The Case for Ebeneezer

8/8/2019 The Case for Ebeneezer

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The Case for Ebeneezer

Butler ShafferLewRockwell.com

December 25, 2010

My interest in Charles DickensA Christmas Carolbegan one Christmas eve when, as a small

child, my parents turned on network radio to listen to what, even then, had become a classicChristmas eve festivity:Lionel Barrymores presentation of the Dickens story.

Radio was a medium that required the imagination to paint scenes far more colorful, and toconcoct monsters far scarier, than anything motion pictures or television have ever been able to

present. With radio, the listener was the stage designer, costumer, and location director.

In later years, I watchedAlistair Sims movie version of the story the best of all the movie

treatments, in my view. The films special effects portrayal of Marley was nowhere as hideousand frightening as the one I had created in my mind while listening to the radio. Listening to

Marleys chains being dragged up a darkened staircase elicited a stark terror that far exceededthe scene I saw in the movie.

As I became older, I decided that Mr. Dickens had given Ebeneezer Scrooge an undeservedreputation for villainy, placing him in such company as Uriah Heep, Iago, Dr. Moriarty, orSnidely Whiplash, to name but a few. It is my purpose, in making this holiday defense of my

client, to present to you a different interpretation of the story, that you will see the villainy not inmy clients character, but in Charles Dickens miscasting of the true heroes of the time of which

he wrote, namely, the industrialists and financiers who created that most liberating epoch inhuman history: the industrial revolution.


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Lest there be any readers who need reminding of the virtues of this period, let me quote from thateminent English historian, T.S. Ashton, who wrote of the impoverished conditions of England

and other nations prior to the industrial revolution. As he expressed it, [t]he central problem ofthe age was how to feed and clothe and employ generations of children outnumbering by far

those of any earlier time. England, he went on, was delivered, not by her rulers, but by those

who, seeking no doubt their own narrow ends, had the wit and resources to devise newinstruments of production and new methods of administering industry. There are today on theplains of India and China men and women, plague-ridden and hungry, living lives little better, to

outward appearance, than those of the cattle that toil with them by day and share their places ofsleep by night. Such Asiatic standards, and such unmechanized horrors, are the lot of those who

increase their numbers without passing through an industrial revolution.

It is out of profound respect for those whose pursuits of their selfish interests have done far moreto better the lives of others than have the combined efforts of all the self-styled altruists, saints,

social workers, politicians, and other mischievous beings, that I have undertaken this defense ofone of the most maligned financiers of this humanizing epoch. As you read my defense of

Scrooge, and make a comparative judgment of my client and his accuser, Charles Dickens, I askyou to keep in mind the warnings of another 19th-century writer, Anatole France, who observed:

Those who have given themselves the most concern about the happiness of peoples have madetheir neighbours very miserable.

May it please the Court. . . and frankly, even if it doesnt please the Court.

I find myself, once again, in the company of people like Clarence Darrow, who observed thatthere are those who run with the hunters, and those who run with the hunted. In representing

my client, Ebeneezer Scrooge, I am running with the hunted.

Over the years, we have witnessed a thoroughly one-sided treatment of my client at the hands ofthe prosecution, as represented by Charles Dickens. On the basis of emotionally-riddled

allegations, coupled with pure economic ignorance, we have been asked to find Mr. Scroogeguilty of the most ill-defined wrongdoings. Most of us have been dissuaded from even

imagining the possibility of a defense for a man like Scrooge. Indeed, I suspect that manyreading this brief are doing so under the impression that this is nothing more than a joke or, at

best, a humorous proceeding designed to satisfy your legalistic fancies about due process, sothat you may proceed to hang my client with a clear conscience on your part.

In this day ofAshcroftian logic, wherein dissent is regarded as evidence of criminal conspiracy,some of you might be inclined to take a front-row seat alongside another Dickens character and

precursor to FoxNews commentators the irrepressible Madame LeFarge, to demand Scroogesswift punishment, lest the accused slip through the net on the legal technicality that he was not

guilty as charged! Not unlike the allegations in a child abuse case, many may be inclined torespond: what kind of defense couldbe made of a man like that? What would you expect

someone who had done such a horrible deed to say?


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To even mount a defense on behalf of my client is to risk the disapprobation of all thoseburdened by the sentiments of political correctness. This is the age of tabloid thinking, which

presumes that if allegations rise to a sufficient level of heinousness, no defense is conceivable,not even the defense of innocentof the charges alleged. Some might even say that the more

atrocious the allegations leveled at another, the less evidence that is necessary to sustain the

charges, and thegreaterthe burden upon the defendant to refute and disprove such charges.

What is the bill of particulars with which my client is charged? Pay close attention to Mr.

Dickens allegations. His case comes down to just two points: [1] my client has managed tobecome very rich, and, [2] he insists on keeping his money for himself. Thats it!That is the

essence of his alleged wrongdoing.

Knowing that the facts of this case support no more wrongdoing against my client than his beingself-interest motivated, Mr. Dickens resorts to a subtle form of vilification by giving my client a

pejorative name in an effort to win you over to the prosecution side by your expected revulsionat the sound of his name:

S-C-R-O-O-G-E !Though I hope that you are sophisticated enough to resist such an apparent adhominem attack against people of wealth, such has not been the response of most men and

women. Like Ayn Rands sniveling bureaucrat, Wesley Mouch, the name Ebeneezer Scroogeis designed to evoke prejudice and animosity in the mind of the reader, so that people will be

predisposed to support any case against the man, no matter how ill-founded.

Even Ebeneezers politically-correct nephew is blessed with a name from the maternalside ofScrooges family. Dickens certainly had more neutral or wholesome names from which to have

chosen for my client. David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Mr. Macawber come immediatelyto mind. Even the character Fezziwig conjures up a joviality and good-natured spirit in the minds

of those who had never read the story. Can you imagine my client with the name Sidney Carten,going off to work each day expressing the thought tis a far, far better thing that I do today?

Can you imagine such words coming from the pen of Charles Dickens and crossing the lips ofmy client as he goes about his business of lending money to those whose productive dreams will

help to enhance the well-being of tens of thousands of total strangers?

Just as a defendant is told that he must take his plaintiff as he finds him, a lawyer must take hisclient as he finds him. And so I proceed to the merits if, indeed, such exist of the case against

Ebeneezer Scrooge. While a general demurrer should have disposed of this bogus and maliciousaction in swift fashion at the outset, such was apparently not done in a timely manner by my

predecessor, and I am now compelled to go forward on the facts and their legal significance of this case.

Taking my client as the miserable fellow Dickens has presented him, let me be the first to admitthat if Ebeneezers obsession with materialistic pursuits rendered him an unhappy person, and

were it the purposes of his detractors to help extricate him from his self-imposed miseries and torestore him to that state of happiness and innocence so common to most of us in our childhood

years, no one would be happier than I. But it is not my clients happiness that the prosecutionendeavors to obtain, but his money.The case against Ebeneezer Scrooge is nothing more than a


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well-orchestrated, vicious conspiracy to extort from my client as much of his money as can beacquired through terror, threats of his death, and other appeals tofear.The only happiness that

ensued to my client from this campaign arose from the ultimate cessation of terror inflicted uponhim. Like the victim of any crime, the termination of wrongdoing offers a momentary relief that

can be mistaken for pleasure, but it is an illusion. Such is the only happiness that Mr. Dickens

has in mind for my client.

Make no mistake about it: my client has been the victim of a cruel criminal conspiracy to extort

his money, as well as of such torts as intentional infliction of emotional distress, libel andslander, trespass, assault, malicious prosecution, battery, nuisance, and false imprisonment. To

that end, my client may elect to bring his own suit, but for now let us focus upon his defense tothis action. As we do so, pay particular attention to the uttercontradiction underlying Dickens

case: my client is charged with being a greedy, money-hungry scoundrel, and yet it is theconspirators against him who want nothing more than his money! Scrooge unlike his

antagonists earnedhis money in the marketplace by satisfying the demands of customers andclients who continue to do business with him, and did not, as far as we are told, resort to terror or

threats of death to get it. Perhaps Dickens does no more, here, than engage in psychologicalprojection. In doing so, he reminds us of the definition of a selfish person as one who puts his

greedy interests ahead of mine!

It is instructive that Dickens tells us virtually nothing about the nature of Ebeneezers business.We know that he is something of a banker or financier, but we are told nothing about the nature

of his investments. Even if he has not been a creative entrepreneur himself, he has, presumably,been responsible for financing many successful enterprises, which have not only benefited the

rest of the community in terms of goods and services they provide, but afford employment tocountless individuals, including Bob Cratchett. For all that we know and it would seem to be

beneath Dickens sensibilities to ask such a question or care about the answer Scrooge mayhave provided capital for researchers seeking a cure for the very ailment from which Tiny Tim

suffers. We know that, at the very least, by managing to stay in the lending business these manyyears, and accumulating handsome earnings in the process, Scrooges decision-making has been

beneficial to others. All of this goes unmentioned by Comrade Dickens, who prefers to focusupon the fact that Scrooge has actuallyprofitedfrom these many benefits that his sound business

decision-making has indirectly bestowed upon his neighbors.

If we are to understand the essence of the case against my client, we must inquire into the nature

of the collectivist thinking that produced it. In matters of economics, such people believe thatwealth is simply a given, something that has come into existence in very mysterious ways, and in

a fixed amount that has somehow managed to get into the hands of a few people throughpresumed and unspecified acts of dishonesty, exploitation, and unscrupulousness. Dickens

expresses the dreary sentiment of original sin an idea central to all collectivist thinking which presumes individual self-interest to be a source of social misery rather than the fount of

human well-being. That the pursuit of private selfishness can generate good for others evenwhen doing so was not the purpose of the actor was far too complicated a concept for Dickens

simplistic, fragmented mind. But to all collectivists, including Dickens, the idea that more wealthcould be created never manages to invade their imaginations.


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Charles Dickens writing at the peak of the industrial revolution missed this essential featureof the period. To those who view wealth in such a limited way, the only question becomes how

is this fixed body of wealth to be most fairly redistributed? The question of how can morewealth be created? and what conditions would be necessary for accomplishing such ends

never enters their minds, for the pursuit of such conditions would utterly destroy all socialist

systems.T

he beneficiaries of such redistribution are looked upon as passive and dependentrecipients of other peoples decision-making. In this connection, Bob Cratchett is theprototypical proletarian. It is to Mr. Cratchett that I would now like to direct my attention.

The central character in this campaign of terror and extortion against my client is one Bob

Cratchett, the 19th centurys version of Forrest Gump, a witless and chronic loser with noapparent control over any significant aspects of his life save, perhaps, for his bodys biological

functions. He is an inflatable Bozo clown, whose only purpose in life is to absorb the blowsvisited upon him by others. He is the poster boy for victimhood, a flatliner devoid of any

dynamic sense of life.

Let me offer this caveat, however: we do notallege this man to be one of the principalconspirators against my client. Far from it, for to have dreamed up, or to have actively

participated in a scheme as convoluted and diabolical as the one perpetrated against my client,seems far beyond the ambitions or the imagination of Bob Cratchett or any members of his

family.

At this point, many of you are probably thinking to yourselves, surely, hes not going to

denounce the Cratchetts, is he? They are one of the most revered of all families; a part of thepantheon of secular gods in our culture. I cant believe hes going to go after them!

Yes I am! I am going to attack the Cratchetts!

He cant do that, you may now be saying to yourselves.

Just watch me!

One of the offenses with which my client has been charged was that he had not paid BobCratchett a large enough salary. Cratchett has worked for an allegedly substandard level of pay

whatever that may mean for my client for many years. Why? Why did he not quit? Why didnthe go to work for some other employer perhaps one of the politically-correct businessmen who

periodically show up at Scrooges office to solicit and browbeat charitable contributions frommy client?

Put yourself in Cratchetts position: imagine yourself to have been the victim of years of

under-appreciated and underpaid work, head of a large family one of whose members sufferedfrom a life-threatening ailment what would you have done? Would you have simply sat around

in a kind of Super Lotto stupor, hoping that great fortune would befall you through some act ofdumb luck? Certainly, in the early days of the industrial revolution wherein Dickens wrote, whennew businesses were starting up all over the place in a great burst of economic creativity, there

must have been all sorts of opportunities available for a competent bookkeeper. Great fortunes


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were made by those who rose up out of abject poverty such men as Andrew Carnegie come tomind, a young boy who went from seeing his father begging in the streets for work, to become

the richest man of his era. At no time in history had there been a greater opportunity for self-betterment than during the industrial revolution, where demonstrated merit helped to destroy the

state-conferred privileges of feudalism.

To anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of economics, two things should beclear: [1] if, as has been alleged, my client is a tight-fisted, selfish man, he surely would not have

paid Bob Cratchett a shilling more than his marginal productivity was worth to Scrooges firm,and [2] if Bob Cratchett was being woefully underpaid by my client, there must have been all

kinds of alternative employment available to this man at higher salaries. If Cratchett cannot findmore remunerative work, and if my client is paying him the maximum that he is marginally

worth to his business, then Cratchett must be worthprecisely what my client is paying him!Economic values are subjective, with prices for goods or services rising or falling on the basis of

the combined preferences of market participants.

It is this interplay of marketplace forces which Dickens neither understands nor favors coupled with Cratchetts passive, sluggish disposition when it comes to improving his

marketable skills or opportunities, that accounts for Cratchetts condition in life. My clientshould no more be expected to pay Cratchett more than his marketable skills merit than would

Dickens have paid his stationer a higher than market price for his pen, ink, and paper, simplybecause the retailer needed more money!

Dickens ignorance of basic economics would, if acted upon by Scrooge, have produced adverseconsequences for Cratchett himself. Had Ebeneezer paid Cratchett a higher salary for his work,

he [Scrooge] would very likely have been able to attract a larger number of job applicants fromwhich he could have selected employees whose enhanced marginal productivity might have

earned Scrooge evengreaterprofits.A

t such a point, terminating Cratchetts employment wouldhave been an economically rational act by Scrooge. As matters now stand, Scrooges

employment policies have left him with the kind of groveling, ergophobic, humanoid sponge wehave come to know as Bob Cratchett; a man we are expected to take into our hearts as

expressions of some warped sense of the Christmas spirit. Being an astute businessmen,Ebeneezer Scrooge was well aware of the marketplace maxim that you get what you pay for.

Unaccustomed as Commissar Dickens is to the informal processes of the marketplace, we would

not expect him to tell us anything about competitive alternatives for Cratchetts services. Perhapsthere are employers out there prepared to pay him a higher wage than he is receiving from my

client. If this is so, then we must ask ourselves: did Bob Cratchett simply lack the ambition toseek higher-paying employment? It would appear so. At no time do we see this man exhibiting

any interest in trying to better his and his familys lot. Not even when the aforementionedbusinessmen arrive for their annual shakedown of my client, does Cratchett so much as suggest

to them: gentlemen, I have a son who is afflicted with a life-threatening condition, and if youwould be so inclined to look upon him as one of the objects of your charitable purposes, I would

be greatly appreciative. He cant rise from his self-pitying position long enough to even speakup forTiny Tim at a time when any responsible and loving parent would have jumped at the

opportunity to plead his sons case. If Cratchett is such an unfocused sluggard that he is unable to


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generate the slightest motivation to speak up on behalf of his son when provided with theopportunity to do so, why should my clienthave visited upon him the moral opprobrium of a

community of readers who presume that he should be more greatly motivated on behalf ofTinyTim than was Tims own father?

The prosecution, in the form of Mr. Dickens, would have you believe that my client is a heartlessand irresponsible person. But how much parental love and responsibility is exhibited by the

sniveling and whining Bob Cratchett, who does little more than sit around and hope, . . . hope

thatsomeone will show up with more ambition and sense of urgency and caring forTiny Timthan do he and his deeply lobotomized family. What if your child was drowning in a lake: would

you just stand on the shore and hope that a Boy Scout would show up looking for a daily gooddeed to perform? What if you came upon a school building that was afire and full of trapped,

screaming children. Would you just stand there and watch and wonder to yourself: why doesntsomeone sound the fire alarm or try to rescue those poor children? Such would have been the

response of Bob Cratchett; such is the model of individual responsibility offered up to us byCharles Dickens!

Neither, in this connection, can we ignore the behavior of Scrooges nephew, who pops into the

story early enough to chide his uncle for his miserly attitudes, and appears later, at a lavishChristmas party feted for his yuppie friends. For all his sanctimonious rhetoric about caring for

others, why were no gold coins forthcoming from the nephews pockets on behalf ofTiny Tim?We see in this nephew the forerunner of the modern politically correct limousine liberal, who

has all kinds of plans for disposing ofotherpeoples money, while carefully shepherding hisown, a man MarkTwain might have had in mind when he wrote of those who believe that

nothing so needs reforming as otherpeoples habits.

If a lack of imagination and ambition is not at the crux of Bob Cratchetts problem in

maintaining his inert, status quo position for so many years, then perhaps we should consider thepossibility that this man was simply incompetent. Cratchett appears to us as a tenured example of

the Peter Principle, the recipient not so much of an earnedsalary as asinecure. He was unableto obtain a more highly paid employment, I suspect, because he was incapable of performing at

any higher skilled level than that of the bean counter he apparently was, and seemed satisfied inremaining. Had he been more competent and energetic, he might have sought employment from

a competitor of Scrooges, who would have seen qualities profitable to his firm. But I suspectthat, had Cratchett approached any of these businessmen for employment, they would have been

observant enough of his elemental dullness to have responded: dont call us, well call you.

If Cratchetts stagnating in the backwaters of Scrooges shop was due to his basically poor workskills, we are once again confronted with the question: why did Cratchett not seek to enhance his

skills, as by learning a more remunerative trade? That would certainly have been a great benefitto his family, including affording additional resources with which to possibly rescue Tiny Tim

from his malady. But, alas, Bob Cratchett was, once again, either too unambitious or toounimaginative to pursue this course of conduct. Indeed, about the only gumption we see

Cratchett exhibiting in this story is in his groveling request for another lump of coal for the stove,or his equally weak-kneed appeal for a day off on Christmas. Such is the extent of his courage,

ambition, and love for his family.


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My client whatever his reasons has seen fit to keep this incompetent, noncreative dawdler onhis payroll. But instead of being praised for not terminating this slug, he stands condemned for

not paying him more than he was marginally worth; more than any other employer would havepaid him if, indeed, any other employer would have hired him in the first place! Perhaps my

clients retention of Bob Cratchett should be looked upon as the most charitable of all the acts

engaged in by anyone in Mr. Dickens story!

As I have already suggested, you can see that Bob Cratchett is notan active party in this

conspiracy of terror and extortion against my client. He is both too dull and too lazy to haveparticipated in such a scheme. Had this plot depended upon mobilizing the imagination or

energies of Bob Cratchett, Ebeneezer would have spent a quiet night of sleep, without beingintruded upon by the snarling and clanking Jacob Marley, let alone the associated bogeymen and

shakedown artists who show up to terrorize my client.

You are now able to see the fundamental contrast of characters presented to us by CharlesDickens. Scrooge the only person in the novel exhibiting any creative intelligence, and the only

one who produces anything is the villainbecause he has not given an unearned portion of hiswealth over to Bob Cratchett a man presented to us as a victim incapable of producing much of

anything! In this brief synopsis, you see the thoroughly dispirited nature ofsocialism, aphilosophy forlosers, that feeds upon, and requires the continuing nourishment of, the mindset

of victimology.

The morally culpable wrongdoers in this shakedown of my client, though, have to be the spirits,

who trespass, at night, upon the quiet enjoyment of my clients premises to terrify him withpreviews of his own demise should he not succumb to their demands to part with his money. No

more blatant act of criminal extortion could be imagined than that visited upon my client bythese spirits. If these forces are representative of the denizens of the allegedly heavenly planned

community, I can only wonder how more unbearable it could be to spend eternity in warmerclimes! At least Old Scratchs subdivision has the honesty of not pretending to be an idyllic

paradise while peddlingguiltand terror! Perhaps it is a tipoff to the diabolic nature of theprosecution in this case that the name Dickens has long been a synonym for the devil!

It might be argued that Dickens spirits were simply interested in the reclamation and

rehabilitation of my clients soul, and that such acts of terror had the well-being of Scrooge atheart. Such were the arguments used, during the medieval Inquisition, to justify the torture and

burning-at-the-stake ofheretics or, in later generations, to the persecution and hanging ofwitches. Lest you accept this shabby explanation for their behavior, ask yourself this question:

would these spirits have deigned to visit Ebeneezer if he had been a penniless beggar? Wouldthey have bothered this man for a single moment had there been no money to squeeze from him?

The spirits informed Scrooge that he needed to think of more than just himself, and to considerthe interests of posterity. But what had posterity ever done for him?

Furthermore, at any point in the story, did these spirits demonstrate regard for the well-being ofother persons who might be inconvenienced by Scrooges being terrorized into giving away his

money? If my client is to throw his money around, or pay more for services than what they aremarginally worth to his firm, what is to happen to the plans of those who had arranged to borrow


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money from Scrooges firm, only to be later told that the funds for such loans were no longeravailable? Do the spirits have any way of compensating them fortheirdisappointments or, like

socialists generally, are they totally indifferent to the unintended consequences of the events theyset in motion?

It is at this point that my strongest condemnation for these spirits arises.A

ny decent person inwhose veins course even a minimal level of humanitarian sentiment must look upon the spiritswith uttercontemptand moral revulsion. Keep in mind, these specters are possessed with the

powers to suspend ordinary rules that operate throughout the rest of nature. They cansuccessfully defy gravity, move backwards andforwards in time, cause matter to become

invisible, raise the dead, andforesee the future. Having all of these amazing powers, why didthesespirits not intervene to cure Tiny Tim of his ailment? The answer is quite clear: like

socialists and welfare-staters generally, they didnt give a damn about Tiny Tims plight! Thispoor, crippled boy was nothing more to them than an opportunity, a convenient resource to

exploit in furtherance of what was important to them: to wring from my client whatever amountof money they could. The fate ofTiny Tim was held hostage; left to the outcome of an elaborate

blackmailscheme!A

ssuming that Ebeneezer has free will, he might have chosen to resist thiscampaign of terror, and to awake on Christmas morning more determined than ever to protect his

assets from these psychic extortionists. Too bad forTiny Tim, in that case, for the spirits weremore interested in furthering their abstract ideological interests including obtaining power over

others than in stooping to actually help another human being in need. If the campaign againstmy client failed, they would simply have moved on to other more profitable causes, leaving Tiny

Tim to face an early death which, presumably, it was within their powers to prevent.

Had the spirits been truly desirous of helping the Cratchett family, they would have been betteradvised to focus their time and energies upon this family rather than upon my client. The Ghost

of Christmas Past could, perhaps in some proto-Freudian style, have taken Bob Cratchett backto his youth, to help him discover why he had become such a passive, wimpy recipient of other

peoples decision-making. Then, perhaps, the Ghost of Christmas Present could have appearedto warn Cratchett of the dreary fate awaiting his family as a consequence of his incompetence,

laziness, passivity, and psychic bankruptcy. The prospect ofTiny Tims death, and of his ownfamily ending up in a dismal poor house, might have been enough to stirsome semblance of

ambition in this hapless lummox.

These spirits might even have offered him more positive assistance, perhaps by encouraging him

to develop better marketable skills, in order that he might remove his family from the dire straitsto which Cratchett seems all but indifferent. What level of paternal love is exhibited by this

totally inept member of the booboisie, who has no more imagination or motivation on behalf ofhis ailing son than to sit around whining that his son will surely die unlesssomeone else, . . .

somehow, . . . atsome uncertain time, shows up to bestow unearned riches upon his family? BobCratchett represents that growing class of mathematically challenged men and women who

believe that a lottery ticketis the most realistic means of acquiring riches!

The Cratchetts are good for little more than sitting around the house spouting empty bromidesand homilies, seemingly oblivious of the need to make fundamental changes in their lives. At no

time in the story do we find either of the adult Cratchetts considering alternatives by which they


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could improve their economic condition. We do not, for instance, read of Mrs. Cratchett tellingBob as they huddle around their rapidly-cooling fireplace Bob, I saw Sally Struthers on the

telly today, and she was advertising for a correspondence school where you can learn all kinds ofnew skills. Perhaps you could study charter accountancy, Bob, and make more money.

Neither is any offer made by Mrs. Cratchett to seek employment in order to earn money that

could be used to help their ailing son.T

inyT

im continually reminds them God bless us, everyone. But let us not forget that other admonition long since lost on the Cratchetts: the Lordhelps those who help themselves.

You can see that Tiny Tim is not the only cripple in this family! His parents are existentially

handicapped and show no disposition to change. If there is anyone to whom an accusing fingershould be pointed, here, it is notmy client, but that hapless, helpless, and hopeless brood known

as the Cratchetts; a weak-kneed gaggle prepared to do little more on behalf of the ailing TinyTim than to sit around hoping that my clientwill experience a transformation in consciousness

sooner than will they, and that he will agree to pay the inept Bob Cratchett more money than heis worth!

Of course, any suggestion that the Cratchetts exercise independence and self-responsibility in

their own affairs would run counter to the political and social agenda that Dickens, through hisassorted spiritual operatives, have over such proto-proletarians. To have the Cratchetts of the

world become truly self-governing and autonomous would be fatal to the socialist mindset,which requires a passive, compliant, conscript clientele, only too willing to exchange one master

for another. Neither Charles Dickens nor his intellectual heirs such as Frank Capra couldhave enjoyed financial success in a world of independent, self-liberated, self-conscious, and self-

directed men and women.

As we reach the end of the story, we see my client reduced to such a state of psychological terror

at the prospect of his own death, that he awakens and begins throwing money out the window toa stranger in the street. In the mind of Dickens, Scrooge has now justified his existence by

abandoning the rational decision-making that has made his firm successful, and adopting themindset of a social worker who barges into the Cratchett household and begins running their

lives. While Ebeneezers post-nightmare behavior reflects what can only be described as themost immature understanding of how wealth is both produced and exchanged in the marketplace,

they also represent significant legal issues. I would suggest that a man who has been induced, bydread fear of his own death, to part with his money, has available to him the claim ofduress to

restore to him what was involuntarily taken from him. The basic principles ofproperty andcontractlaw support the conclusion that transactions entered into under duress are voidable, if

not void absolutely.

Secondly, the fears generated by the aforementioned spirits have probably risen to such a level ofinfluence upon my clients mind that, in addition to his claims of duress, he could be said to have

lacked legal capacity to exercise rational decision-making over his property. What sight could bemore demonstrative of this incapacity than the spectacles of Scrooge throwing money out into

the street to a stranger; bestowing gifts upon a thoroughly incompetent and ungrateful employeeand his family; and giving this sluggard an unearned pay raise?


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In the final analysis, this case against Ebeneezer Scrooge comes down to an emotional appealbased upon the resentment and envy that is at the core of every second-raters personality. Such

charges as have been leveled against my client only serve to confirm, in the minds of far toomany, that the success of the few is always bought at the expense of the many, and that financial

wealth is only accumulated through fraud, corruption, exploitation, dishonesty, and a depraved

insensitivity to human suffering. With such beliefs do the unmotivated or the unsuccessful soothetheir shabby egos. I may be poor, but at least I didnt sacrifice my principles is the commondefense of those whose accomplishments come up short in comparison with their more

prosperous neighbors. It would be unrealistic, I suppose, to have expected a different result froma collectivist such as Dickens, who had a most restrictive and depressing view of the human

spirit.

Still, I cannot help proposing a settlement offer that would produce a different ending for thisstory. As I stated at the outset, my client has not only been stereotyped as a tight-fisted man of

commerce, but he has bought into such stereotyping for his own sense of identity. Scrooge didnotexperience any internally-driven transformation of consciousness as a result of his

encounters with the spirits.A

ny change that he exhibited was superficial in nature, based uponhis attachment to material values: his life instead of his money. But bear in mind that Dickens,

like other socialists, is an equally materialistic creature. Had Scrooge been truly transformed bythese experiences, his life might have been opened up to happier and more pleasurable pursuits

than can be had through the counting of either his money or the remaining days of his existence.

Like some, whose visions of a better world extend no further than transferring vast sums of theirmoney to politically-based organizations instead of helping to remove the barriers that restrain

others from bettering their own lot Ebeneezer could have been more beneficial to theCratchetts in ways that money can never accomplish. Neither the Cratchetts nor any of the spirits

exhibit an interest in helping Bob transform himself into a more productive person. If Ebeneezerhad wanted to help his employee become less existentially crippled instead of just making him

the object of his gratuitous inclinations he could have taken Cratchett aside and told him: Bob,youre a loser! At this rate, you and your family are destined for that long slide down the razor

blade of life into total entropy. I recognize that the nature of our relationship helped to conditionyou into becoming the mess you are now. But what will your future be like when I and my

generosity are not around to sustain you? Let me help you by providing some lessons inadvanced accounting practices, so that you can become marginally more productive to me and, in

the process, help you earn more money. This is the industrial revolution, Bob, and opportunitieshave never been greater for anyone with a creative idea. Why dont you get one? Even a boob

like you might get rich in this setting.

Still, I doubt that Bob Cratchett would get the message. I suspect that he would still cling to his

tin-cup lifestyle, preferring to trade upon oursympathies rather than develop creative talents;never to experience the joy of existential equality and dignity that comes from being a producer

of goods and services that other people value. Sympathy should take us only so far, and neverbecome a substitute for the self-respect that comes from being in control of ones life. Tiny Tim

may, it is hoped, rid himself of his crutch: I have my doubts about Bob Cratchett doing so.


12/12

At some point, we need to show some appropriate respect for the forces of natural selection thathave long directed the life process. We ought to learn from the rest of nature: either we make

ourselves capable of adapting to an ever-changing world by improving the skills or otherlearning with which we act upon the world or we prepare to die. Dickens approach, like the

underlying methodology of the welfare state, does nothing to provide long-term help for the

Cratchetts of the world. Scrooges unearned generosity will not only increase his costs of doingbusiness thus increasing the likelihood of his own business failure but, upon his bankruptcyor eventual death, will leave Cratchett in the position of having to find a new host upon which to

attach himself for the remainder of his parasitic life.

In spite of all this, there may yet be some hope forTiny Tim to escape from the limited futureimplicit in the restricted imagination of Charles Dickens. Tim may have some potential, if only

he can be freed from this family of whining misfits. If he is not rescued, but manages to surviveonly as a result of the shakedown perpetrated upon my client, his future may be a bleak one. He

may even end up confined to a bleak house, or, worse still, spend his adult years in thespiritually drearier position of being an executive director of some political action group

designed to mobilize other social misfits, yawlers, and existentially bankrupt men and women.

As part of a settlement offer, my client would consider adopting Tiny Tim should his parentsagree and cut loose the rest of the Cratchett family to continue their mindless, unfocused,

dispirited, and passive bottom-feeding in the shallow and stagnant end of the human gene pool.But let us have no more of these drive-by specters from the netherworld, who feign their

concern for crippled children. Like other opportunistic parasites who tell us that they feel ourpain even as they are causing us more pain, let us have no more of the self-serving guilt-

peddling that keeps men and women subservient to those who threaten to cut off theirdependencies.

T

inyT

im is young enough to be given the benefit of the doubt as to his future.A

s for the othermembers of the Cratchett family, let us allow the evolutionary processes of nature to dispose of

these nonadaptive, nonresilient, nonambitious leeches who exhibit not the least sense ofintelligence or creativity in the plight of one of their own, for whom they exhibit only superficial

concern.

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The claim against my client is without substance, and should be dismissed with prejudice. It isthe industrial revolutions version of a scapegoating action, grounded more in bigotry than in fact

or reason. In the end, I can offer no better answer to such charges than those provided by myclient himself: bah, humbug!

The defense rests.

Documents

The Case for Ebeneezer