Comments (28)

• JB

  Excellent!

  Now only if I could find more aluminum Festivus poles!

  Published: December 23, 2008 9:47 AM

• banker

  Come to Japan. Christmas is celebrated here too!

  
  ....kind of....

  Published: December 23, 2008 10:11 AM

• Willabus

  I have spent two Christmas seasons in Canada while I have been on dispatch there as an automotive engineer. It's very strange because everyone in Canada freely says "Merry Christmas". The last day before Christmas shut down all of the executives and presidents were saying good bye to every one at the main gate and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas! It definitely took me by surprise.

  Published: December 23, 2008 10:42 AM

• Mark Knutson

  Wasn't the likely birth date of Jesus in march or something? I read that the early christian church selected december 25 as it was a popular pagan holiday--as they had piggybacked on other pagan holidays to gain members.
  
  I hate the advertising, crowds, and music of the christmas shopping season, and avoid it to the maximum extent humanly possible.
  
  I read that xmas is the most stressful time of the year for many people, so look at the pressure and expectations advertisers have created while boosting purchases. I believe in capitalism, but doesn't mean I need to buy the advertising myths.
  
  For me xmas is a series of obligations that must be met or people will be disappointed. My holiday begins after xmas ends. Scrooge? Absolutely.
  
  After xmas this year will be the time to swoop in and look for bargains...

  Published: December 23, 2008 10:44 AM

• 8

  The market is a reflection of society and culture and therefore to attack the market is to miss the target. However, to criticize the society and the culture is legitimate.

  I think there is an argument to be made that wealth does allow people to "afford" immoral behavior, from the perspective of religious people. For instance, divorce rates are already falling because people can't "afford" it. Looking throught history, the booms are almost always accompanied by "peak hedonism" and a turn away from religious values, setting up the economic decline.

  Published: December 23, 2008 11:06 AM

• Bill

  Holiday advertising comes earlier because the biggest holidays for commerce are the days right after Thanksgiving. So the retailers have to get the information on their products out earlier.

  Besides we should be somewhat pleased as we lose the endless election crap on how politicians will save us from ourselves and substitute endless commercials on cars with large ribbons and cheap diamond jewelry.

  Published: December 23, 2008 11:23 AM

• fundamentalist

  Nice job, Jeff! I think the complaints about Christmas have more to do with religious people who want to use the power of the state to force their views on others than it does with defending Christmas. If Christianity is true, then it doesn't need the state to enforce Christmas, school prayer, or the ten commandments in a courtroom. I find it disgusting that people think the state needs to promote Christianity as if Christianity is powerless without the state. As Jeff pointed out, Christianity grew in the most inhospitable environment. And today, it's growing most in very threatening environments, such as China and Iran. We don't need no stinkin' state to empower us!

  Published: December 23, 2008 11:29 AM

• St. Nick

  "What we need to realize is that capitalism is responsive—to an extent greater than any other institution—to the values of the public." Wow! That's quite a statement. I wonder if the Church (Rome or Protestant) would agree to that statement. If the market is the most responsive to public values, maybe, as wealthy as Rome is, the Vatican could simply pay parishioners for attendance at Mass or at least a statement of faith. Gift card salvation?

  So if the values of the public are murderous, hedonistic, or perhaps less egregious, and simply anti-intellectual, and the market is there to fulfill its every whim, how is the market not a secondary or tertiary cause in the moral degeneracy of a society or culture? The market is certainly discussed on these pages as a single unit when its praises are being sung, but when it contributes to what is considered universally wrong, the market's uber-defenders always seem to run to the hills with some sort of argument that the market simply represents billions of discrete transactions and cannot be held accountable as a whole.

  Talk about angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-needle, semantics.

  Published: December 23, 2008 11:47 AM

• fun

  St. Nick: "So if the values of the public are murderous, hedonistic, or perhaps less egregious, and simply anti-intellectual, and the market is there to fulfill its every whim..."

  So when have been not been as you describe? As Smith said, the market will do a better job of enforcing morality than will the state. That doesn't mean it will do it perfectly in the eyes of everyone. Take prostitution as an example. That state outlaws it, creating a scarcity and driving up the price. The greater incomes to be made attract more women, so the state cracks down some more. Eventually, organized crime gets interested and starts forcing women into prostitution because the income is so great.

  That's not hypothetical. That happens today and is growing more common. The same thing has happened with cocaine and heroine. What might happen if it were made legal? The lower income would attract fewer girls and possibly even organized crime.

  St. Nick: "...how is the market not a secondary or tertiary cause in the moral degeneracy of a society or culture?"

  That depends on what you think of the nature of mankind. If you think like socialists (I'm not calling you a socialist; i'm just pointing out their world view) then people are born innocent and become evil only through outside influences, such as the market. But if you think like a conservative that mankind is born with a tendency toward evil but has a free will, then you'll agree that temptation doesn't guarantee that someone will succomb. Everyone has a choice in the matter.

  Besides, someone will always provide opportunities to be immoral. That's human nature. It's not a question of the market providing it or it not existing at all. The question is do we allow the market to provide the temptation or drive it underground where the opportunities for profit are much greater?

  Published: December 23, 2008 12:23 PM

• Abhilash Nambiar

  It is such a breathe of fresh air to read a devout Christian embracing religiously diversity, 'multiplicity of values of the consuming public' as he puts it. Compare that to the nut cases who try to push the 'America was found as a Christian Nation' agenda.

  Published: December 23, 2008 12:30 PM

• Henry Miller

  There are still today some christian sects that do not celibrate christmas. Not very many, but if you talk to the pastors of a number of churchs that do you will find they celibrate for two reasons: it is the only time some people step into a church, so they use that opportunity to preach to them, trying to save them; or they know the congragation would rebel if they tried to eliminate christmas. This still isn't a majority by any means, but it is worth noting.
  

  Published: December 23, 2008 1:44 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  Dear Jeffrey,

  Thanks for the thoughtful and peaceful article.

  The liberty of classical liberalism honors the subjective nature of human beings and it honors the power of the market to serve everyone everywhere as perfectly as possible.

  Published: December 23, 2008 2:32 PM

• St. Nick

  Fun,

  I realise the inherit evil in the state - particularly when its on a morality bender. I'm not trying to make an argument for state-led social engineering - whether they do that at the behest of leftist multiculture types or "rightist" Christian zealots.

  But it's quite another thing altogether to hoist the market - a malleable entity at best - to something almost spiritual. I realize that people have a tendency to elevate and perhaps exaggerate something that they spend most of their working lives defending. If you've ever been to the Institute, there's almost this creepy sense of a Mises and Rothbard shrine, a la some Latin American shrine to Mary, Christ's mother.

  But I still submit that if the market is best at responding to public values then the Church or other religions need to start using it. Paying people to do good may sound simplistic, but it is a reasonable, natural corollary of Tucker's message.

  Published: December 23, 2008 2:47 PM

• jeffrey

  "If you've ever been to the Institute, there's almost this creepy sense of a Mises and Rothbard shrine, a la some Latin American shrine to Mary, Christ's
  mother."

  That's one of the funniest sentences I've ever read on this blog! Here I thought we were just working on a putting together great research facilities.

  It reminds me of the time I was giving a tour of our library and a man demanded to know if we were communists. I said, no were are not. He then demanded to know why we have the collected works of Stalin on our shelves!

  Published: December 23, 2008 2:52 PM

• David C

  My take is that the state is ruining Christmas. First, you have this rampant fiat money - over time that creates a culture of debt and consumption instead of one of thrift and sharing. Second, this fiat money inevitably props up government social programs which inevitably attacks voluntarily community forms of support such as local churches.

  Published: December 23, 2008 3:05 PM

• Inquisitor

  Even the market needs its Inquisitors...

  Published: December 23, 2008 3:40 PM

• Nice article anyway

  If you asked my wife, the only thing ruining Christmas for her would be me still reading this mises blog. Oh, wait ...

  Published: December 23, 2008 4:58 PM

• cavalier973

  The "War on Christmas", I think, is part of a general belief that the U.S. Government has it in for the Christian Community. I guess that the erosion of institutional support of one's faith that had previously been pervasive in society would be hard to take for followers of any creed.

  Most of the angst regarding the "War on Christmas" seems to be a push-back at the politically correct movement--which is perceived as giving us such policies as the prohibition of Christmas displays on the Courthouse Square and replacing School Christmas Plays with Global Climate Awareness Plays.

  Published: December 23, 2008 9:23 PM

• St. Nick

  "It reminds me of the time I was giving a tour of our library and a man demanded to know if we were communists. I said, no were are not. He then demanded to know why we have the collected works of Stalin on our shelves!" Nice one!

  I was simply referring to the multitude of busts, portraits, paintings, framed dicta, stoles, plaques, crests, etc. of Ludwig and Murray that used to hover over the smaller spaces of the MI. Perhaps they've been thinned out with you newer, handsome spaces. If that was taken ad hominem, I apologize. I've got a lot destinations to make in the next 24 hours, and it may be getting the better of me.

  But I digress, if the market is best at responding to public values then the Church or other religions need to start using it. Paying people to do good may sound simplistic, but it is a reasonable, natural corollary of Tucker's message.

  Published: December 23, 2008 10:04 PM

• Erick Mendez

  Thank you Mr. Tucker you have given the most wonderful gift of all enlightenment. You definitely understand profit and tolerance do go hand and hand. If I were a business owner, and if I wanted profit, I would try to sell to whomever and encourage them to come back with a culturally sensitive policy. I mean if I saw someone with a Kwanzaa pendant I would not say Merry Christmas to him or her because it's not logical.

  Published: December 23, 2008 10:33 PM

• TokyoTom

  Have yourself a Merry Christmas, Jeff.

  Published: December 23, 2008 10:47 PM

• cshirk

  St. Nick,
  The problem with your assertion, churches should start paying people to do good, is that it would negate the purpose of the religion for Christians in the first place. Christianity is about choosing to do what's right each day on your own without outside influence. That is, it is a shift *from within oneself*. Yes, paying people for good behavior may get it, but it won't be a willing choice. It will be a drive for monetary reward in *this* life for doing good, not a drive to serve God for the reward that He has to offer. In so doing, people would become split in what they are serving - God or personal gain - and Christ clearly stated that you cannot serve two masters. You will either be doing it for God and the money will be secondary, or you will be doing it for the money and God will be secondary. Since no amount of good works can get you into Heaven (the book of James, if my memory serves me right I'm terrible with the whole book, chapter, verse thing), regardless of how pure your motives, doing so would - through the Church - condemn a (probably vast majority) lot of "converts" to destruction. This would be operating in negation of the Lord's will that, "none should perish, but have life unto the ages" (John 3 something), and would therefore condemn the entire order of priesthood - or all pastors, teachers, what have you - to destruction for "it would be better that a millstone be tied to their neck and they be cast into the water" than to lead people astray. You come up with a valid way for organized religions to gain "willing converts" and to get people to do good things, but the spiritual destruction you would be sowing would be beyond imagining, both for you and them. Priests, preachers, and good teachers know this. They therefore avoid such paths like the plauge because they are aware that to go down such paths would be to undermine the very teachings that they (theoretically) dedicate their lives to. You forget, Christianity isn't about getting people to do good things, it's about saving people's souls.

  Another thing that it seems to me you need to think about is that religion of any kind seeks stability, while the market is constantly changing.

  Religion - it doesn't matter what religion - is not capable of change. God (and therefore his commandments, and therefore the tenents of Christianity) is wholly unchanging. The only thing that changes is *how* we are to apply the basics - love (servant to master) the Lord your God and love (treat as though family) your neighbor. By its definition those values do not change, and cannot change without negating Christianity and negating, therefore, the purpose in serving the Lord.

  The market, however, is always changing by its very nature...the polar opposite, if you would, to religion in that respect. That is because the market is the sum total of all transactions going on everywhere. It is therefore, by definition, adaptive and can't be anything other than adaptive. People trade, and when they trade that transaction becomes a part of the market. It's that simple. Their difference in values that results in trade becomes - instantaneously - an adaptation within the market to their values, and therefore any changes thereof. When this happens on a large scale...well, I think you get the picture.

  As for people's value systems becoming corrupted, that's hardly the fault of the market. If you want to know who to blame, you need look no further than the self-entitled "value system" that we have either taught our children, or allowed to be taught to them by "lechers and communists." It is truly sad to watch, but it's not the free market's fault. The market (we don't have a *free* market) has simply responded to demands, it is OUR fault. We need to face the facts, admit it, and change it. We (the people who actually celebrate Christmas) are the ones who deserve the blame for the degredation of Christmas. We, not the market, are the ones who are choosing to fight, and steal so that we can get that "greatest toy" for Christmas. We, not the market, are the ones who have forgotten what Christmas is all about. We, not the market, are the ones who have spent more of our time obsessing about gifts and presents, and mommy kissing Santa Claus than over the birth of the Savior and what it means. We, not the market, are the ones who have perverted Christmas, *if* indeed Christmas has become perverted. What people truly see, and why they look for a scapegoat, is the change in themselves...and it frightens them. It would be like waking up one morning and deciding to blame the mirror when it shows you the image of someone whose appearance is simply grotesque. "That horrible mirror," one might say, "it is always showing me this grotesque image, when I know I'm beautiful." This hardly makes sense, because that mirror is showing them what they look like! It's the same thing with the market. It shows us our value system - or, that is, the collective value system of the whole of the people - for what it really is...and I believe it frightens us. Because it frightens us, and we just *know* that we can't be that bad and degraded, we go looking for something that *made* us that bad and degraded. Blaming the market allows people the opportunity to look at something other than themselves. (Although I seem to remember somebody saying something about a plank and a piece of sawdust.)

  So, if you are reviled by Christmas, and what it has become, then I suggest spending some time in deep meditation and looking at yourself - and God knows I need to do this as well, though for different reasons. Read the Word of God, and think deeply on what it *really* says. Then, look at your own value system and ask yourself if you have become one of the perverted. If you have, then make the conscious effort to change yourself. If not, then get others to do likewise. Start with your friends and family...get them to look within, and move out from there. You never know who you might bring around!

  Published: December 24, 2008 5:22 AM

• cshirk

  And since I can't edit a post:
  Mr. Tucker, excellent article, and one that really got me to thinking.

  Ya'll have a very merry Christmas.

  Published: December 24, 2008 5:26 AM

• Atanamis

  The problem with this article is that rather than clarifying the issue it instead chooses to argue about whether there is a "war" to begin with. There can be no doubt that there is a desire among some to deliberately avoid using the word "Christmas", and a desire among others to encourage its use. This has nothing to do with free vs controlled markets, and is not a legitimate topic for a Mises blog.

  The article next tried to defend capitalism by saying that capitalism is providing what the defenders of Christmas want. To argue this is to demonstrate ignorance of the basic economic concept of demand. If the market WAS mirroring what the defenders of Christmas want, they wouldn't be demanding anything. Clearly the existence of this position demonstrates that their demand ISN'T being met by the general market. Any inability to recognize this is based on a failure to understand what is being demanded, something the writer of this article makes no attempt to do.

  The next argument clearly demonstrates this willful ignorance. Defenders of Christmas aren't demanding a higher number of google or amazon matches for the words "Merry Christmas", but rather they are demanding to be advertised to and greeted with this phrase by commercial entities. Any single ad or greeting of "Happy Holidays" fails to fulfill the market demand they are making.

  Not until the end of the article does the author make the least effort to engage in legitimate economic discussion. At this point he agrees that the use of "Happy Holidays" is entirely a marketing decision, and that it will reverse as soon as its liabilities in the marketplace outweigh its advantages. In other words, the "war on Christmas" is legitimate, and those who strongly prefer "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays" should vote with their buying power.

  The article concludes by saying this is a dumb thing to argue over anyway. By what right does a proponent of market economics tell other people what they should and should not value? If I choose to shop only at stores whose color scheme is appealing to me, that is my full right under market economics. If enough people demand to be addressed with "Merry Christmas" and are willing to vote with their business, they WILL be able to achieve what they want. This article is an "attack on Christmas" disguised as an economic blog.

  Note: Personally I have no direct interest in the "war on Christmas". I don't care if you say "Merry Christmas", "Happy Holidays", or "Enjoy your long weekend" to me. I think that taking offense to any of these is goofy, but in a business context buyers and sellers of goods and services have every right to choose whatever policies they want to on the subject. Privately, I have the right to disassociate with you if you take offense to how I greet you, and will do so if you are obnoxious enough about it. Legislatively, voters have full right to determine what their government officially calls anything. The "war on Christmas" is one of personal preferences, and that means nobody is more or less right than anyone else. So long as everyone retains First Amendment rights to expression, I don't care who wins.

  Published: December 24, 2008 4:33 PM

• Tomb Like Bomb

  You've covered everyone but the great majority who dislike the inundations from both Christianity AND commercialism. Christmas is actually a great example of how capitalism is NOT responsive to public will. When you hear people talking about Christmas shopping, you get the impression that it's an automatic, ritualistic obligation. "Two months' salary tells her you love her", say the ads, rather convincingly, as evidenced by spending (by both the advertisers and the consumers). What you seem to have forgotten is that capitalism is not merely "responding" to "public will" but in fact affecting it. Quite obviously, there is no profit to be got from an actually anti-commercialist population.

  Published: December 24, 2008 8:36 PM

• newson

  tomb-like bomb:
  turn off "the manchurian candidate" and get out there and buy your woman some gift, man. before it's too late. two months sounds about right.

  jeff, a delightful and tolerant article. happy xmas/christmas/holiday!

  Published: December 25, 2008 7:00 AM

• newson

  atamanis...i_am_satan
  well, seems everyone's got an opinion on christmas.

  Published: December 25, 2008 7:17 AM

• Jaakko Ojala

  See the newest challenge to modern economics in heavenlyeconomics.blogspot.com!

  Published: January 2, 2009 5:58 AM