One of the many delights of the holiday season is reading or hearing that famous Charles Dickens story,A Christmas Carol.
The tale of ghosts visiting an old miser Scrooge to transform him into a better, more generous fellow is entertaining, hopeful and satisfying.
And the sub-plot of the poor, working class Cratchit family, holding their Christmas together with love and compassion, is heartwarming.
Despite its magic, the story has disturbingly familiar components. The setting is 19th century England, which is experiencing rapid economic growth.
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Bankers, investors and industrialists are doing well. Profits are soaring. Captains of industry, also known as robber barons, are gaining control of the economy. Their favourite social policy is expanding prisons.
In this marketplace, Bob Cratchit works long hours under difficult conditions. He begs a day off to celebrate Christmas with his family.
But he’s having a hard time feeding the family on the single income of his full-time job.
A second income is required. And the added costs of their sick child, Tiny Tim, in the era before Medicare, puts the family in jeopardy. The threats of hunger and homelessness are real and constant.
This has a familiar ring. The latest report from food banks in Canada show that more and more Canadian families are, like the Cratchits, relying on good luck and charity to meet basic needs. While Bob’s family is financially vulnerable, his boss is getting richer.
The story of increasing poverty amid growing wealth in Victorian England is also our story here in Canada.
Our economy is growing and there is more wealth, but this growth in wealth, productivity and GDP is mostly benefiting the rich.
In a recently released report, economist Armine Yalnizyan shows that since the late 1970s, the richest one percent has almost doubled its share of total income; the richest 0.1 percent has almost tripled its share of total income; and the richest 0.01 percent has more than quintupled its share of income.
Yalnizyan notes that “Canada’s elites are breaking new frontiers in income inequality.”
The pre-Christmas Scrooge could have taken some lessons.
As the gap between the rich and the rest grows, there is more pressure on the middle.
Economic and social measures such as labour legislation to improve wage and working conditions and taxation for public services, health care, education and infrastructure narrowed the wealth gap and helped build a middle class.
Deregulation, globalization, corporate concentration and government policies are moving us back into Victorian style inequalities.
Will it take the rattling chains and remonstrations of the ghosts of past ages to transform us into a wiser, more compassionate, egalitarian people?
My New Year’s wish for all the Tiny Tims, other children and their families is for equality, fairness and a bright future.
Nettie Wiebe is a farmer in the Delisle, Sask., region and a professor of Church and Society at St. Andrews College in Saskatoon.
