Part 1: The Evil Of Free Market Economics Exposed...In 1843

In "A Chrsitmas Carol" by Charles Dickens

This Christmas season, as you watch one of the many versions of "A Christmas Carol" and are reminded what the Christmas spirit is all about, remember Charles Dickens' was one of the first and most famous, progressive authors who exposed the evils of "free market" economics. That dingy, cold-hearted London cityscape he wrote about was the same backdrop that drove Karl Marx and Fredrich Engles to write the "Communist Manifesto."

"Carol" was published in 1843 and the "Manifesto" in 1848. These authors made it their life work exposing the evils of the unfettered capitalism that drove the Industrial Revolution and was responsible for the degrading conditions of such industrial cities as London.

Both books are a little over 100 pages. Get copies at your local bookstore or the library, read the introductions and forwards. Despite what the bloggers at OTBL might say, you won't burn in Hell if you read the "Manifesto." I recently read FA Hayek's "The Road To Serfdom," -- one of the favorite OTBL books-- and I'm still able to blog about it.

Below is a passage from "A Christmas Carol" that will harken any true OTBL free markerteer back to the good old days they hope to return to:

"The door of Scooge's counting-house was open, that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who, in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scoorge kept the coal-box in his room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of s strong imagination, he failed."
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If it were Christmas Eve 2005, Scrooge would have threatened to have his clerk's job outscourced and would have anounced that the rising cost of health would mean a reduction in his salary. Remember, Scoorge didn't become a likable, progressive guy until he threw off the shackles of free market selfishness.