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AlexandraErin's profile
Alexandra Erin
Alexandra Erin
Alexandra Erin
@AlexandraErin

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Alexandra Erin

@AlexandraErin

Alfie Award-Winning Author/Commentator She/Her Nonfiction: http://alexandraerin.substack.com  Fiction: http://patreon.com/alexandraerin  Query: blueauthor@alexandraerin.com

Hagerstown
patreon.com/AlexandraErin
Joined February 2007

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    1. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

      Alexandra Erin Retweeted Don Moynihan

      I'm re-reading A Christmas Carol to test this, but the thing is, I don't think Marley and Scrooge are even good businessmen. I don't think a single point of this editorial is actually supported by the text.https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1342203193451798528 …

      Alexandra Erin added,

      Don MoynihanVerified account @donmoyn
      It has been a banner year for terrible WSJ opinion pieces, but this is really something. pic.twitter.com/5qh0ecw88S
      21 replies 360 retweets 1,511 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

      The *idea* behind the WSJ editorial is that Marley and Scrooge created wealth that enabled people to build railroads and factories that raised the standard of living for the nation and the world, but I don't see any indication in the text they invested in those things.

      6 replies 24 retweets 448 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

      I'm re-reading because this is one of the most adapted works in the English language and so it's hard to separate my memories of the adaptations from the texts, but the impression I have is that Scrooge's main business is the equivalent of sub-prime mortgages.

      6 replies 30 retweets 531 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

      Lending money at usurious rates to people who can't possibly hope to pay you back destroys wealth rather than creates it, while in the short to mid term causing it to further accumulate in the hands of the few.

      2 replies 47 retweets 531 likes
      Show this thread
      Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

      We can get an idea of Scrooge's business sense and how his business dealings impact the working class in how he treats his sole employee: paying him a starvation wage.

      12:11 PM - 25 Dec 2020
      • 16 Retweets
      • 411 Likes
      • 🌊can Republicans stop ruining everything please josh T. 🏳️‍⚧️Kafkaesque Meat🏳️‍🌈 Andy Tebb lucas tonkin Quaranteen Mark's Barks Georgi Jazzy #ACAB Waffles
      4 replies 16 retweets 411 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          In some adaptations at least, Scrooge is the holder of the mortgage on the Cratchit house, which means the money he pays to Cratchit largely comes back to him. He's getting close to free labor from a man who is bound to the company store.

          1 reply 11 retweets 396 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          When the Ghost of Christmas Past upbraids Scrooge for how little it cost Scrooge's old employer Fezziwig to put on a Christmas party for his company, Scrooge goes the ghost one better and lectures them on how much of being a good boss is free.

          1 reply 14 retweets 301 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          Scrooge literally sits there and lectures the ghost who is lecturing him on how unimportant the Christmas expenditure is compared to Fezziwig making his employees feel appreciated year-round, which he points out costs nothing but is more valuable than the party.

          1 reply 14 retweets 303 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          Now, do we think that Bob Cratchit, working in a tiny room described as a freezing cell, always hungry and cold and completely unappreciated by his employer, is one shilling more productive than a happy and well-nourished and rested clerk would have been?

          1 reply 10 retweets 334 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          Scrooge's argument with his nephew over the value of Christmas includes Fred saying that Christmas hasn't put a scrap of silver in his pocket but it's still done him good. Scrooge's habits, that I can tell, do him neither. He is miserable.

          1 reply 9 retweets 309 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          And while he's "rich", he lives in a tiny dismal, rundown apartment in a building he mostly rents out for office space, eating gruel. We don't know how profitable the firm of Marley and Scrooge is, just that its expenses (and those of its remaining owner) are low.

          3 replies 10 retweets 323 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          Alexandra Erin Retweeted Frank McGillicuddy says wear a mask

          Yeah. In many ways, Scrooge's whole business model is an anachronism that would have caused him to be left behind in the new world that the WSJ wants to credit him with creating.https://twitter.com/Frank_McG/status/1342565185194778625 …

          Alexandra Erin added,

          Frank McGillicuddy says wear a mask @Frank_McG
          Replying to @AlexandraErin
          i read that factory jobs were a factor in increasing compensation for non-factory workers since factory workers often had fewer hours, more freedom in off-hours than did non-factory workers
          1 reply 17 retweets 328 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          I'm very sorry to say that Bob Cratchit very likely stuck with Scrooge out of a sense of loyalty and goodwill to him. Which was ultimately rewarded in the story, after Scrooge's change of heart.

          4 replies 8 retweets 307 likes
          Show this thread
        10. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          I don't think Marely or Scrooge were good businessmen. I think they were cheap and greedy and had enough capital to leverage those qualities in order to stay afloat. I don't see how they created wealth or opportunities for others. Fezziwig at least was a job creator.

          4 replies 35 retweets 437 likes
          Show this thread
        11. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          Alexandra Erin Retweeted Tom Doyle (SF/F author of Border Crosser)

          Yes, the description of Scrooge's solitude in the opening is very strikingly at odds with the image of a person who is "good at business". Who's he doing business with? It seems only those desperate enough to have no other recourse.https://twitter.com/tmdoyle2/status/1342568471016726531 …

          Alexandra Erin added,

          Tom Doyle (SF/F author of Border Crosser) @tmdoyle2
          Replying to @AlexandraErin
          All so very true. Also, things like charitable donations and other emblems of bourgeois immortality then as now were avenues for networking and business expansion. Cutting those avenues off along with most other human connections goes nowhere.
          3 replies 15 retweets 295 likes
          Show this thread
        12. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          He no more creates wealth and opportunity than a predatory payday lender does.

          1 reply 11 retweets 279 likes
          Show this thread
        13. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          You could criticize A Christmas Carol as a capitalist critique by saying that Ebenezer Scrooge is an unrealistic strawman of a capitalist *because* he is miserable and wallows in misery in ways that aren't even profitable for him.

          4 replies 16 retweets 281 likes
          Show this thread
        14. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          But the thing is, qualities like keeping his employee miserable and lending money in ways that ruin rather than aid his borrowers... that mean-spirited short-sightedness... is abundantly on display in modern business.

          1 reply 33 retweets 381 likes
          Show this thread
        15. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          Nowadays it's done in the name of Growth rather than Thrift, but it's the same impulse.

          4 replies 9 retweets 261 likes
          Show this thread
        16. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          If we accept the text as true within itself -- and the WSJ's quibble with Dickens isn't that he got the events wrong, only their meaning -- then Scrooge doesn't go broke when he starts paying Cratchit more and treating him better.

          3 replies 9 retweets 239 likes
          Show this thread
        17. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          And again, Scrooge himself within the text is the one who realizes it doesn't cost an employer anything to regard their employees kindly, and it makes the employees' lives better for nothing.

          1 reply 8 retweets 248 likes
          Show this thread
        18. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          We know that Marley died with money and that he left it to Scrooge. When Scrooge dies, one imagines his money would have gone to Fred, who at least would have enjoyed it. There's no indication in the source that they enriched society materially with all their thrift.

          5 replies 7 retweets 242 likes
          Show this thread
        19. Alexandra Erin‏ @AlexandraErin 25 Dec 2020

          To make a long story short (TOO LATE!), the premise of the WSJ editorial is at best not supported by the text and arguably directly contradicted by it. Scrooge's wealth was hoarded for its own sake, not invested. He was more a slumlord than a captain of industry.

          7 replies 62 retweets 487 likes
          Show this thread
        20. End of conversation

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