I often get into arguments with people I know when I hear them make some flippant remark, using "capitalism" like it's a bad word. The attitude being that when a person acts in his own self interest, it's inherent that he will screw over everyone around him.
What a stupid and simplistic concept.
Whenever I point out that the simple act of coming to work each day, cashing their paycheque and wondering what to get the grandkids for Christmas, are all luxuries afforded by the avails of capitalism -- and that they are actively participating in it -- they insist either that it's not (?) or that they are the exception to the general rule of the corporate money-grubber caricature they have been groomed to revile.
What hubris it is, to think that only they may be virtuous and selfless, while working toward raises and bonuses, or seeking the best price for goods, but the rest of us -- those of us who actually admit to being capitalists -- are of the greedy sheister variety. Yet, they are not confused by the contradiction...
As for Scrooge, how does this peculiar man — “solitary as an oyster” — represent an indictment of capitalism except for those who continue to embrace the nonsense notion that commercial society eradicates goodwill?
[..]
Would the world have been better without Scrooge? Did he force people to do business with him? Was Bob Cratchit not free to find better employment elsewhere? And if no such employment was available, was that Scrooge’s fault? Scrooge’s “conversion” is also problematic. Once Marley’s spectre has shown Scrooge what the afterlife looks like for the uncharitable, is there any need for the three Christmas ghosts? Scrooge has been “scared good” the old Christian way. With fear of eternal damnation.
Dickens’ portrait was in fact a caricature in his own time, when industrialists and businessmen were emerging as the greatest benefactors in history, but he wrote during an economic downturn that provided fertile ground for another much scarier horror story, The Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels were concerned with the grime of Manchester rather than “The palpable brown air” of London, but their “plot” provided a blueprint for mass murder. And yet we still prefer to bash Scrooge, no matter how great the success of capitalism in lifting billions out of poverty and providing them with an increasingly stunning array of options. Indeed, does nobody notice the irony that capitalism has unleashed the consumerist cornucopia and charitable sentiments that were A Christmas Carol’s ideal?
As for the modern businesses, far from embracing Scrooge-ian attitudes, they positively slather themselves in the humbug of “corporate social responsibility. Indeed, the financial crisis was rooted not in the spirit of Scrooge but in the reverse: in the desire by strong-arming politicians to make sure that the Bob Cratchits of the world — particularly the ethnic minority Bob Cratchits (who, as opposed to in 1843, now have the vote) — be given loans they couldn’t afford so that they might achieve the dream of home ownership.
I like to twit people by telling them that "A Christmas Carol" is the story of a good man gone bad!
Posted by: Proof | December 23, 2009 at 12:16 PM
What I call the Religion of Liberalism----which embraces socialism, Marxism, fascism, and all collectivist "isms" in general---is a faith-based belief system to which its adherents cling as devoutly as that of any recognizable theological belief system.
Most Americans (and I'm pretty sure this applies to most or all other countries) who criticize capitalism do so out of ignorance or envy.
Many live their lives as political conservatives and capitalists without even reflecting on it, while others hold "pity parties" in which they grow green with envy at those who have more than they do (regardless of how they acquired their wealth or possessions).
What really gets my goat are the ones who have been enriched by criticizing the same free market system that has in turn made them wealthy. Obama, Michael Moore, and Barbra Streisand come instantly to mind.
This should come as no surprise, as the government school systems and dominant media the world over have been indoctrinating people with collectivist nonsense for many decades. Further, the rapacious greed exhibited by many "crony capitalists" has done much to discredit them and lowered the general public's view of the market system.
Posted by: Monnie | December 24, 2009 at 02:49 PM