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Scrooge and The Christmas Carol written as a protest


There have been a number of threads where it has been discussed if Scrooge deserved damnation, or whether Bob Cratchit was a fool for not seeking new employment, or was he a bad father not providing health-care for Tiny Tim.

I have a different take on the book and movie.

Remember this was written in the Victorian period, where "old-fashion" society EXPECTED that a "good employer", be they someone who employed servants or a head of a business company, took care of their workers ie. take care of medical bills, provide extra food for holidays, even help with the education or job placement for their workers' children.

Old long-term low-paid servants were expected to be given bequests to provide something for their old age. Employees were expected to be loyal to the business BUT the business or employer was expected ALSO to be loyal to its workers. (Note Scrooge had no part in finding work for Bob's son, yet had many contacts with other business leaders.)

"The Christmas Carol" was written by Dickens protesting the "new" business model that was becoming prevalent in industrial Britain, that people were just "human resources", just like the cogs in the machines, they were resources, to be employed at as low a cost as possible, and disposed of if they became unusable or less productive.

This was a time when huge numbers of people were getting work in new factories etc, where the model was to regard people as disposable. The old business model at least provided some sort of social safety-net, the new way of doing business did not, and the result was massive human suffering.

Scrooge starts as one of the heartless businessmen where profit is all and human relationships have no place in business or even in his personal profit-oriented life. He ends by reverting to the old British model (like Fizziwig) where his goal of profit is tempered by his beneficial relationship to family, friends, employees, and society.


Be who you are. Everyone else is already taken.

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I think Dickens was also commenting on folks who get too carried away with accumulating money. I've met a few people like that. Those folks are extremely unhappy and greedy. Dickens was spot-on when he wrote this story.

~~~~~
Jim Hutton (1934-79) & Ellery Queen = 

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What's really alarming and awful is how relevant the "Ignorance and Want" scene still is. I shared it two years ago and it was as much or MORE relevant in 2016 America than in Victorian England!

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