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Charles Dickens Supported Private Philanthropy, Not Public Welfare 

Was Dickens Really a Socialist?

Far from being an early proponent of the welfare state, he was sounding alarms for all of us.
Friday, December 1, 2006
William E. Pike

have been an avid fan of Charles Dickens’s works since before entering high school. I have also adhered to the freedom philosophy for about as long.

Therefore, as the years passed and I read more and more commentators lauding Dickens as a catalyst for collectivist economics and state-centered social programs, I grew discouraged and disquieted. I have come to find, however, that by and large these commentators were not interpreting Dickens at face value, but were in effect putting words into his mouth.

Did Dickens stand up for the poor? Yes. Did Dickens speak out on the conditions in his time? Yes. Was he anti-capitalist? Were his views socialist? Did he advocate for government welfare programs? No.

Compared to most great novelists, Dickens has inspired an inordinate mass of biographies, and interest in his life, apart from his works, has been unceasingly strong. One reason for this is simply that Dickens lived life fully. He traveled abroad often and made many public appearances. He was an oft-seen figure (though many times anonymous) in the streets of London, exploring the city and meeting people of all backgrounds and walks of life. He was comfortable among England‘s highest society and among its lowest classes. His understanding of the human condition, therefore, was comprehensive.

Dickens meant to force us to face the plight of society’s least members, but he did not prescribe a collectivist solution to ending their miseries. 

It is no surprise, then, that in both his fiction and his nonfiction Dickens went to great lengths to present his readers with the full range of English society, including many of its most downtrodden. We should not draw political conclusions from the fact that Dickens had a heart — that he painted vivid pictures of those suffering poverty, disability, abuse, and homelessness. That he would try to win his readers’ hearts to the likes of these says nothing about his views on how they should be helped. Such inferences are made today by self-serving ideologues eager to enlist an ever-popular writer into their ranks.

Dickens presented his readers with some of literature’s most touching characters: Tiny Tim, whose handicap would doom him to a youthful death without costly treatment; Oliver Twist, the orphan forced to endure hunger, cruelty, and childhood labor; Mr. Micawber, the genial debtor tragically forced into prison; Little Nell and Jo, who would die well before their time. In presenting such characters, Dickens meant to force us to face the plight of society’s least members, but he did not prescribe a collectivist solution to ending their miseries.

Nor does he blame their plight on the still-evolving capitalist economy of his day.

We are used to thinking of Dickens as an enemy of capitalism largely because of his timeless lampooning of certain men of business. What he was really doing, however, was attacking the vice of greed. In Our Mutual Friend, he blasts the Lammles, who marry each other solely for money (only to find out that neither has any). In the same novel, he forced the “mercenary” Bella Wilfer to undergo a transformation before finding happiness. In Martin Chuzzlewit, relatives of the title character are ridiculed for their scheming at inheritance.

And then there is the prototype of the heartless capitalist — Ebenezer Scrooge. But as with other characters, Dickens does not attack Scrooge as a capitalist but as a miser. As Daniel T. Oliver put it in The Freeman (December 1999):

Scrooge’s character defect is not so much greed as miserliness. He hoards his money even at the expense of personal comfort. While many remember the single lump of coal that burns in the cold office of his assistant Bob Cratchit, the fire in Scrooge’s own office is described as “very small.” … Dickens gives us no reason to believe that Scrooge has ever been dishonest in his business dealings. He is thrifty, disciplined, and hard-working. What Dickens makes clear is that these virtues are not enough.

Though the protagonist throughout A Christmas Carol might be Bob Cratchit, there are sympathetic characters who are, in fact, capitalists. Fezziwig, a man of business, nevertheless treats his employees like family. And then there are the easily overlooked “portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold,” collecting money to “buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth.”

Indeed, Scrooge himself, on that transformative Christmas morning, does not renounce capitalism. Instead, he promises to be a better man. He will live a fuller life and share his good fortune with those close to him.

Many libertarians and other supporters of the free market will interject that Scrooge is already benefiting society as an effective businessman. The argument is also made that in lampooning Scrooge’s personality, Dickens also distorts the realities of the labor market. Michael Levin has written:

Let’s look without preconceptions at Scrooge’s allegedly underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit. The fact is, if Cratchit’s skills were worth more to anyone than the fifteen shillings Scrooge pays him weekly, there would be someone glad to offer it to him. Since no one has, and since Cratchit’s profit-maximizing boss is hardly a man to pay for nothing, Cratchit must be worth exactly his present wages.

Both arguments have merit — Scrooge, like your local banker or financier, benefits society through his business. And yes, Dickens does not express, and most likely did not fully comprehend, the realities of the labor market. But the tale of Scrooge is of personal redemption. It is not particularly realistic nor well-versed in economics. Dickens is not attempting to argue against capitalism, nor is he arguing against a free market for labor. He is arguing against personal callousness and against misanthropy.

In chapter 33 of Socialism, Ludwig von Mises lamented Dickens’s characterizations of utilitarianism and of true liberalism. However, if Dickens’s words were later co-opted to promote a socialist agenda, that is hardly his fault. Utilitarianism can be the basis of a solid capitalist economy. It can also be mutated into a communist state. Dickens might not have understood that, but he did know that utilitarianism without reasonable judgment can turn society — and the state — into something monstrous.

A Christmas Carol exemplifies, on a personal level, what Dickens was really arguing for. He was not calling for state intervention, nor for economic regulations. Instead, he argued on behalf of personal philanthropy. In the end, Scrooge helps Tiny Tim, not because of socialist ideals, but because his humanity is reawakened, causing him to care for this child. Quite frankly, he does the right thing.

Continue reading…

From FEE, here.

Restoring the Monarchy Would Be GREAT – Empirical Research Data

Are Monarchies Better for Economic Growth? Here’s What the Empirical Evidence Says.

04/23/2021

Hans-Hermann Hoppe has argued that monarchies take a longer-term view of their national economies and therefore are more likely to pursue more stable and secure economies. That is, among monarchs, the desire to maximize wealth promotes more farsightedness than exists in democratic regimes. Due to the lower time preference of monarchs, they are less likely to succumb to the whims of economic populism.

Hoppe outlines this argument in a 1995 article:

A private government owner will predictably try to maximize his total wealth, i.e., the present value of his estate and his current income…. Accordingly, a private government owner will want to avoid exploiting his subjects so heavily, for instance, as to reduce his future earnings potential to such an extent that the present value of his estate actually falls. Instead, in order to preserve or possibly even enhance the value of his personal property, he will systematically restrain himself in his exploitation policies. For the lower the degree of exploitation, the more productive the subject population will be; and the more productive the population, the higher will be the value of the ruler’s parasitic monopoly of expropriation.

A Comparative Analysis

Quite interesting is that research confirms the assumption of Hoppe. According to Mauro Guillen monarchies are more effective than democratic republics at protecting property rights primarily because of their long-term focus. “Monarchies tend to be dynasties, and therefore have a long-term focus,” Guillen says. “If you focus on the long run, you are bound to be more protective of property rights…. You’re more likely to put term limits on politicians that want to abuse their powers.”

Similarly, Guillen in his study points out that monarchies can curtail the negative consequences of internal conflict on property rights:

For instance, the case of Spain has received considerable scholarly attention in terms of both the continuities in the process of transition to democracy during the late 1970s, and the sequencing of political and economic reforms with the crown playing a key role…. The continuity of monarchy in Spain was a major factor in preserving property rights during the political transition. In Portugal, by contrast, a comparable country that made the transition from dictatorship to democracy at roughly the same time but had become a republic back in 1910, nationalized 244 banks and large enterprises during its transition to democracy.

Moreover, Christian Bjørnskov and Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard in their publication “Economic Growth and Institution Reform in Modern Monarchies and Republics: A Historical Cross-Country Perspective, 1820–2000,” present fascinating information: “While large-scale political reforms are typically associated with short term growth declines, reflecting what has become known as the “valley of tears,” the data indicate that this valley does not appear in monarchies. In fact, if anything it has the opposite effect.”

Moreover, the rating agency Standard and Poor’s asserts that monarchies have stronger credit scores and impressive balance sheets relative to republics. Credit analyst Joydeep Mukherji submits that there is no difference between constitutional and absolute monarchies in the assessment of their debt risk. “However, absolute monarchies score higher than constitutional monarchies in external risk and fiscal risk, largely reflecting the strong general government balance sheets and high external asset positions,” he noted.

Like Gullien, Victor Menaldo in “The Middle East and North Africa’s resilient monarchs” posits that monarchies are linked to respect for the rule of law, protection of property rights, and economic growth. As Menaldo shows, the predictability of the political culture embedded by monarchies positively affects the decision to invest: “Given the emergence of a stable political culture … elites and citizens will be encouraged to protect their planning horizons due to longer executive tenures and an institutional succession process. Both elites and citizens will be more likely to make the investments in physical and human capital that encourage capital accumulation and increases in productivity.”

Another argument in favor of monarchies is their relative intolerance for wars, since involvement in warfare has the potential to eviscerate wealth. Though comparing political systems based on the likelihood to wage war is rare, one study written by leading political scientists intuits that premodern monarchies were less likely to fight wars:

There seems ample empirical support for our conjecture that monarchies were less conflict-prone in the pre-modern era. This contradicts the usual impression offered by mythic and historical accounts of kings who make war as a matter of occupation. When Charles Tilly declared that “states make wars and wars make the states”, he was doubtless thinking of kings as instigators. And it is true that the great monarchies (England, France, Spain) had considerably more wars to their credit than their smaller republican neighbors. However, we have seen that this is a product of grandeur rather than truculence. Small monarchies were more peaceful than similarly sized republics.

Suggesting that monarchies display superior characteristics relative to democratic republics does not mean that we should return to the past. However, one cannot criticize monarchy without understanding its strengths and limitations. In much of the world today, there’s a built-in prejudice against monarchies, but the evidence suggests that monarchies—especially small ones—are more peaceful, stable, and protective of private property than their republican neighbors.

Author:

Contact Lipton Matthews

Lipton Matthews is a researcher, business analyst, and contributor to Merion West, The Federalist, American Thinker, Intellectual Takeout, mises.org, and Imaginative Conservative. He may be contacted at lo_matthews@yahoo.com or on Twitter (@matthewslipton).

From Mises.org, here.

Pouring Cold Water on the Stigma of Religious Girls in the Army

Chareidiyos & IDF: Breakthrough or Breakdown?

 BS”D

Chareidi Women Working at an Israeli Air Force Base: Breakthrough or Breakdown?
— And the Imperative to Fight End the Military Draft for ALL Girls, Including Secular
Iyyar 16, 5781 / Tiferes She’Be’Hod, Parshas “Emor el HaCohanim” / Apr. 27, ’21
By Binyomin Feinberg

It was recently widely reported in Israeli media (e.g. TV News12, Ynet April 8, ’21) that the Israeli Air Force has, over the course of several years, developed a group of Chareidi women who perform very sensitive high-tech military work as paid employees of the military, at a military base. Secular Israeli media understandably hailed this as refreshingly positive development, enabling Chareidi women to secure careers that (a) purportedly accommodate their religious lifestyle while also (b) providing financial independence and (c) reportedly making a significant contribution to the physical security of the State of Israel. This unusual initiative was spearheaded by an ostensibly Chareidi woman, Ester Solomon, who received a Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) award from the Israeli military for her “trailblazing” work in recruiting over a dozen ostensibly Chareidi women to work in this group. Solomon is officially involved with organizational work aimed at providing Chareidi women the “benefits” they’re missing out on by not serving either in the Army or Sheirut Leumi (National Service), both of which Chareidi girls generally avoid – in compliance with the Chareidi Rabbinic leaders who have declared both as prohibited.*

On closer observation, however, not everything is as rosy as it may appear to many casual observers, as we explain in brief below.

(* P.S.: Recent events have revealed the foresight of the Rabbinic pronouncements against the Israeli drafting of girls. Every step towards breaking the taboos of the Israeli government drafting girls into the Army leads the government to advance more of the same, inexorably leading towards mainstreaming the notion of religious, even ostensibly Chareidi women serving in the morally corrosive Army environment.)

At the very least, a few warnings are in order:

1) ANY initiative aimed at drawing Jews (either the recruits or others) away from Torah – in this case,  towards accepting the Israeli government drafting girls – involves a prohibition of the highest magnitude.*

(* For a sample of Torah sources addressing prohibitions of that which leads one astray from Judaism, see Shabbos 116a: Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Yishmoel; GR”A Orach Chaim 334: 26-28; Teshuvas HaRosh 19:17; Tosofos Pesachim 25a, Avoda Zorah 27b, Tosofos Shayni; Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Daiyoh 155:1; Teshuvas Maharam Shik O.C. 304; Sefer “MiYemini Michael” on Pesachim 58:12,13; cf. “S’dei Eliyahu” on Shabbos 116. To illustrate the severity of the prohibition against that which potentially could lead to apostasy, the world renowned  “Chassam Sofer,” in his responsa on Yoreh Daiyah, 76 (quoted by the Pischei Teshuva on Y.D., siman 155) prohibited healing remedies employed with intent to draw the recipient away from Torah, even for those facing life-threatening conditions.)
A review of the publicly available information on some of the operative organizations, ATIDA and Atid Yisroel, as well as a letter on “Shalhevet” stationary, apparently signed by Mrs. Solomon, indicate that there is a concrete effort to integrate Chareidi women into the Israeli military, incrementally. Any accomplishment in that regard, however seemingly harmless, and even seemingly beneficial, leads to the next, more ominous steps.

How specifically would this celebrated Air Force development lead to the latter?

2) This ostensibly Chareidi Air Force program will most likely be cited by the Israeli Supreme Court as evidence of their bizarre pronouncement in early 2019 that serving in the military does not conflict with the lifestyle of religious girls. The fact that these women are ostensibly being paid may be easily dismissed.*

[* as in the expression attributed to a famous WWII era British statesman, “Madam, what you ARE has already been established, we’re now just quibbling about the price.” (The full context of his remarks is not appropriate for  publication for this readership.)]
This legal landmine could explode in the Supreme Court in the course of any legal case involving a religious girl being drafted that makes its way up to the Bagatz (Israeli Supreme Court). We ought to expect the unexpected. Advocacy organizations be warned: your planned forays into the notoriously leftist Israeli Supreme Court may harm tens of thousands of religious girls.

3) Additionally, the “wonderful” and truly historic precedent set here – over which Ms. Solomon waxed eloquent at her timely Yom HaAztma’ut award – will be leveraged not only to offer an OPTION to Chareidi women, but also to eventually establish a MANDATORY alternative to Army and Sheirut Leumi. Once there’s a “religiously acceptable” manner of making a contribution to the military, it will become required of all religious girls. Of course, politically connected families may initially evade the obligation. But everyone else will suffer – just because these ladies opted to secure hefty salaries “to support their husbands in Kollel”.*

(* as if the continuity of Torah requires the financing of this camouflaged concoction of the Army Draft Office.)
4) Consider the emotional and psychological impact that this female Chareidi taboo-breaker has on all of the courageous refusenik girls – often isolated and abandoned by the Chareidi estsblishment – enduring harassment, persecution, terrorism, incarceration in military prison, abuse by the military police, prison and justice systems. These courageous souls, often with no family or community support, are putting everything on the line to stand on principle. Now, enter some comfortable, well-paid Chareidi women – whose community connection to political parties provided them the leisure of avoiding both Army and Sheirut Leumi easily, sans mesiras nefesh – and THEY volunteer to work for the Army proper – on an Army base. Thereby they are pouring cold water on the stigma of religious girls in the Army. How do those two pictures combine?
And Where is Mrs. Solomon and other involved ostensibly Chareidi busybodies when it comes to helping those most needy and deserving of it, i.e. the aforementioned refusenik girls (e.g.: “IDF: Stop Persecuting Olga”: http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2021/03/idf-stop-persecuting-olga.html ( Wed, Mar 3, 2021 ),  https://daattorah.blogspot.com/2019/11/online-updates-in-culture-wars-parshas.html,  http://firstamendmentactivist.blogspot.com/2019/11/culture-wars-updates-online-vayaira.html?m=1) – risking so much to stand against the often brutal abuse of the Israeli Army and its Sodomesque justice system?
If they would feel the pain of all of the girls and women being persecuted by the human-trafficking professionals operating out of the Army Draft Office, would they indeed wax so eloquent about the wonders of working for the Army? Would they pontificate about their contribution to a cause “greater than themselves” while being paid hefty salaries (shochad or es’nan) to serve as useful idiots to advance the forcible draft of untold numbers of other girls – and to advance the doomed Army attempt to decimate the remnant of authentically devout girls risking all to avoid compromising with Army dictates to appear for a Rayon Dat [religiosity interrogation (see http://firstamendmentactivist.blogspot.com/2020/02/creep-state.html )]?
°  In addition, on careful observation, Solomon’s public statements, organizational work and associations strike one as infused with self-focused ambition, and unbecoming of a genuinely Chareidi woman. In fact, it’s hard to imagine many non-Chareidi women taking such revolutionary [or subsversive] steps, as described above, in part. Are we being played?
°  Now that we see how extensive the inroads made by the female military draft crusade into the Chareidi community are, we have the wherewithal to challenge those who until now have remained blind to the spiritual devastation being perpetrated under their noses. The question is: what is the most effective response. One central element of that response is described below: pushing for an end to the female military draft altogether, for non-religious girls as well, and, as per the Brisker Rov OB”M, even more so for them.

Comment on Yehuda Meshi-Zahav

The outrage with revelations of veteran child abusers is not the person themselves, but the [Meah She’arim]  community leaders whose idea of a non-governmental-solution was to kick him out of the neighborhood — so he could endanger both Torah observant and non-Torah observant “outsiders”, instead!

Surely a child-abuser is a rodef, since פיתוי קטנה אונס, beyond the capital offense, but even if you don’t want to use government enforcement, employ the private custom toward rodfim.

If this was the Badatz, and this is the Badatz’s idea of Din Torah…!

Here’s One Way Corona May Not Be All That Bad!

Maybe Corona’s many “side effects” will shift beliefs (in establishment-approved ideas and\or individuals) as did the upheaval of the Bubonic plague.

“History may not repeat itself but it does rhyme.”

At the time, the ecclesiastical authority of Cursedianity made way for the Renaissance because the Chooch sided with the evil state. “A word to the wise…”

Yes, Corona lockdowns increased internet usage among observant Jews. But the Big Bad Internet also has sites promoting the Temple and the Mount, non-voting, sites exposing the true record of “our” rabbis and politicians, and sites combatting child abuse (and controversialist Hyehudi.org, of course!).

Again, see our previous article here.

P.S., “It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future…“