Landsburg on Scrooge
Just in time for Christmas, Steven Landsburg weighs in on the Scrooge Question. While the analysis is less penetrating than that in Michael Levin's 1994 classic, who can disagree with Landsburg's closer: "It's taxes, not misers, that need reforming."
Comments (9)
Isn't it the garish spectacle of XMAS itself that needs reform?
Published: December 9, 2004 5:27 PM
Like most of Landsburg's work, this is utter nonsense.
Who is he to say you are being generous to by avoiding mutually beneficial transactions? It seems no more generous than engaging in them. Is "society" somehow better off if there is less brick demand or less demand for house servants? Certainly not the house servants or the people making the bricks. What about hoarding has anything to do with giving and sharing? There is certainly nothing wrong with it, but it is certainly not “generosity� by any sane definition.
Value is subjective, and people own things. The "world" never gets "one house richer." Some people might prefer that house not be there, and certainly the utility of any one house tends to be concentrated on the owner. What about all those selling houses who's houses sell for less because you built another? Does that new house make them richer? No, it makes them poorer. Some might say, "but the house they buy will be cheaper." But what if they plan on moving to some place where the housing prices don't go down (all goods have a location)? Just the same, when one saves, that lowers prices for those taking out loans increasing their utility, but if he chose not to save, and spent he would have helped all those he bought from. Two different mutually beneficial transactions, two different sets helped by them.
What is the difference? Is a mans preference for a certain product generosity toward the producer? Is a man’s preference to make a certain product generosity toward the consumer?
In the final analysis, it makes little sense to call any transaction carried out at the prevailing market price “generous�. Nor can one call refusing to transact generous. Generosity means “giving or sharing� it doesn’t seem that Scrooge is doing anything of the sort.
Humbug.
Published: December 9, 2004 7:26 PM
Would you prefer, Mr. Canning, that Scrooge have gone out and thrown stones through windows so as to provide business for the glaziers of London?
Published: December 9, 2004 11:10 PM
I think this article only really works with a fiat money system, otherwise people would be glad to get their hands on whatever useful commodity money was at the time.
Published: December 10, 2004 2:34 AM
Whether in a fiat system or not, the article would seem to not really say much. Whether Scrooge spends or saves, he is doing so voluntarily and therefore making his own value judgements which is the important point.
As Pete Canning says, as long as he is involved in mutually beneficial exchanges then whether he deals with borrowers (saves) or suppliers (spends) then the situation is optimal for all concerned.
Where is the benefit to preferring saving over spending?
Published: December 10, 2004 3:36 AM
I think Landsburg's point is one for environmentalism. The spenders (those who heat their houses instead of wearing 20 layers) are wastrels.
But what is missed is that values are not confined to the economic sphere. We can and ought to (and do) make value judgments about Scrooge. We either think he is doing right or wrong (usually by doing something we do or don't do ourselves).
The issue of whether Scrooge has a "right" to be a miser is different (what ought the State or authorities enforce) than whether miserliness is good or evil, a virtue, or a vice, or the virtue of thrift taken to excess where it becomes a vice.
Nor is this entirely abstract. In Dicken's story, Tiny Tim's life in a way depends on Scrooge, and ultimately Scrooge's own life - his miserliness extends to scrimping on his own health so his days are shortened.
"He who dies with the most toys wins" is close to he who dies WHEN he has the most toys wins.
People who cannot properly value and condemn what is said (or done) while simultaneously defending the right to say (or do) it lack either a heart or a head, or perhaps both.
Dickens did not have the police take Scrooge to a bad end - he merely had Marley show him the ultimate result of his vice. Hell is a place of informed consent.
That state intervention is an evil greater than the evils the intervention is called upon to stop does not make those evils into goods. Vice does not become virture (or even neutral) simply because there is no proper or convienient way to prevent it.
Virtue (a general virtue in society) is necessary for freedom. Praising vice is therefore anti-liberty.
Published: December 10, 2004 9:16 AM
tz,
Neither you nor anyone else has shown why being a miser is somehow immoral. Who exactly are these people hurting? You are making subjective judgements about what you'd do with wealth if you had a certain amount of it. The miser is a person who has a very low time-preference, and who seeks financial security, as well as stability, in the event of a calamity.
I've read A Christmas Carol, and I don't see how Scrooge's thrift was harming his own health. Perhaps there's something I've missed.
Published: December 10, 2004 10:17 AM
The problem with Scrooge, I argue here, is that he's a statist:
http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l1.html
Published: December 13, 2004 3:31 PM
I believe Scrooge said "every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly in his heart". Now of course he doesn't actually do this, but as far as I'm concerned (using highly subjective personal values of course) the guy was a miserable sod, period.
I am not sure where one draws the line between being a miser and just having a 'high time preference' or if there is one but when surrounded by starving/sick people whilst personally in possession of great wealth, I agree no one has the right to take the money from you, but if you choose not to use that money to relieve extreme immediate distress around you, I think it is fair to call you immoral. I doubt Scrooge's motivation for being a miser was a well developed theory of capital and the benefits to mankind from his high time preference etc. I guess we can only judge from his words what motivated him, and that's up to you.
Published: December 23, 2004 7:53 AM