Something that stood out to me when reading the HP books, and especially when watching the movies, that not only is their fashion and architecture late Middle Ages to early Renaissance, it’s impossibly high culture. The Hogwarts castle alone would have bankrupted Mansa Musa, king of Timbuktu. They have friggin’ personal horse-drawn sleighs just for winter use. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Professor Lockhart was Hogwart’s newest incompetent hire and his office was bigger than the house I grew up in.
Now if the wizarding world had been post-scarcity, which would make sense since they could “curse” valuables to multiply upon touch, that would all make sense. But they’re clearly a monetary society with pre-industrial capitalist elements and gold coinage.
My takeaway, our actual modern wealth disparity between billionaires and working/middle classes in the real world absolutely pales in comparison to the fictional wealth disparity between the wizarding and muggle worlds. No wonder muggles so often hated wizards and witches. It would be like living next door to a Dyson sphere civilization that refused to share but periodically threatened to invade and conquer you.
