Why I’m not anti-Capitalist
Some thoughts on Santa, Capitalism and the stories we tell our kids
People sometimes think I’m anti-Capitalist.
I find it hard to explain why I’m not. But, as we are leaving Christmas behind us, I’ll give it a go. I think of Capitalism in much the same way as I think of Santa Claus (if you want to listen to me explain then head over to Youtube).
I’m not directly opposed to Santa. How could I be? On the face of it, the story of Santa is nice enough. The children who are the best behaved get lots of presents. It’s nice to believe the presents are packed by happy elves. It’s fun to think of Santa coming down the chimney. I like magic and snow and flying reindeer.
It’s good to believe this, for children. And then they reach an age where we tell them it’s not true (if they haven’t already worked out the clues). We tell our kids not to believe in Santa Claus but we don’t always fess up to how their presents arrived. We stop believing in Santa but must believe in something else. We start believing markets and governments allocate presents fairly. In the story of Santa Claus there is vagueness about where all the presents come from before they get to the North Pole. This is replaced by a vagueness about who makes things, where the materials come from, who puts them together. It might…
