In many ways, though it was Christmas, the nation was sad. Racked by a recent severe recession, the country faced a public health menace of epidemic proportions. There was widespread hunger and a seemingly uncontrolled entry of a large number of immigrants trying to escape grinding poverty. To top it off, there had been rioting in major cities to the point that the military was called on to maintain peace.
No, I am not talking about America in 2020.
This was Great Britain in 1843, the year Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol. In doing so, he gave us characters, including Ebenezer Scrooge, Marley, Bob Cratchit, and Tiny Tim, who each became immortal. Written in just six weeks and motivated by the author’s desire to feed a growing family, as well as to raise awareness of the misery suffered by vast numbers of poor people, the short novel was an instant success.
Not only was the story widely read and celebrated, it was also imitated. Families across the land, it is said, rediscovered customs of Christmases past and gathered again for song, food, fun, and fellowship. Though clearly an exaggeration, some say Dickens invented the Christmas we celebrate today. Instead, we might say he reinvented it.
More important, perhaps, is that Dickens left a lasting imprint on many hearts. In the midst of 1843’s misery, people were, and still are, reminded that joy can come from giving, sharing, and loving, that it may be possible to do well while doing good.
At the time Dickens was writing, northern Europe was experiencing a devastating potato famine that was starving and disrupting millions of people who relied on that staple to stay alive. Tuberculosis was such a killer that it was referred to as the White Death. It was viewed as a plague. Grinding adjustments associated with the decline of the landed aristocracy and the rise of industrialists were bringing wrenching transformations to rural and urban areas (and politics) alike.
In England, the political power of the landowners, who had demanded and received high tariffs on imported foodstuff to protect their wealth, which caused the cost of feeding a family to rise significantly, was being checked by the new factory owners who wanted unfettered access to growing world markets. In all this, there were teeming masses of people — men, women, and children — at the bottom of the economic tier who were struggling to stay alive.
These almost unbearable times inspired Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and others to cry out against capitalism, a term coined by Marx, and markets and to call for a state-run economy. Socialism, they believed, offered brighter human prospects than capitalism. Since then, the message has been repeated whenever Europe or America have been beset by hard times and crippling uncertainty. We are hearing another call for socialism now.
Fortunately for those of us who came along later, the bitter outcomes of capitalism predicted by Marx and the circumstances that deeply troubled Dickens are far from the whole story. Instead, capitalism, both strong and weak versions of it, has delivered rising income and life expectancies and safer and healthier families wherever the much-debated economic system has been allowed to operate — this as compared to places where markets have been controlled and freedom has been limited.
Now, as we celebrate the 2020 Christmas season, we may do well to recall Dickens and the lessons found in A Christmas Carol. The times we live in may be difficult, even brutal, but there is still hope to be found when people share with others and families gather to celebrate gifts of song, food, and fellowship.
Merry Christmas to all.
Bruce Yandle is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a distinguished adjunct fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and dean emeritus of the Clemson University College of Business and Behavioral Science. He developed the “Bootleggers and Baptists” political model.
