A Christmas Carol

We watched A Christmas Carol as a family as a family the other night. It's a worthwhile exercise to watch this from time to time – not so much as a period piece as a window into our own hearts, and our current society. I think very little revision would be needed to update this story.

Ghost of Christmas Present: If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, none other of my species will find him here. But if he is to die, then let him die...! "AND DECREASE THE SURPLUS POPULATION!"
Ebeneezer Scrooge: You use my own words against me?
Ghost of Christmas Present: Yes! So perhaps, in the future, you will hold your tongue until you have discovered where the surplus population is, and WHO it is. It may well be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than MILLIONS like this poor man's child.
       – Charles Dickens

Wealth, Power, and Government

Absent an effective countervailing force, power and wealth will attract one another into an increasingly tight, inwardly spiraling orbit, resulting eventually in the black hole of concentrated wealth and monopoly power. Government which fails to act as that countervailing force—instead becoming a mere agent of wealth and power—violates its raison d’être, and is worse than no government at all.