I love dystopian stories ^^ I've read a lot of books like 1984 and Brave New World and even a few contemporary ones like the Hunger Games. It's fun to imagine what a world could be like under an authoritarian ruler that presents itself as benevolent when it's actually oppressive. In this case, I modeled the story as a cross between Hunger Games and 1984, where there's a group of people (bourgeoisie) who are really well off, but they don't realize how much better off they are because media is secretly controlled to make it seem like everyone is doing well. This way, the people who control resources can hike up prices and make a small fortune off the wealthy while paying factory workers next to nothing for their labor. So what Cas knows about the economy is partially true. Aspiria's market is booming because the high borns are a big enough group to fuel it, but the numbers have been skewed to make it look like people are well off throughout the whole kingdom instead of just in a concentrated population.