IAIN DUNCAN SCROOGE The more I hear from IDS, and witness his draconian welfare reforms, the more I am convinced that he is enthralled with the ghosts of Rev. Malthus and Ricardo. In A Christmas Carol, Dickens expounded a critique of the Classical Liberal Economics those two founded. Ebenezer Scrooge epitomized the personification of those two theories. He was an avaricious business financier/ money-lender who engrossed earnings from loans, profits and rents. Dickens expanded the pursuance of this financial life style, the sole pursuit of ever more money to the exclusion of all else, to its extreme in Scrooge. The accumulation of wealth did not bring him happiness – quite the opposite, he became ever more miserable. Indeed, he was completely self-insulated, isolated even, to the merriment or suffering of others. He was an extra-aloof individual, who had no attachment to his fellow beings, only in business and at his office. On the tenth anniversary of his partner’s death, Scrooge experienced an epiphany. He was visited by the ghost of his partner, Marley. Marley showed Scrooge the chain that he had forged during life. He told Scrooge that his own had been a similar weight when Marley had died. And how after his death, his own benign spirit would carry a more prodigious chain, with a clutter of safes and cash boxes. Scrooge, he moaned, had, “laboured on it,” with such a dedicated ambition. Marley was condemned to wander the invisible world of the spirits, and, like many thousand of benighted spirits, bemoaned how he could no longer affect the lives of his fellow man to the better. Conversely, while alive, he had pursued rather the reverse in their fortunes. Scrooge observed that Marley had always been good at business. Marley retorted, “business, mankind should have been my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!.” Scrooge’s salvation lay in the visitation of three spirit for his reclamation. The first spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Past, his past, revealed how Scrooge had grown from an idealistic youth, not afraid of life, into a cynical miser, fearful of living. Along the way he had lost all that he had once held most dear - his beloved sister, Fran, and his much love fiancee Alice. Some as a consequence of his worship of Mammon, while others through his own indifference to personal human relationships. The second spirit, The Ghost of Christmas Present, showed the lives of people who made merry at Christmas despite their poverty, and who endeavoured to spread the spirit of the season to others. When Scrooge enquired if the crippled son of his employee, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim would live, the Ghost threw back words that Scrooge himself had said, “If he be like to die, he had better do it and decrease the surplus population.” (reference to Malthus). The Ghost finished with, “Man, said the Ghost, if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die?” Just prior to the Ghost departure, Scrooge espied something beneath the spirit’s cloak. The ghost revealed two destitute children, clinging to him for warmth. After Scrooge had inquired if there were no refuges where they could gain succour, the Ghost gave a second rendition of what Scrooge had previously said, “Are not the Poor Laws in full vigour .... Are there no prisons .... Are there no workhouses?” The Spirit then pointed to the wretches and warned Scrooge that they were, “Ignorance and want.” Proclaiming that they were not his but abandoned children of man, and should be feared – especially ignorance – for they haunt men of business every waking hour, though they ignore their lot at their own peril. The Final spirit, an awesome spectre, most fearful to Scrooge, showed him that all of his worldly endeavours came to nought at his death. All his earthly wealth did not prevent him from dying alone, gasping his last fretful words to empty ears. His death bed was only visited by those who came to rob his cadaver of its funereal garb, the death bed of its sheets and blankets, even the bed curtains, rings and all. Even the personal possessions within the house where pilfered. When he awoke, and realised he had survived the night, Scrooge swore he would be a different man. He would keep Christmas well, not only on that day but every day of the year. He mended his ways too, allowing his wealth creation to benefit humanity beyond his own needs. Merry Christmas to all .... and as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless us, every one ....
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 11:40:45 +0000