Comments on: A Choice of Scrooges

By: Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:50:48 +0000

Is Shaffer wrong in his portrayal of the competitive environment in Scrooge’s time? (What’s a good source?) Cratchit doesn’t seem terribly determined to improve his lot. Would there have been such a scarcity of opportunities in the London of his day?

By: Roderick

Roderick — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 07:30:34 +0000

Doesn’t strike me as right either. Scrooge neither deprives others of comforts in order to enjoy them himself (the conventional conception of selfishness) nor deprives himself of comforts in order to bestow them on others (the conventional conception of generosity). He renounces comforts for himself and begrudges them to others; he is simply anti-comfort across the board. He resents and disapproves of enjoyment generally; he tells himself that it’s because such enjoyment is wasteful, but it’s really because he is bitter and depressed and has focused so long on the means that he’s lost track of the end.

By: Scott Bieser

Scott Bieser — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 19:14:52 +0000

I hope you don't mind if I take this opportunity to point out yet another take on Scrooge that Susan Wells and I put together a few years back: A Drug War Carol

By: pmp

pmp — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 18:40:52 +0000

Roderick Long, What do you think of Steve Landsburg's Scrooge?

By: Black Bloke

Black Bloke — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:37:55 +0000

What a difference almost 20 years makes, eh?

By: Roderick

Roderick — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 08:08:22 +0000

Well, I’d probably go into more detail about how people like Scrooge in particular owed their supremacy over people like Cratchit to governmental intervention. And I wouldn’t call the system I favour “capitalism.”

By: Black Bloke

Black Bloke — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 03:37:00 +0000

What would you phrase differently? How and why?

I think it’s a gem as it is, and linked to it 2 weeks ago.