Charles Dickens wrote the classic novels of Victorian England, and his tale of Scrooge’s Christmas redemption is universally known in the Western World. Dickens’ story of a miserly businessman scared into philanthropy by three ghostly visitations on the eve of Christmas is a cautionary tale for our increasingly cost-conscious businessman today. Cost reductions, savings and profits ahead of all else are all mantras practiced by our stingiest companies from low fare airlines to importers of cheap goods, we consumers have developed a taste for low cost that increasingly turns good businesses to the ways of Ebenezer Scrooge.
While I expected the story to resonate with our current financial woes, the story is remarkably unchanged in all the modern adaptations save Blackadders’ Christmas Carol, which irreverently turns kindly Ebenezer into the hated but successful Scrooge. Dickens’ Scrooge is visited by three spirits who show him the pain that brought him to this sad point in his life, and the pitiless end that awaits him if he continues to covet wealth over his family and friends. But for me, the real lesson is given by his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley whose chains are formed from the very things that consumed his own sad life, cash-boxes, keys, ledgers, padlocks and heavy purses bound and weighed upon Marley’s soul. When Ebenezer looks out on to the street to see the thousands of souls eternally walking the Earth they were all similarly bound by their earthly weaknesses.
I think Dickens saw it as a metaphor for his times where men pursued ever more profit through industrialisation whilst blinded to the plight of men, women and children in their factories and workhouses. Today we willing bind ourselves with debt, possessions and expectations while oblivious to the pain and suffering our happiness-I use the word cautiously because we seem to find little happiness in our wealth-brings to communities toiling in factories or evicted from their land to satisfy our want for stuff.
Before you plunge out into the shopping madness for next Christmas, take a moment, read A Christmas Carol and consider Dickens’ message of real fulfillment versus greed then check your list twice and find the true spirit of Christmas.