MovieChat Forums > Scrooge (1971) Discussion > Sorry, but it all comes down to money.

Sorry, but it all comes down to money.

posted 8 years ago by dhmason6155
32 replies | jump to latest

Let's face it: When Scrooge clung to his money (also known as being prudent, thrifty, economical and knowing the value of a dollar) he was bad. But when he spent his money on other people (also known as squandering) he was good.

What exactly were his sins (one for each link on his chain)? Was it running a money lending business in a free market, capitalist society, giving loans to people who needed help keeping their businesses afloat? Even if, apparently, they were bad risks? When his debtors asked for more time he gave it to them, even though it meant charging more interest, a legitimate business practice.

Granted, if he was engaging in usury or predatory lending that's one thing. He also underpaid Bob Cratchit and never gave him a raise. That's a poor employment practice, but obviously Bob had skills and a track record and could have found a better employer. Why didn't he? If you mistreat your employees they quit for greener pastures. Why does Scrooge get the blame for Tiny Tim being sick?

I loved the movie and it's fundamental lessons about kindness and family etc, but I've always despised the whole idea in fiction of capitalists being the bad guys. People who have money are bad unless the give it to you. To quote Big Daddy in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, I call that "Haahpocraacy"!

We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.

[–] boll-weavil 8 years ago

You maybe need to read the book to get away from the simplistic interpretations that the modern day world film world has put on Scrooge.In a sense it doesn't matter what he does for a living or how successful he is, only that his treatment of people, whether in business or in his personal life is very harsh.The book then goes back to his childhood to find out what has made him that way and discovers a succession of wrong decisions.As he sees those scenes again he realises how easy it is to make the wrong choices and learns the error of his ways.His guilt is the way he shuts off the world in pursuit of greed in an attempt to push himself beyond the reach of poverty.Like you, when he questioned about his ambition, he asks why the world is so two-faced as to call him for his greed whilst at the same time being so hard on those who don't make it.So the 'sins' are greed (the excessive pursuit of money) and his non-engagement with the rest of the human race.All this is set against a time when people were urged to make money and be successful for sure but also to be paternalistic and use their wealth for some good. In the UK that meant doing good works in the world about you. What happens if you don't ? Well the most important scene is the 'children of man' introduced by Dickens as Ignorance and Want with his warning to beware them both as both were dangerous to the future of mankind.Well that's still true ! So the fact that Tim is ill is not Scrooge's fault but he has the power to do something about it and also the moral responsibility. Sure he can shut the door and pretend its nothing to do with him but if he does he's likely to end up dead with his legacy dying with him.As a paternalistic capitalist Dickens was teaching him to use the wealth society believed God had given him to benefit the world around him, exactly what the Victorians expected of it's rich.

[–] dhmason6155 8 years ago

Thank you for your well written and thought out reply. I've never read the book, but Dickens' books are notoriously dense and hard to translate completely to the screen (Otherwise, the movie would be about six hours long!). We usually get the simplified, stripped-down version.

I thank Hollywood, my own innate cynicism and the current liberal, PC world we live in for my attitudes and mistrust towards the media. Right, Scrooges problem wasn't his money or his thrift/stinginess, but his innate mean-spiritedness and detachment and isolation from people. It seems the biggest breaking point in his life was losing the woman he loved.

Our morality says people who are able to help those less fortunate should. Unfortunately, liberals today are pretty militant about the "should" part, so it creates some antagonism.

And you're right. We do have a double standard: We're encouraged and pushed to succeed (and judged harshly if we don't), but those who do are looked upon with suspicion and contempt.

Dickens' writing and his outlook on life and capitalistic society were shaped by his own childhood experience when his family fell on hard times and he was sent by force to the workhouse, just like Oliver Twist. He spent the rest of his life angrily attacking this cruel system. Paternalistic Capitalist is a good expression. I've never heard that before. He was definitely a liberal (in the best sense of the word and when it meant something) and a progressive, but thankfully not a Socialist. Like you said, his answer to society's inequalities was based on values and morals.

We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.

[–] boll-weavil 8 years ago

I'm glad you found the reply helpful. I'll add a couple of things to your response. One is that, yes you're right, Dickens books are very long but 'Christmas Carol' isn't, strictly speaking, one of his novels.It's certainly not counted as such because it's so short and was written, very quickly, whilst the serialisation of Martin Chuzzlewit was his main concern. The reason he wrote 'The Carol' was quite simple. He needed the money. His profligate family were draining it from him faster than he could earn it, particularly his father who was knocking up debts in his name everywhere he went. So he needed cash quickly. He took an old idea (you'll find the outline in an earlier book, 'The Pickwick Papers')fleshed it out and sold it.His publishers thought it was too short to publish so he financed it himself which gave him even more money worries.
You said he spent some time in the workhouse but actually his father and mother went to a debtors prison whilst he stayed outside working in a shoe blacking factory. As he always thought of himself as a potential genius he was appalled that nobody seemed to care that he was in that profession and that helped shape what you might call a 'liberal' conscience.Thereafter he was always campaigning for the rights of the poor and the forgotten in Victorian society and Christmas Carol is an extension of that concern. He had no strong political allegiance and as you can see from 'Tale of Two Cities' he and the rest of the country had an outright fear of civil unrest and revolution in their country. This was a legitimate and realistic concern because the capital was frequently full of groups of disaffected workers who were marching to highlight the problems in their trades.Dickens was an ardent reformer but he wanted very much to work within the system.In Carol we see the successful nephew of Scrooge, Mr Fred, held up as a well-off member of society with very compassionate principles and that was Dickens' ideal - the paternalistic capitalist. Indeed, if you read the story around Christmas Carol there are many anecdotes of factory owners ordering turkeys for their workers and giving them Christmas Day off purely as a result of being affected after reading the book.For the rest of us, the story is more simple. Dickens' emblems of coaches rolling through snow and top-hatted portly gentlemen spell Christmas to us now as much as they did 150 years ago.

[–] dhmason6155 8 years ago

I'm enjoying this thread. We can thank Dickens and also Currier and Ives for our whole image and our traditions of Christmas now. Probably the most prominent example of the Paternalistic Capitalist would be Andrew Carnegie. He practically invented philanthropy and ultimately gave %90 of his wealth to charity. Loosely quoted, he said, basically, if he raised his workers pay, they'd squander it. Better to spend his own money on libraries, schools, museums etc, for their betterment.

And I can relate to Dickens: my own family likes to spend my money faster than I can earn it. Sigh...

Interesting that he wrote "Carol" quickly and it became a classic. I believe the best and most powerful inspirations turn on a dime, while I've seen artists who labored excessively on their "masterpieces" which ultimately turned out to be their worst work.

We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.

[–] boll-weavil 8 years ago

Yes, your original question made me think a bit and I'm sure as other posters drift onto these messageboards nearer Christmas you'll get a few more comments.It's interesting to me that with the polarisation of political thought in the USA at the moment, people are choosing to come back to Christmas Carol to see whether it applies to the society and the times they are now living in.This question is being asked on other boards on IMDB as well, albeit in different ways.Dickens didn't address it directly because as we have seen above, it just wasn't an issue.The political system was in existence to him and all else was anarchy (probably literally) but he did hold to account the political factions that believed the existing class-ridden society was divinely ordered in books like 'Hard Times'and 'The Chimes' This latter was interesting because with the success of 'Carol' he felt obligated to come up with another Christmas book.He produced one largely focused around new year but one that attacked both the officials of local government for suggesting people were 'born bad' and the workers that agreed with them to their own detriment. The book wasn't anything like as successful and usually gets forgotten. It doesn't have much of a plot really and gets quite laboured at times. It is the difficult second album if you like.Dickens was better when he wasn't hammering home a point, however well intentioned.

[–] dhmason6155 8 years ago

Thanks. Yes. This may seem a bit oblique, but I'm also reminded of Joseph Conrad. His best, and best known work was "The Heart of Darkness", a classic to this day, and the result of pure inspiration. Then, like Dickens, he tried to make a "statement" and wrote "The Secret Agent", basically a treatise on Socialism vs Capitalism, and set in England. It's long, boring, pedantic and his worst book.

"Carol" endures, I think, because the themes and elements it deals with are timeless and so fundamental to the human condition. Chiefly among them, for me, is how the pursuit of wealth, driven by the fear of poverty, can make you lose sight of basic values and forget how to be a human being. I just saw the movie last week and the scenes in the beginning where Scrooge is at his worst and telling the charity workers to get bent ("let them die and decrease the surplus population") made me laugh! Now I think, maybe I'm becoming a Scrooge.

Of course he saw the light in the end.

We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.

[–] boll-weavil 8 years ago

Yes, he was paraphrasing Malthus who theories were part of the justification for not helping the poor. Malthus believed the population would rise and fall according to the provisions available with the weakest in the population dying off - a theory of natural selection. Those who had to be helped to stay alive were surplus population and unbalanced the natural order of things.Dickens has another rant at him later as the Ghost of Christmas Present when he says to Scrooge "Man if man you be in heart. Forebear that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus population is and where it is.It may be in God's eyes you are less worthy and less fit to live than millions like this poor mans child" Oddly perhaps, all of the major versions, except for the 1984 version with George C Scott, omit this.As we said earlier, some also even omit the children of man - Ignorance and Want.I think this is a shame because this is at the very heart of the book and although Dickens didn't want to put people out of humour with himself, the book or the season, I think the emphasis on raising people's awareness of need without blaming others for being poor is a good message and one that could do with re-emphasing today.
Having said that, when you laughed at the charity collectors, I'm afraid it reminded me of me putting words into the mouth of the Cratchits which are quite unprintable here - a natural kickback, I think if we find something a touch OTT !

[–] Big_AL-96 8 years ago

Dickens wrote a number of Christmas short stories some included in other books like Pickwick Papers, and all carry a message and are all short stories.

Some that stand out are

'The Chimes', 'The Battle of Life', 'The Cricket on the Hearth' and 'The Haunted Man'

Let's pray the human race never escapes Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere. C.S Lewis

[–] boll-weavil 8 years ago

Yes we talked about The Chimes earlier.The only comparable encapsulation of Christmas though comes in Pickwick Papers during the scenes set at Dingley Dell. This is,of course, where The Goblin that Stole A Sexton' comes from that later became The Carol.If you haven't read Pickwick, you should read that before trying any of the others in my opinion because the descriptions are comparable with the ones in Carol.

[–] Big_AL-96 8 years ago

Never read pickwick papers but have read the Goblin that Stole a Sexton. Rather a vicious telling of a story, but good nonetheless. As ever Dickens descriptive writing is a wonder.

Let's pray the human race never escapes Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere. C.S Lewis

[–] boll-weavil 8 years ago

Yes, too right, and as we said earlier on in this thread, it was a story he came back to when he needed an idea in a hurry for The Christmas Carol plot.In 1996 George Cole (himself a Scrooge in the Alistair Sim version in 1951) starred as the Sexton in a modern day version that borrowed heavily from it and Carol on BBC Radio. The BBC also made a separate recording of it by Clive Francis who was playing the role of Scrooge in the adaptation of the 1970 musical in London at the time.They're all intermingled !

[–] Big_AL-96 8 years ago

https://archive.org/details/CharlesDickens-TheStoryOfTheGoblinsWhoStoleASexton.

I think this is the Clive Francis recording.

Iincidentally I have the audio book of A Christmas Carol, with Geoffrey Palmer reading it. He does a splendid job.

Let's pray the human race never escapes Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere. C.S Lewis

[–] boll-weavil 8 years ago

Yes that's Clive Francis (the BBC have another reading as well somewhere). I know the Geofrrey Palmer from the Penguin classics series. It is excellent I agree but there are plenty of others out there now.I used to collect them but there got so many !

[–] Big_AL-96 8 years ago

I only bought the Jeffrey Palmer one to listen to in the car when I was working in Cambridge and driving up to and back from North Wales every weekend. I used to get a lot of audio books then. Not so much anymore as I prefer to read the book or watch the movie (don't do the tremendous amount of driving anymore-thankfully)

Let's pray the human race never escapes Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere. C.S Lewis

[–] bpollen 8 years ago

You might want to revisit your high school history lessons, or read up on England in the 1800s, to learn a bit about poor houses, work houses, and employment practices, as well as the state of the "middle class" and aristocracy.

Read up on sanitation of the populace, as well, as well as illnesses.

Get crackin'. You have a lot to learn, little fella.

[–] dhmason6155 8 years ago

Who, me?

We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.

[–] Eric-62-2 8 years ago

I think the "squandering" interpretation in reverse argument that dhmason put forth in the original post is something that applies mostly to just this movie's treatment of the source because it really does seem like everyone's newfound love for Scrooge is rooted more in "Look at him spend everything on us and buy us presents and cancel all our debts!" (this is an impression that grew on me more and more from repeat viewings as the years went by and I saw and heard other versions of the story that are much superior IMO. The Alastair Sim film version, the George C. Scott film version and the Focus on the Family Radio Theater version (and that one obtained permission to use parts of the Sim film script) remain the three best for me. That said, I would love to see a musical treatment that keeps the songs/score but reworks the script to be more in tune with the original (for instance I would use "Thank You Very Much" only once as an eleven o'clock number and have it begin with a speechless Bob on the morning after when Scrooge pulls the surprise on him saying the words and breaking into the number). Then I'd have the best of all possible worlds with a score I like but a script that leaves much to be desired IMO.

[–] boll-weavil 8 years ago

I think this is just about different interpretations for different purposes. A musical is never going to put across the finer points of Dickens' book. It's about doing things big and making a huge ending to what is essentially a show on film. Focus on the Family is bound to emphasise the character change because it's a Christian based production so the ability to change is integral but neither it nor Sim are faithful to Dickens either. Both contain scenes that are made up, some for the spurious reason of finding a part for Jack Warner who was on loan to the studio at the time so they are no more free from the adaptation than the 1970 version. Where Finney's version does score is that he is the best Scrooge by a long way. He is closest to Dickens portrayal both physicallly and by character and his portrayal of the awkward young version of self is unique. No other version even grasps it never mind showing it. Sim and George C Scott both centre on the black and white intrinsically bad man who changes angle. A very simplistic and basically totally incorrect portrayal.That is why the film can sometimes look like an advert for free spending or an attack on capitalism. It is neither.It's about gradual realisation and acceptance of past mistakes.Had Focus on the Family centred on what Dickens wanted rather than an adaptation that just lifts a flawed film script they would have come up with a version that would be far more truthful to the ideals of Christianity than they did.

[–] Eric-62-2 8 years ago

Actually the Jack Warner character doesn't appear in the Focus on the Family version. They retained things like Mrs. Dilbert showing up in the morning and becoming the first recipient of Scrooge's kindness. The Warner dialogue was retained but was handed over to young Marley in a revised scene thus making Marley the one who starts to lead Scrooge down the wrong path. And Focus On The Family I felt in its version didn't skip on "realization of past mistakes" nor for that matter did the Sim and Scott versions but I know that's ultimately a subjective call for viewers/listeners.

One problem I have with Finney is that he and the script drop the ball in Christmas Past by making him a passive mute figure before he goes bad. "Happiness" should have been a duet between the young Scrooge and Belle (yes I know, "Isabel" in this version) and its interesting that Bricusse himself changed it this way for his stage version of the property in the 90s. Finney should have been given some dialogue and some genuine acting in that earlier part IMO.

[–] boll-weavil 8 years ago

But do you not think that the 'Hapinness' number in the film gives a great realisation of past failings ? I like Finney that he tries to make the change in each of the ghosts and is quite swept along by the process whereas for Sim (and so Focus on the Family) we get the pantomime Scrooge is has turned nasty and is too old to change etc. All of this makes the final scene more cinematic but it does drift away from Dickens' original intention of gently pointing out that this could happen to any of us. We could all make wrong decisions at wrong times and before you know it you've gone wrong.That's a great message. Scrooge is not a calculating George C Scott type, he is just like us but for a few wrong decisions.Finney realises this. He's not happy himself and he can't be interested in anyone else. He's the natural product of intransigence not deliberate malice.That's why, when he sings 'Happiness' it's (for me) deeply moving because he's realising what could have made him happier and what he's lost.

[–] sheezcrazy 8 years ago

I don't think wealthy people are bad people, unless they've acquired their wealth at the expense of others. I think when Jesus said (I'm actually an atheist, but I do realize Jesus had insight into human nature) "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to pass into heaven." Prejudice and mistrust of wealth go back hundreds of years before the birth of capitalism in America. Liberals, however misguided you think they may be, didn't invent the middle class desire for social responsibility. In feudal times it was called "noblesse oblige."
Scrooge was a mean-spirited douche-bag, simply put. And when he chose not to be, he was happier.
Also, "A Christmas Carol" was an easy, enjoyable read. I read it to my grandchildren.
Merry Christmas!

[–] boll-weavil 8 years ago

Merry Christmas to you to ! I think you are right to say all the sentiments in the novel are deep-rooted in British society by the time of Dickens. However, like Christmas customs themselves, they were in need of revival by Victorian times as wealthy industrialists (what the Americans call 'new money') were appearing with the power of landed classes but without their sense of obligation.

[–] dhmason6155 8 years ago

Good point, although today we'd call them "Yuppie Scum".

We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.

[–] bpollen 8 years ago

It was about greed and corruption and addiction and unhappiness.

Christmas time is a season of giving. Everyone gives. The mistake people with money make is that they view THEMSELVES as being attacked for their capitalism if they are asked to give, as if everyone wants a piece of them because of their money. The fact is that EVERYONE gives at Christmas time. All Scrooge was asked by others was a routine giving that others were doing. Nothing more. He wasn't being asked to fund a community center or give away money for nothing. He was asked to contribute to a charity, to make his work place warm during the cold weather, to go to his nephew's house on Christmas for a FREE dinner. The poor citizens in the book are kind and giving of what they have, but they have little, of course.

I don't believe he was asked to forgive debts that were owed to him. But mind you, he was loaning to people in his community. He wasn't a bank loaning to strangers. So the situation was different. There are laws now that prevent usurious interest, recognizing the greed and difference in power between a lender and borrower, thus preventing a lender to abuse the business relationship, even in a free market.

"It's A Wonderful Life" may actually be more of a criticism of capitalism than Scrooge, but even in that one, George Bailey is not asked not to make a good living. He is merely shown to be good because he does not take advantage of his neighbors out of greed, like Potter does.

There is capitalism based on making a decent profit for providing a valuable service at a reasonable price, paying employees a reasonable wage, providing a safe and comfortable work place. Then there is greed, such as we see in the movie Wall Street. There is a difference. Scrooge displayed extreme greed. That isn't an attack on capitalism.

There was no free market as such in Scrooge's time, anyway. One was born into a class; it was extremely difficult to get out of that class. There were no protections for workers, so that employers could abuse those with less power. That's not a free market, because the system is set up so that a certain class has the power and another does not.

[–] dhmason6155 8 years ago

Excellent, well thought out reply. Although I would only add that during the Victorian era the free market and the industrial age were in their infancy. Scrooge after all was able to become successful, although the pursuit of that success was largely what made him the way he was.

The class system still lives on in England, although it's more from habit and culture.

We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.

[–] Skoivu16 8 years ago

OP probly thinks Gordon Gekko is the hero of Wall Street.

[–] dhmason6155 8 years ago

That's a totally ignorant, prejudicial statement. Gordon Gekko was a predator. He was only a corporate raider. Scrooge was a legitimate businessman. He ran a money lending business.

You need to read my post again. You missed the point. I'm not worshipping money above all else, but I do think money and economics are the foundation of "Carol".

We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.

[–] Skoivu16 8 years ago

OP probly thinks Mr. Potter was the hero of Its a Wonderful Life

[–] dhmason6155 8 years ago

You're a dumbass.

We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.

[–] Skoivu16 8 years ago

OP probly thinks Daniel Plainview is a generous, kind, decent person.

[–] dhmason6155 8 years ago

😅

We got a job.
What kind?
...The Forever Kind.

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2360) 3 years ago

Yeah, I worry about him going broke before he dies and the poor unfortunates he helped being unable or just unwilling to help him.