
  • Wen Zhuliu was so deeply grateful to Wen Ruohan
  • Lure flags were the hottest item on the post-Sunshot market
  • Rumors of Wei Wuxian’s defection were so threatening to Jiang Cheng
  • Sect Leader Yao was probably a better boss than you’d think
  • Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan deeply believed in their dream of starting a new sect
  • Jiang Cheng never married

First, let’s talk about where money (seemed to) come from in the world of MDZS. The Great Sects made their money by taxing towns in exchange for cultivation services.  In addition, judging by the importance of dividing the prey at occasions like the Phoenix Mountain Hunt, some prey may have produced valuable byproducts that the sects could sell or use in medicine and cultivation. Rogue cultivators accepted payment for dealing with cultivation matters that were outside of the geographic regions that the sects protected or otherwise fell outside of the agreements between towns and sects.

Before the Sunshot Campaign, we get glimpses of a cultivation world that was overstaffed and tightly controlled and where the sects competed fiercely for territory and prey. For example, Qishan Wen outright bans the other sects from night hunting in the year after Gusu Summer Camp. While the desire to take away revenue from other sects might have been a reason for this choice, this Wen declaration may also have come because the Wens were confident they had enough cultivators to snap up the prey the other sects were no longer hunting. In fact, the existence of territorial conflicts between any sects suggests that there were more cultivators than prey: if there had been more prey than cultivators, it would have been more profitable for a sect leader to focus their cultivators’ effort on expanding their hunting range and collecting more prey from unprotected areas rather than fighting battles with other cultivators.

Given this scarcity of prey and surplus of cultivators, the Great Sects likely held a monopsony on cultivator labor within their territories. A monopoly refers to when one company is the only seller of a good, like cars or oil; a monopsony happens when a company is the only buyer of a good. For example, a labor monopsony might happen when there’s only one large employer in a small town and thus only one buyer for workers’ labor. Firms like labor monopsonies because when workers have no other options, the firm can drive wages down. As the powerful sects had enough military force to punish cultivators who hunted on their land without permission, they could enforce a monopsony within their territories.

When the Great Sects had this much control over hunting in the best territories, the life of a pre-Sunshot rogue cultivator was unprofitable and dangerous. We know of three pre-Sunshot cultivators who were rogue cultivators at some point: Cangse Sanren, Wei Changze, and Wen (Zhao) Zhuliu. Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze died in Yiling, an area that no sect claimed because the locals were too poor to make facing the Burial Mounds’ extensive dangers worthwhile. Perhaps Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze chose dangerous and poor locations because they wanted to help, but it seems likely that parents of a small child would have placed some value on their own survival. Instead, Yiling may have been one in a string of unprofitable, dangerous hunts that were the only opportunities they could scavenge beyond the reach of the major sects. This is despite Cangse Sangren having been widely known as a very talented cultivator: if this couple couldn’t make it as rogue cultivators, such a life was likely even more brutal for everyone else.

These poor conditions may also explain Wen Zhuliu’s intense loyalty to the Wens. When Wei Wuxian asked Wen Zhuliu why he followed Wen Chao so devotedly, his response was that he owed Wen Ruohan his full devotion and loyalty for recognizing him. The strength of this loyalty had strong cultural grounding, but the terrible economics of life as a rogue cultivator may have also played a role. If the life of a rogue cultivator tended to be dangerous and poor, Wen Zhuliu may truly have felt he owed Wen Ruohan his life for inviting him into the Wen sect. Wen Zhuliu was also a classic example of what happens when workers have no bargaining power in a monopsony situation: employers know that their employees don’t have good alternatives if they leave, so they feel free to treat workers poorly in regards to both pay and general working conditions. In this case, Wen Ruohan handed Wen Zhuliu off to Wen Chao, a regular contender for the Jianghu’s Worst Boss Award. Despite Wen Chao’s abusive bluster and the consistency with which he ignored Wen Zhuliu’s advice, Wen Zhuliu still loyally stuck to the job up until the end.

Ironically, Wen Zhuliu’s death happened right around the time the Sunshot Campaign radically transformed the market for cultivator labor. First of all, cultivators were killed en masse. Out of the five major sects, Wen cultivators were wiped out entirely, the Jiang sect was decimated, and the Lan and Nie sects both suffered large losses. Altogether, I think we can reasonably guess that 50% or more of the Great Sect cultivators died. Mortality rates were high among the smaller sects too. The Yao sect was destroyed right before the Jiang sect massacre (remember an injured Sect Leader Yao stumbling into Sword Hall?), and there are mentions of other small sects being similarly wiped out or forced to battle. So there’s definitely not enough surviving lesser sect cultivators to smooth over the labor market effect of the massive losses of Great Sect cultivators.

At the same time, the war increased demand for cultivator labor. The dead in MDZS became ghosts or fierce corpses in two main kinds of circumstances: when someone died with resentment and when a dead person’s resting place was dishonored. A massive war like the Sunshot Campaign would have killed many civilians who had never received Soul-Calming Ceremonies, and being killed in a war is the sort of resentful death that could definitely leave behind some angry undead. In addition, the disruptions of war would have interrupted typical ceremonies for honoring ancestors and local spirits, causing some of them to turn resentful and harm people nearby. Wei Wuxian’s mass raising of the dead probably didn’t help matters either, since I doubt he always put his corpses away when he was done playing with them. Also, regular night hunting probably came to a near standstill during the course of the war. Who would have the time to chase down ghosts when there were other cultivators trying to chase you down with swords? By the end of the Sunshot Campaign, the need for cultivation work was at an all-time high.

This combination of a decreased supply and an increased demand for cultivator labor added up to create a post-war cultivator labor shortage that made the current burger-flipper situation in the United States look like small potatoes. A labor shortage happens when there aren’t enough qualified workers willing to work in a sector to fill the available jobs in that sector. Sometimes the Jin Guangshans of the world use this to describe any case where people aren’t willing to work under their terrible employment conditions at the low wages the employer wants to pay. However, the post-Sunshot shortage was a true labor shortage: since cultivators take years of training to be able to night hunt, no matter how much employers were willing to pay, there were literally not enough cultivators left alive to do all the night hunts that needed to happen. This meant the price that sects and cultivators were paid for night hunting rose drastically as desperate towns and households bidded against each other to attract cultivators, and some monsters would still remain un-hunted. 

To deal with a labor shortage, employers have a few options. One is using labor-saving technology to try to get more done with less people. In the real world this might translate to automated checkouts at grocery stores, investments in self-driving trucks, et cetera. In the jianghu, the newest labor-saving technologies  available for cultivators were Wei Wuxian’s wicked tricks. For example, spirit lures allowed cultivators to set up a trap and wait for their prey to come to them, a much quicker and less labor-intensive process than trying to individually track and kill each monster in an infestation. The Compasses of Evil were similar timesavers, helping cultivators go straight to their prey. It’s no wonder that these inventions and their knockoffs were wildly popular on the market and that Jin Guangshan desperately wanted Wei Wuxian’s inventions and notes. The value of these inventions in the face of a labor shortage may be the reason why even the conservative Lan sect was willing to adopt a demonic cultivator’s work. It was much easier for Lan Wangji to add the spirit lures to the curriculum when they helped solve a desperate problem for Gusu Lan.

Although new technology could solve some of the gap between supply and demand, I doubt it closed that gap entirely. There’s still far more night hunts to go around than the existing supply of cultivators could cover. In those conditions, the life of a rogue cultivator would be much, much better than it was before. With the main sects directing their energy at covering night hunts in their domain and raising the next generation of cultivators to replace their losses, they likely had little manpower available for chasing rogue cultivators off their territory, breaking the monopsony power of the Great Sects. In addition, rogue cultivators took the hunts that sect cultivators didn't, and this suddenly encompassed a larger number of higher quality hunts. With villages in urgent need of help, they would likely be willing to pay much higher prices to a passing rogue cultivator. After all, with cultivators so scarce, who knew how long it would be until the next one passed through? Jin Guangyao’s tower system would have been an enormous relief to these rural areas, helping to ensure that at least the most dangerous out-of-the-way night hunts were completed before the monster could take too many lives.

In this type of environment, a skilled rogue cultivator could be treated like a rock star, taking on hunts that won them fame and fortune (if they accepted the money, at least). Take Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan: they were so famous that a bunch of teenagers knew their swords on sight because they’d seen popular illustrations! When Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan fell to misfortune, it was sect politics and not a night hunt that brought them down. Similarly, take the case of Mianmian, who seemed to have built a comfortable life as a rogue cultivator. We don’t know exactly how much she earned through night hunting since her husband also worked as a merchant, but they jointly earned enough for a comfortable home and a happy child, and she was able to stick to night hunts that she could handle safely. For rogue cultivators, post-Sunshot life was good.

This labor shortage also made it a great time to start a new sect. With many towns losing the protection of the Great Sects, they would be happy to help fund a new sect while they got on their feet, and parents would be much more willing to offer their children or even pay for lessons so their children could enter the highly profitable trade of cultivation. Our canon example is Su Minshan, a cultivator skilled enough to spar with Lan Wangji and who felt underappreciated by Gusu Lan. The locals in Moling may have been very willing to fund the sect’s construction and expenses while Su Minshan trained up his first batch of recruits, and the Lan sect were too focused on their own rebuilding to block the sect’s development. Even though the cultivation world disliked him, Su Minshan was able to build a substantial sect during the timeskip, and the patronage of a town in need may explain why. 

Since talented cultivators could now make a decent living as rogue cultivators, founding new sects, or getting hired by existing sects in dire need of new cultivators, the leadership of existing sects had to work much harder to keep and attract good people. Defections likely became more common post-Sunshot as cultivators decided they no longer needed to put up with poor conditions. Mianmian is our flagship example, of course: recognizing that the Jin sect would never respect her or care about the ethical standards she did, she decided to throw down her Jin robes and leave. This was still an impactful decision and real sacrifice on her part—she was probably well paid as a member of the cultivation world’s most powerful and wealthy surviving sect—but it was a fully survivable choice for her in a way that it might not have been if she had left before the Sunshot Campaign. This also explains why rumors of Wei Wuxian potentially defecting were so believable and so damaging in the year after Sunshot. In this cultivation shortage, Wei Wuxian could feasibly have struck out on his own, found someplace that needed help badly enough that they would take a demonic cultivator, and set up shop as a sect leader. What’s more, since the Jiang sect badly needed people, a rumor that Jiang Cheng couldn’t even hold on to the talented disciple who was raised with him like a brother would suggest that Yunmeng Jiang was on the edge of collapse.

In this world where cultivators were valuable and had abundant options, the true test of a great sect leader was their ability to attract and keep good people. Some sect leaders could do this through paying their people well: Lanling Jin’s deep pockets would be a big advantage here. Less wealthy sects would need to attract people by being a good place to work. Economists call this a “compensating differential”: people are willing to take lower wages to work at someplace where the work and people are more pleasant. Yunmeng Jiang’s successful rebuilding therefore suggests that Jiang Cheng was likely good to his people despite how brusque he could be towards outsiders. By similar logic, there must be more to Sect Leader Yao than meets the eye: his sect was also massacred by the Wen, and yet he managed to recruit enough people to remain among the prominent sect leaders at cultivation conferences. (And yes, I also cannot believe I’m defending Sect Leader Yao, but sometimes weird rabbit holes lead us to weird places and we just have to go there.)

Another way to attract and keep good people, of course, is to give them opportunities for advancement. Pre-Sunshot, leadership opportunities for cultivators not born to the inner clan of a sect were limited. In Wei Wuxian’s first class at Cloud Recesses, we learned that Qishan Wen sect founder Wen Mao reshaped the cultivation world’s leadership when he decided to put clan over sect. That leadership system elevating bloodline inheritance over talent-based leadership eventually became common to all the Great Sects. For the sect leaders, it guaranteed advancement for their children at the expense of quality of leadership and incentives to other disciples. When potential disciples were numerous, that system produced the occasional Jin Guangshan and cost the resentment of the occasional Su Minshan, but was a fairly painless tradeoff for the Great Sects to make.

Once the labor shortage bit, however, that math changed. The rebuilding sects like Yunmeng Jiang needed every incentive they could give to attract good people. For the most talented and most ambitious cultivators, the chance to be the next sect leader of  Yunmeng Jiang would be the biggest prize Jiang Cheng could offer. As long as Jiang Cheng remained unmarried and childless—as long as he chased off matchmakers to ensure he would remain unmarried and childless—he could still leave the role of sect heir open for his most qualified disciple while not openly defying the inheritance norms of the Great Sects. This was a huge change from teenage Jiang Cheng’s plans to marry a sweet filial girl who could give him plenty of Jiang clan bloodline heirs, and it could mark a deliberate strategic decision to help Yunmeng Jiang rebuild despite the labor shortage. With no sect heir to limit their advancement, ambitious cultivators had a good reason to join Yunmeng Jiang and to work hard once they were there. Nie Huaisang and Lan Xichen may have decided to follow Jiang Cheng’s lead and remain unmarried for similar reasons.

This shift in leadership illustrates the potential of a temporary labor shortage to create lasting change through changing institutions. Just like the Black Death labor shortage mattered in the long run because it ended the institution of serfdom, the Sunshot labor shortage could have mattered if people took the opportunity to change sect leadership structures and found new more equitable sects. If none of the institutions changed, the wage boosts of the post-Sunshot era would probably fade within a decade or two as the sects trained up the replacements of the lost generation. However, if the Great Sects really did change the norms around choosing heirs due to the labor shortage, that sort of shift could provide new opportunities for skilled disciples born outside of the inner clans for generations to come. Similarly, the new scrappy sects based on ability and brotherhood rather than blood might have stuck around, competing with the Great Sects and improving employment options for future cultivators.  Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan’s dream of founding a new sect was not so much naïve as it was visionary, seeing the potential of a historic upheaval in the cultivation world to create lasting change.

Notes:

Find me on tumblr or Twitter as GhostySword! Thanks to betas ofmindelans, Two4Joy, and eeriate.

I'm a white gal who knows a lot about economics and a little about Chinese language, history, and culture, so this meta stuck pretty strongly to the economics side of things! But if you'd like to read some great meta on the cultural context shaping the decisions MDZS characters make, I'd highly recommend reading meta by hunxi-guilai, pumpkinpaix, or flowerofgusu.

Works inspired by this one: