Would you say that “A Christmas Carol” was the anti capitalist story many see it as today? Or is it better thought of as a lament for the decline of noblesse oblige in favour of early stage capitalism and a call for the capitalists to be more like the (imagined) nobles of old?

I'm not as much a Dickens-head as some other folks on Tumblr, but my interpretation is that "A Christmas Carol" is a critique of miserly capitalism. Rather than living a life of plutocratic excess, Scrooge just accumulates for the sake of accumulation rather than using his money to enjoy life and to help others enjoy their lives - which in turn would enrich his own.

So yes, I think "noblesse oblige" comes close to what Dickens was going for. Dickens was the furthest thing from a radical, and what he ultimately wanted was for rich people to be charitable and generous to the poor.

I think the term we're actually looking for here is a phrase that EP Thompson coined: "moral economy." As fully elaborated in a classic article, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century," moral economy is an ideology of the socially and culturally appropriate uses of money and economic power (and vice versa the inappropriate misues of the same) - one that doesn't quite rise to the level of full Marxist revolutionary socialism, but inspires mass action against members of the elite who violate custom and tradition.

"Like most cities in the early 20th century, Winnipeg’s streetcar system was dominated by a private monopoly, the Winnipeg Electric Company (WEC).

The WEC achieved its first franchise for streetcars in 1892 and had a monopoly on gas, electric and public transit in Winnipeg by 1900. With its monopoly power, the company proved incredibly lucrative with earnings increasing 30 per cent a year through the early 1900s.

The WEC’s power resulted in price-gouging so bad that even Winnipeg’s commercial elites were unhappy. In order to protect their bottom lines, Winnipeg’s elite pushed the city to create Winnipeg Hydro to compete with the WEC. Winnipeg Hydro opened its first plants in 1911.

Winnipeg’s working class also had significant grievances with the WEC. Fares were seen as being too high for an inadequate level of services while wages for streetcar operators was low. All of this boiled over during the streetcar strike in 1906.

Winnipeg’s first streetcar strike began March 30, 1906 over low wages and horrible working conditions. Drivers were exposed to the elements, and the braking system required brute force to stop a streetcar. Wages and working conditions were the primary concern for the workers, but palpable anger around the WEC fueled a wider boycott campaign and widespread vandalism.

The vandalism started almost immediately. Streetcars were toppled by crowds of people, their cables cut, their windows smashed. With the vandalism also came threats of violence against the scabs operating the streetcars, with some of these operators being chased by crowds.

Much of the property damage and violence came from strike sympathizers rather than strikers, which demonstrates the underlying anger many felt towards the WEC.

In the North End, streetcars were empty or service was stopped altogether. The slogan of the boycott was “we walk.” Many trudged through muddy and snowy Winnipeg sidewalks to show solidarity with the strikers.

At the request of WEC, the provincial magistrate swore in “special police officers” and strike breakers, recruited from a private security force, to operate the streetcars and protect WEC property. These strike-breakers made the situation worse by beating both strikers and strike sympathizers.

As the violence escalated, mayor Thomas Sharpe called in troops from the Royal Canadian Mounted Rifles to quell the unrest. Even then, crowds of people still destroyed streetcars in full view of the troops. It wasn’t until Sharpe ordered the troops to load their weapons that the crowd stopped.

The parallels of the 1906 streetcar strike and the 1919 General Strike are many: widespread class anger and solidarity, monopoly capitalist price gouging and the use of force to repress strikes.

These parallels demonstrate that how cities were constructed and who benefited – as well as issues like collective bargaining, working conditions and union recognition – majorly influenced workers in Winnipeg." - Scott Price, "The 1906 streetcar strike," The Uniter. Volume 78, Number 10 (November 16, 2023)

THE MORAL ECONOMY (Part 1)

I was listening to the news on Saturday when a man trying to get football supporters to Wembley said he was having difficulties because of the rail strike. Luckily, he had managed to book some coaches but they had cost twice as much as normal because of increased demand due to the strike.

Nothing very unusual about that you might say but is it really acceptable to raise prices simply because of an increase in demand? Or is raising prices when no extra costs have been incurred by the seller pure greed?  None of us like the grotesque profits being made by energy suppliers using the excuse of war in Ukraine: it is blatant war profiteering. But is the act of doubling or trebling the price of a coach trip to Wembley because of a rail strike any different?

Milton Friedman, economic guru to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Regan, argues that the business of business is to maximise profits for the shareholders. In his 1970 paper "The Social Responsibility of Business is to increase Profits” he argued that corporate managers should:

“conduct the business in accordance with [shareholders’] desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible…"

Although the title of Friedman’s paper contains the phrase “social responsibility” he is quick to dismiss any notions of social justice. In the very first paragraph of his paper he argues that people who believe business has the social responsibility of "providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution" and other "social ends” are socialists and therefore the enemy. Businessmen who talk of anything other than maximising profits for their shareholders are described as:

“-preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.”

The Tory love affair with Milton Friedman’s economic views that started with Thatcher has never been stronger. The rise of the Tory right has seen a resurgence in neoliberalism as an ideology - the notion that free-markets and competition are the prime and natural organisers of society, wherein the “market” sorts society into a natural hierarchy of winners and losers and that any attempt to change this "natural order" is counter-productive.

Dominic Raab, Liz Truss and Savid Javid all seek to " implement the ideology in its most extreme form”, said the Guardian way back in 2019. We all know what happened to the economy during the short reign of Liz Truss, and we all know what happened to the right-wing bully Dominic Raab. But although these two extremists have been found out, the doctrine of maximising profit at all costs still has widespread support, not only amongst the Tory faithful but also within the Labour leadership.

Sadly, the Labour Party is no longer a socialist party, intent on redistributing wealth and looking after the welfare of ordinary working families. Instead it has once again become a slightly watered-down version of the Tory Party and neoliberal economics, where maximising profit, WHATEVER the cost, is the primary goal.

Am I exaggerating? I think not. We know that only yesterday Starmer was claiming to be Blair “on steroids”. We also know that Margaret Thatcher regarded Blair as her greatest legacy to the nation as he and his Labour government adopted the same doctrine of free market economics as she advocated. Make no mistake, Starmer is also prepared to put corporate and business profit before people. But don’t take my word for it.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have set about convincing firms that they are the party of profit, writes Cameron’s skills tsar and ex-CBI chief Paul Drechsler.” (Independent: 13/02/23)

When the ex-boss of the CBI,the UK’s largest employers organisation (now in its final death throws due to sexual scandal and harassment within its ranks) praises the leader of the Labour Party for his commitment to business and maximising profits you know something has gone seriously wrong. When one of David Cameron’s top aids tells Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves that Labour is becoming THE party of business, then ordinary working people are in trouble.

The Labour Party may still exist, but it is in  name only.

Once I stopped wheezing, I went looking for what inspired this tweet. Apparently anyone consistently ripping into Biden and telling anyone why he's trash is "voter suppression". Liberals have all lost their goddamn minds.

Idk man, I'm not bothered with aa, he's out here controlling the city and I'm sitting in his lap looking pretty bc I don't want r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s. Go off, toxic king, hand me a goblet of blood and give me an allowance.

Good morning everyone, just woke up from a dream in which Joe Biden had apparently announced “a plan to fix the economy” and said plan was to release a separate currency to be used alongside the dollar called Dollar 2 that looked exactly like regular dollars except there would be a nude illustration of whichever president was on the front on the backside.

i can’t believe piracy is such a sensitive topic on tumblr dot com i can tell you guys are not latin american

Progressive Liberalism is a very nice idea but is simply missing the huevos to call for the constitutionally uncontested single-party rule that would be necessary to actually implement it's advertised goals

in the coming years celebrity AI porn will be the secret shame everyone watches but pretends they don’t, and ozempic will be the secret prescription everyone takes but pretends they’re just “counting calories”

cafabs r like. basically men to me until proven otherwise

What money can't buy: the Moral Limits of Markets (Micheal J. Sandel)

Sandel's lectures raise moral objections to market expansion, especially the commodification of certain "goods": surrogacy, military enlistment, and the wealth gap in democratic nations. Sandel takes a two-pronged attack on undesirable commodification: 1) coercion and 2) corruption. I found the appeal to corruption to be the more interesting but also finicky. (p 104) Sandel references utilitarian decision-making as a form of market-orientated thinking that degrades the goods. He specifically notes how each individual consequential consideration is flattened into pieces of utility. He calls this process, and the conversion into monetary terms a "translation" and posits that value can be lost in the process (p 105). I am partial to the argument, agreeing strongly with Sandel that commodification of certain goods degrades their value in the appraisal and is morally inappropriate, but I think that the nuance of each item, event, and being that we want to preserve by not commodifying will become an issue in defending the claim not to flatten their nuance. This is because as Sandel points out on page 106, the distinction between coercion and corruption is that coercion always appeals to consent while corruption appeals to multiple ideals from overlapping, conflicting, and simply differing ideologies -- ie the appeal against the wealth gap draws upon republican civic virtues that apply in self-government, surrogacy on the elusive definitions of parenthood that can differ between cultures, etc). How do we argue for the preservation of value nuance from multiple ideologies without flattening the nuances or committing to relativism in the process?

it's always fascinating though how most ppl are genuises abt some things and dumbasses abt other things. i can be really smart abt emotional and artistic things but at the same time i keep forgetting the meaning of certain words like i can never memorize exactly for example what the definition of sci-fi is... and the other day i thought 42 minus 6 equaled 38...

Ozias Maomora

God of the waters, memory, and knowlege, also a complete bastard who should have custody of his daughter taken away (the extra arms are for extra crimes against humanity!)

Hillary Clinton's bad hair day

Me drawing Piers in this in every page of the comic so people know my stance on murder.