>Steve:
>>  Now that is funny since Hayek was an Austrian and most
>>  "conservatives" in the U.S. would not like his "libertarian" message.
>
>I don't know what you mean by libertarian message at all. What was this
>libertarian message you are suggesting that he is making?
>
>Hayek lived and worked extensively in England during the time in which
>Keynes's economic policies were implied to bring the world out of the worst
>economic depression in many decades.
>
>Unfortunately for Hayek his theories were not appreciated at the time. He
>eventually returned to Germany. His mentor at one time was Ludvig von Mises.
>In general Hayek's theories have had a significant impact in land economics,
>theory of rents, and so on.
>

. . . and from Michael Levin c/o the von Mises Institute.  fyi and fwiw.
jt


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Status: U
X-Priority: 3
Date:         Wed, 26 Dec 2001 11:09:36 -0000
Reply-To: srlclark <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Philosophy in Europe <[log in to unmask]>
From: srlclark <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Scrooge Defended
Comments: To: philos-l <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]

And a Happy Christmas to all.

From:
<http://www.mises.org/fullarticle.asp?control=110&month=3&title=Scrooge+Defe
nded&id=3>



Scrooge Defended

by Michael Levin

It's Christmas again, time to celebrate the transformation of Ebenezer
Scrooge. You know the ritual: boo the curmudgeon initially encountered in
Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, then cheer the sweetie pie he becomes
in the end. It's too bad no one notices that the curmudgeon had a
point—quite a few points, in fact.

To appreciate them, it is necessary first to distinguish Scrooge's outlook
on life from his disagreeable persona. He is said to have a pointed nose
and a harsh voice, but not all hardheaded businessmen are so lamentably
endowed, nor are their feckless nephews (remember Fred?) alwavs "ruddy and
handsome," and possessed of pretty wives. These touches of the
storyteller's art only bias the issue.

So let's look without preconceptions at Scrooge's allegedly underpaid
clerk, Bob Cratchit. The fact is, if Cratchit's skills were worth more to
anyone than the fifteen shillings Scrooge pays him weekly, there would be
someone glad to offer it to him. Since no one has, and since Cratchit's
profit-maximizing boss is hardly a man to pay for nothing, Cratchit must be
worth exactly his present wages.

No doubt Cratchit needs—i.e., wants—more, to support his family and care
for Tiny Tim. But Scrooge did not force Cratchit to father children he is
having difficulty supporting. If Cratchit had children while suspecting he
would be unable to afford them, he, not Scrooge, is responsible for their
plight. And if Cratchit didn't know how expensive they would be, why must
Scrooge assume the burden of Cratchit's misjudgment?

As for that one lump of coal Scrooge allows him, it bears emphasis that
Cratchit has not been chained to his chilly desk. If he stays there, he
shows by his behavior that he prefers his present wages-plus-comfort
package to any other he has found, or supposes himself likely to find.
Actions speak louder than grumbling, and the reader can hardly complain
about what Cratchit evidently finds satisfactory.

More notorious even than his miserly ways are Scrooge's cynical words. "Are
there no prisons," he jibes when solicited for charity, "and the Union
workhouses?"

Terrible, right? Lacking in compassion?

Not necessarily. As Scrooge observes, he supports those institutions with
his taxes. Already forced to help those who can't or won't help themselves,
it is not unreasonable for him to balk at volunteering additional funds for
their extra comfort.

Scrooge is skeptical that many would prefer death to the workhouse, and he
is unmoved by talk of the workhouse's cheerlessness. He is right to be
unmoved, for society's provisions for the poor must be, well, Dickensian.
The more pleasant the alternatives to gainful employment, the greater will
be the number of people who seek these alternatives, and the fewer there
will be who engage in productive labor. If society expects anyone to work,
work had better be a lot more attractive than idleness.

The normally taciturn Scrooge lets himself go a bit when Cratchit hints
that he would like a paid Christmas holiday. "It's not fair," Scrooge
objects, a charge not met by Cratchet's patently irrelevant protest that
Christmas comes but once a year. Unfair it is, for Cratchit would doubtless
object to a request for a day's uncompensated labor, "and yet," as Scrooge
shrewdly points out, "you don't think me ill used when I pay a day's wages
for no work."

Cratchit has apparently forgotten the golden rule. (Or is it that Scrooge
has so much more than Cratchit that the golden rule does not come into
play? But Scrooge doesn't think he has that much, and shouldn't he have a
say in the matter?)

Scrooge's first employer, good old Fezziwig, was a lot freer with a
guinea—he throws his employees a Christmas party. What the Ghost of
Christmas Past does not explain is how Fezziwig afforded it. Did he attempt
to pass the added costs to his customers? Or did young Scrooge pay for it
anyway by working for marginally lower wages?

The biggest of the Big Lies about Scrooge is the pointlessness of his
pursuit of money. "Wealth is of no use to him. He doesn't do any good with
it," opines ruddy nephew Fred.

Wrong on both counts. Scrooge apparently lends money, and to discover the
good he does one need only inquire of the borrowers. Here is a homeowner
with a new roof, and there a merchant able to finance a shipment of tea,
bringing profit to himself and happiness to tea drinkers, all thanks to
Scrooge.

Dickens doesn't mention Scrooge's satisfied customers, but there must have
been plenty of them for Scrooge to have gotten so rich.

Scrooge is said to hound debtors so relentlessly that—as the Ghost of
Christmas Yet To Be is able to show him—an indebted couple rejoices at his
demise. The mere delay while their debt is transferred will avert the ruin
Scrooge would have imposed.

This canard is triply absurd. First, a businessman as keen as Scrooge would
prefer to delay payment to protect his investment rather than take
possession of possibly useless collateral. (No bank wants developers to
fail and leave it the proud possessor of a half-built shopping mall.)
Second, the fretful couple knew and agreed to the terms on which Scrooge
insisted. By reneging on the deal, they are effectively engaged in theft.
Third, most important, and completely overlooked by Ghost and by Dickens,
there are hopefuls whose own plans turn on borrowing the money returned to
Scrooge from his old accounts. Scrooge can't relend what Caroline and her
unnamed husband don't pay up, and he won't make a penny unless he puts the
money to use after he gets it back.

The hard case, of course, is a payment due from Bob Cratchit, who needs the
money for an emergency operation on Tiny Tim. (Here I depart from the text,
but Dickens characters are so familiar to us they can be pressed into
unfamiliar roles.) If you think it is heartless of Scrooge to demand
payment, think of Sickly Sid, who needs an operation even more urgently
than Tim does, and whose father is waiting to finance that operation by
borrowing the money Cratchit is expected to pay up.

Is Tim's life more valuable than Sid's just because we've met him? And how
do we explain to Sid's father that his son won't be able to have the
operation after all, because Scrooge, as Christmas generosity, is allowing
Cratchit to reschedule his debt? Scrooge does not circulate money from
altruism, to be sure, but his motives, whatever they are, are congruent
with the public good.

But what about those motives? Scrooge doesn't seem to get much satisfaction
from the services he may inadvertently perform, and that seems to be part
of Dickens's point. But who, apart from Dickens, says that Scrooge is not
enjoying himself? He spends all his time at his business, likes to count
his money, and has no outside interests.

At the same time, Scrooge is not given to brooding and shows absolutely no
sign of depression or conflict. Whether he wished to or not, Dickens has
made Scrooge by far the most intelligent character in his fable, and
Dickens credits his creation with having nothing "fancy" about him. So we
conclude that, in his undemonstrative way, Scrooge is productive and
satisfied with his lot, which is to say happy.

There can be no arguing with Dickens's wish to show the spiritual
advantages of love. But there was no need to make the object of his lesson
an entrepreneur whose ideas and practices benefit his employees, society at
large, and himself. Must such a man expect no fairer a fate than to die
scorned and alone? Bah, I say. Humbug.

* * * * *

Michael Levin is professor of philosophy at the City University of New
York.

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