I have no idea whether Charles Dickens, if he were alive today, would have joined the Occupy Wall Street movement. Given the revulsion he expressed when America’s riff-raff had the temerity to become overly familiar on his two visits to this country, one may doubt his commitment to overthrowing society’s class structure. Despite this, he may still be considered among the movement’s intellectual forerunners. For it was he, in the person of his literary creation Ebenezer Scrooge, who gave the world a character who embodied all of the evil traits the Occupiers attribute to today’s 1 percent. In fact, Scrooge might, in many ways, be considered the literary patron saint of the Occupy movement. Who among them does not dream of a time when today’s 1 percent will find the same inspiration Scrooge did, and give away their riches to “more deserving” folk? Oh wait. The occupiers don’t want the rich to give their money away to the charities of their choice. They want the government to take the wealth of the rich and give it away according to the Occupiers’ desirers.
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Either way, such actions are not really going to do much to improve the human condition. I contend that Scrooge, before he became “enlightened,” was already doing more to help his fellow man than any of the other main characters we meet in A Christmas Carol. Moreover, by giving away a substantial portion of his accumulated fortune, he drastically reduced his ability to do even more good in the world.
Scrooge was a “man of business” and evidently a shrewd and successful one. Although Dickens fails to tell us exactly what line of business Scrooge is in, a typical 19th-century “man of business” could be expected to involve himself in many endeavors — what investment advisers today refer to as diversifying one’s risk. One can infer from A Christmas Carol that Scrooge was a financier, who lent money to both businesses and individuals. He also spent long hours at the Exchange, probably speculating on commodities, buying and selling government debt, and purchasing and selling shares in various joint stock companies.
We can also infer some things about Scrooge that Dickens does not tell us directly. He left boarding school early, supposedly because his father had a change of heart toward him and wanted him home. A lack of finances may also have had something to do with it, as Scrooge’s formal education ended early and he was apprenticed as a low-level clerk to a tradesman — Mr. Fezziwig. From this low start, Scrooge exhibited a relentless drive that eventually made him rich. Along the way, his business had to survive the Napoleonic Wars, adapt to the Industrial Revolution, and fight its way through several severe economic depressions. In fact, in the year A Christmas Carol was written (1843), Britain was just coming out of a five-year economic slowdown in which only the most nimble and carefully managed enterprises survived. During Scrooge’s business life, upwards of 100 businesses failed for every one that succeeded. Scrooge must have been a very good businessman indeed.
There is no hint that, as Scrooge went about making his fortune, he was ever tainted with any scandal. He appears to be a well-respected, if not overly liked, member of the Exchange. This speaks well for his probity and recommends him as man with a reputation for fair and honest dealing with other businessmen. He probably drove a hard bargain, but that is the nature of business, and his firm’s survival as a going concern depended on it. As Scrooge is trying to keep his doors open in the midst of a great economic downturn, one should not be surprised that he is cutting firm expenses by reducing coal usage. Still, he is not being overly stingy by paying his clerk, Bob Cratchit, 15 shillings a week. According to British Historical Statistics, 15 shillings a week was about the average for a clerk at the time, and nearly double what a general laborer earned. While Cratchit may have to skimp to make ends meet, he is paid enough to own a house and provide for a rather large family. Cratchit is not rich, but by the standards of the time he is doing well. Besides, given the hard economic times, he is lucky to have any job at all. If Scrooge had not been careful with his money, his firm would have folded, and then where would Cratchit be? We may of course also infer something about Cratchit that goes unstated in Dickens’s work. His inability over perhaps two decades to advance himself or secure a better position with a more benevolent boss betrays a singular lack of ambition on his part.
I am afraid this misses the point of what happened to Ebenezer Scrooge. It is not so much that Scrooge gave up business for a "life of philanthropy," nor is A Christmas Carol any judgment or lack thereof on business acumen. The point of the story is that Scrooge's wounded soul was shriveling up due to his self-preoccupation. He needed visits from "spirits" to learn that the source of pleasure is giving not accumulating.
Socialists turn A Christmas Carol into a morality tale about enforced charity and secular capitalists into the above. The real story lies elsewhere and has little to do with economic systems. The voluntary surrender of the heart in giving not only redeems Scrooge but makes the world a better place.
You know, if "The Onion" did a parody of a National Review column defending even celebrating Scrooge...the Right would call it insulting and an outrageous smear.
Jim, I sincerely hope you're joking, but even if you are, you do conservatism and the free market no favors with such an absurd apologia.
Never mind the explicit warning of the ghost of Jacob Marley, it's clear that Ebenezer Scrooge was, at the beginning of the story, a thoroughly miserable man who brought no joy to anyone directly in his path.
One can be a productive member of society, greatly increasing society's wealth through his capital investment, without becoming a slave to that drive for productivity. One can be a good businessman AND a good man -- a generous man who acts in sympathy of those around him.
Your suggestion that Scrooge's later altruism "undoubtedly" cost society dearly feeds into the perverse materialist stereotype of free-market advocates. Scrooge wasn't just a cog in a wealth-producing machine, he was a human being with moral responsibilities.
Let's be honest: your problem isn't merely with the (fictional) story of one 19th-century Englishman who became more generous, it's with the historical Christ who taught us to be generous, who warned us that we will be judged by whether we act to help those in need.
Merry Christmas indeed: an essay decrying the wastefulness of altruism and generosity is quite fitting for the season.
And have a very Confiscatory Christmas from the land of "I will take yours because I can't be bothered to provide for myself-let alone depend upon the God of the Bible to direct my ways".
Because, after all, giving a man a fish is much more beneficial than teaching him to fish, providing a boat, nets, boots, hat, and sails, building a cannery to preserve the fish, building rails and highways, and trucks and rolling inventory. . . .
No, let's tell the poor to sit at home watching TV and give them fish because work leads to materialism and isn't as nice as handing out welfare.
You've missed the point. Scrooge is a socialist's(make no mistake, Dickens was a socialist) caricature of a businessman. The reality was a lot more interesting.
I hope that any Republican candidate will have the good sense NOT to say anything like this in the coming campaign, no matter how defensible the notion might be. I can just see the the headlines now...
Agree with the above. How does the author describe his character, for surely the author controls the story?
"Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"
But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge."
Scrooge is not likable and he clearly takes advantage of others for his own benefit. He is covetous, that is he desires what others have, not so that he may have it, but that they shall not. No, this apology for Scrooge won't do.
In the end Scrooge comes to Christ and that, of course, is the reason for the season.
1: 15 shillings a week was the wage for a skilled laborer. 39 pounds a week was a decent wage but short of lower middle class starting around 100 pounds a year. Not sure why Cratchit did not go job hunting as he could of probably at least tripled his salary as a senior clerk, hee hee.
2: Dickens did not have much patience with useless "do gooders". Mrs Jellyby was spending all her time and driving her household into bankruptcy with her African projects. I would think he would classify the Occupiers more as modern day Jellybys.
3: Dickens did have an appreciation for the abundance the era was bringing. Look at the Ghost of Christmas Present.
4: One thing to keep in mind Dickens was fighting against the extreme forms of utilitarianism and Benthamism of the time. They looked at interaction between people as being purely economic, the cash nexus. Scrooge's misery is due to him looking at all human interaction as just being in the cash nexus.
5:Look at the ending of the tale. Did Scrooge abandon his business? No he was back at work. Another character I can refer to is John Jarndyce who is wealthy but Dickens makes him a very sympathetic figure because he tries to use his wealth to help other people. There is the minor character Mr Robert Rouncewell who went from the son of a housekeeper to a prosperous industrialist.
Jim just doesn't get it! The 1% is spending its money on itself. The 99%s want the rules changed so they will have a chance to earn some of the GDP for themselves; they don't want the 1% to give it away to anybody.
Just read from other98.com that the bonuses of just 6 financial companies could create 3,500,000 jobs with benefits. That could be an exaggeration. Maybe it's just 2,500,000 jobs . And that's just their bonuses, not their salaries.
Great column that points out the many ways a climate of freedom can help man help himself.
The only One with pure motives to help others died on the cross, the rest of us can only strive for that level of kindness with whatever traits we are blessed with.
This is a splendid piece. Dickens was a dreadful pinko, constantly whining about the "1 percent" of his time. Jane Austen is a much better moral exemplar, and was a fine Lord Liverpool Conservative. However Scrooge is an excellent moral creation -- as you say one of the founders of the modern world, and a far more moral figure than the moocher Cratchits.
Dickens' leftist morality represented a turning away from the Conservatism that had built British political and economic greatness, and was recognized as such by his contemporaries -- Trollope (himself a moderate liberal) gave a nice portrait of him as "Mr Popular Sentiment" in "The Warden." Dickens was also a thoroughly unpleasant man, by all accounts.
A full-throated takedown of a Christmas Carol?
Wow, I could imagine seeing this at Reason, but NRO?
When rich men advance their business, they help people, but I would hope that Jim Lacey would pull his head out of Ayn Rand long enough to realize that altruism is the glue that holds society together. Helping one's neighbor and generally showing concern for one's fellow man is part and parcel of being a free Republic.
Weren't you expecting a disclaimer at the end announcing this was a satire? I was. Unfortunately, I think this is now the mind-set of the 21st Century Right...i.e. pre-Ghosts Scrooge was the "good guy". Next up, perhaps we learn that General Jack Ripper from "Dr Strangelove" was a military genius?
Ah, but Rand explicitly stated that there was nothing wrong with donating to charity if one chooses. It is the seizing of assets by a "benevolent" government for redistribution that she, and I, abhor. Don't forget that studies have shown that "greedy" conservatives donate a much larger percentage of their income than their "caring" liberal brethren, and that without free market capitalism, there would be no wealth to either seize or donate. I don't imagine that there is much charitable giving within North Korea.
I was listening to an ebook of The Christmas Carol just yesterday and having many of these same thoughts. While everyone else was out dancing and having a good time, Scrooge was working. And yet he was deemed "evil" for his earnings.
Now, are there lessons to learn about giving that 10 percent? Of course! But I've also wondered - what was the tax rate on a man like Scrooge?
See, I don't feel very altruistic this year. My husband hasn't had a decent raise in years. My business is down because of the economy. And all I hear is whining about $40 pizza nights, unemployment benefits past 99 weeks ... everyone wants more, more, more of my money in taxes.
This year, all of my 10 percent went to wounded veterans. Enough with the OWS-y whiners who don't appreciate people who work. Scrooge had his virtues.
Scrooge wasn't deemed evil for his earnings, as his nephew wasn't exactly poor, either.
He was lost because of his ungenerous spirit regarding what he earned.
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"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"
"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
--
You don't really object to this do you, that our business is charity and benevolence, much more than it is adding to the nation's GDP?
There are Leftists who invoke charity and generosity to justify confiscatory tax rates to fund an ever-growing welfare state. Let's not accept their premise that there's an inherent connection between the two: let us not reject the virtue of charity as we object to the Left's socialist agenda.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
I don't think Lacey objects to charity, nor do I, as long as we understand that being "charitable" with other people's money is not a virtue but the greatest of vices. And I certainly agree that we should be charitable to others to the degree we decide (we, not the government) that we can afford it. But Lacey was correct to point out that from the standpoint of social utility (not necessarily a good moral/ethical standard), wealth used as capital, supported by productive effort, will do more for society than any amount of charity.
Yes, Scrooge should have given money to charity. But should he have given away every penny he had, neglecting his own needs (and those of a hypothetical family), going out of business, decreasing the amount of total wealth that would have existed years hence had he remained in business, and increased general unemployment?
Or try this simple thought experiment: pick out any poor African nation you wish. Which would benefit its people more, a charitable gift of, say, $10 billion, or the establishment there of capitalism and property rights? There will always be those who need and deserve charity, and we should give to them, but society as a whole benefits more from free market capitalism than anything else.
