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I'm re-reading A Christmas Carol to test this, but the thing is, I don't think Marley and Scrooge are even good businessmen. I don't think a single point of this editorial is actually supported by the text. https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1342203193451798528
The *idea* behind the WSJ editorial is that Marley and Scrooge created wealth that enabled people to build railroads and factories that raised the standard of living for the nation and the world, but I don't see any indication in the text they invested in those things.
I'm re-reading because this is one of the most adapted works in the English language and so it's hard to separate my memories of the adaptations from the texts, but the impression I have is that Scrooge's main business is the equivalent of sub-prime mortgages.
Lending money at usurious rates to people who can't possibly hope to pay you back destroys wealth rather than creates it, while in the short to mid term causing it to further accumulate in the hands of the few.
We can get an idea of Scrooge's business sense and how his business dealings impact the working class in how he treats his sole employee: paying him a starvation wage.
In some adaptations at least, Scrooge is the holder of the mortgage on the Cratchit house, which means the money he pays to Cratchit largely comes back to him. He's getting close to free labor from a man who is bound to the company store.
When the Ghost of Christmas Past upbraids Scrooge for how little it cost Scrooge's old employer Fezziwig to put on a Christmas party for his company, Scrooge goes the ghost one better and lectures them on how much of being a good boss is free.
Scrooge literally sits there and lectures the ghost who is lecturing him on how unimportant the Christmas expenditure is compared to Fezziwig making his employees feel appreciated year-round, which he points out costs nothing but is more valuable than the party.
Now, do we think that Bob Cratchit, working in a tiny room described as a freezing cell, always hungry and cold and completely unappreciated by his employer, is one shilling more productive than a happy and well-nourished and rested clerk would have been?
Scrooge's argument with his nephew over the value of Christmas includes Fred saying that Christmas hasn't put a scrap of silver in his pocket but it's still done him good.
Scrooge's habits, that I can tell, do him neither. He is miserable.
Scrooge's habits, that I can tell, do him neither. He is miserable.
And while he's "rich", he lives in a tiny dismal, rundown apartment in a building he mostly rents out for office space, eating gruel. We don't know how profitable the firm of Marley and Scrooge is, just that its expenses (and those of its remaining owner) are low.
Yeah. In many ways, Scrooge's whole business model is an anachronism that would have caused him to be left behind in the new world that the WSJ wants to credit him with creating. https://twitter.com/Frank_McG/status/1342565185194778625
I'm very sorry to say that Bob Cratchit very likely stuck with Scrooge out of a sense of loyalty and goodwill to him. Which was ultimately rewarded in the story, after Scrooge's change of heart.
I don't think Marely or Scrooge were good businessmen. I think they were cheap and greedy and had enough capital to leverage those qualities in order to stay afloat. I don't see how they created wealth or opportunities for others.
Fezziwig at least was a job creator.
Fezziwig at least was a job creator.
Yes, the description of Scrooge's solitude in the opening is very strikingly at odds with the image of a person who is "good at business". Who's he doing business with? It seems only those desperate enough to have no other recourse. https://twitter.com/tmdoyle2/status/1342568471016726531
He no more creates wealth and opportunity than a predatory payday lender does.
You could criticize A Christmas Carol as a capitalist critique by saying that Ebenezer Scrooge is an unrealistic strawman of a capitalist *because* he is miserable and wallows in misery in ways that aren't even profitable for him.
But the thing is, qualities like keeping his employee miserable and lending money in ways that ruin rather than aid his borrowers... that mean-spirited short-sightedness... is abundantly on display in modern business.
Nowadays it's done in the name of Growth rather than Thrift, but it's the same impulse.
If we accept the text as true within itself -- and the WSJ's quibble with Dickens isn't that he got the events wrong, only their meaning -- then Scrooge doesn't go broke when he starts paying Cratchit more and treating him better.
And again, Scrooge himself within the text is the one who realizes it doesn't cost an employer anything to regard their employees kindly, and it makes the employees' lives better for nothing.
We know that Marley died with money and that he left it to Scrooge. When Scrooge dies, one imagines his money would have gone to Fred, who at least would have enjoyed it. There's no indication in the source that they enriched society materially with all their thrift.
To make a long story short (TOO LATE!), the premise of the WSJ editorial is at best not supported by the text and arguably directly contradicted by it. Scrooge's wealth was hoarded for its own sake, not invested. He was more a slumlord than a captain of industry.
