AChristmas Carol Retold For The 21st Century

A 21st Century Christmas Story Retold

Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house you go. The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow…oh. When you arrive at Grandma’s house you go inside and discover that she has set two tables. One table is reserved for Uncle Scrooge, while the other table is reserved for everybody else.

The Two Table Christmas Dinner Arrangement
But there was a problem, namely that 95% of Grandma’s Christmas dinner was sprawled all over Uncle Scrooge’s table, while 5% of the dinner was carefully placed in the middle of the table for everybody else. That struck you as rather odd.
But there was a second problem as well, and it was that you knew Uncle Scrooge well, and he was a fine, upstanding, Christian citizen who always gave ten percent of his fortune to the church. That is to say, he tithed. He was even kind to his employee Bob Cratchett and his family, and he always made sure that the whole Cratchett family, including Tiny Tim had a present or two under the raggedy Christmas tree that they’d cut and dragged in from the surrounding forest.

You Disagree With Many In Your Community…
Knowing these things, it was impossible for you to conclude, as many in the community did, that Uncle Scrooge was nothing but a mean and greedy old possum who, through his shrewd business dealings, stole his fortune from the poor working class people for his own personal benefit. I mean, if they’d seen how Grandma had set the two Christmas tables this year, there are those in town who’d gladly kick over the two tables, take Uncle Scrooge out back, string him up to the highest tree, and celebrate in the name of good riddance. But oddly enough, you weren’t one of those people.

Scrooge Owned Factories, And…
The reality was that Uncle Scrooge, through his shrewd, and totally legal (he knew and he played by the rules) business dealings, owned factories, machinery, rental properties, and numerous other business enterprises in town that provided lots of jobs for lots of people like Bob Cratchett. And those things that he owned, churned out a fortune in passive income for dear old Uncle Scrooge. His main job these days was to endorse and to cash checks that flowed like water into his post office box every day of the week.

The Cratchetts Owned The Clothes On Their Backs
On the other side of the coin, the Cratchett family owned little more than the clothes on their backs, and as the result they all found themselves in a position where they had to auction off eight, ten, and twelve hours of their 24 hour day to the highest bidder, which generally speaking, was not very high because there were lots of people in town who were in the same position as the Cratchetts and needed to have the job to put food on the table. So in this sense, Cratchett and family were fortunate to have a job this Christmas, because there were many in town who did not and were much less fortunate.

The First Real Question In Your Mind Is…
So the real question in your mind was that, if Uncle Scrooge actually figured out a way to purchase and to own all these wealth-producing properties…which effectively produce 95% of all the town’s wealth, why should anyone claim that he deserves less than 95% of the benefits? Furthermore, on what basis would anyone in town legitimately argue that everyone else, who collectively produces only 5% of the wealth, deserves any more than 5% of the benefits?

The Second Real Question Is…
Then a second question popped into your mind. Was it possible that Uncle Scrooge understood, at an early age, that owning productive property was the real key to success in this free enterprise economy? And was it equally possible that the Cratchetts had unwittingly bought into the old and trite claim that if you work hard, and keep your nose to the grindstone, you’ll do just fine? After all, that’s what the teachers taught you in school, right? In other words, is it possible that Scrooge’s ownership orientation to life was vastly superior than the Cratchett’s workers orientation to life when it comes to self control, self government, and freedom?

Auctioning Off Your Life VS Freedom
I mean Uncle Scrooge doesn’t auction off any hours of his life to the highest bidder, right? He’s financially independent, which is to say that he is FREE to come and go when he pleases, and to spend the hours and days of his life dancing to his own tune, not dancing to someone else’s tune. Uncle Scrooge governs himself, while the lives of most other (financially dependent, and thus not free) people in town are effectively dominated and governed by… none other than Uncle Scrooge. Of course that’s why it’s so easy to simply loathe Uncle Scrooge.

So Here’s What You Know Now
So, what you know at this point is that the system, the way it’s currently set up, tells people…work hard and you’ll do just fine. But if people really have both eyes open, they will see that all the people who do what the teacher says to do, that is to say they work hard for a living, find themselves on a perpetually running treadmill that goes a little faster every week, every month, every year, and at best it allows them to break even, but hardly ever allows them to get ahead in the big game of life. In fact the odds of falling further and further behind, no matter how hard you work, are so great that many people find themselves missing a step, tripping, and falling off the back of the treadmill, never to get back on again.
Not only that, but people who work for a living are always dependent on people who own for a living. That is to say, people who work for living are not financially free or independent, while people who own for a living are financially free and independent. And equally important is the fact that owners give themselves the opportunity to live their lives on a higher and more meaningful level than the industrial sharecroppers and wage slaves whom they employ.

The $64,000 Christmas Question Is…
With all that said, the $64,000 question now is, what can we do to the current system to encourage more and more workers to become owners of wealth producing capital, so that they too become more and more financially independent and free from the economic chains that bind their own lives, and the lives of their family members. Now if you can answer that question, then next year Grandma promises to have her Christmas table set a bit differently than this year. And finally, God bless Tiny Tim.