Quid Est Veritas

A Karl Marx Christmas!

By Patrick Weadon

The movie “It’s a Wonderful life” has been shown so many times during the holidays that it has become trite. However, one of the reasons the film has staying power is its message regarding the dignity and uniqueness of every human life. When George Bailey’s guardian angel, Clarence, at a critical moment in the plot, remarks, “Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives,” he is not only trying to stop Bailey from killing himself, but also making the point that every person, by the very nature of their humanity, is, in a cosmic sense, unique and precious.

The film also dovetails nicely with the Christian notion that the Savior came to earth, took human form, and made the supreme sacrifice so that every human being could one day achieve salvation and everlasting life. The message, then, is a simple one: every one of us, (even illegal aliens, my friends), is part of God’s creation. With this in mind, one might conclude that we have an obligation to measure people’s worth not by their bank account or their accomplishments but by the fact that they exist.

Unfortunately, being a capitalist society, even during the holidays, we tend to celebrate the almighty dollar more than our humanity. As the comedian Stan Freeburg once noted in one of his sketches, “Deck the halls with advertising, while we can be enterprising, profit never needs a reason…get the money, it’s the season!”

Last year the Salvation Army took in $139 million in their red kettles. At first glance, that is a somewhat impressive figure, but it’s interesting to note that also in 2010, in the midst of a horrible recession, Wall Street paid out $20.8 billion in cash bonuses to people who were already filthy rich by most people’s standards.

Capitalism is at times a necessary evil, but something is wrong when we give billions to millionaires and save the crumbs for those who are most in need, as George Bailey noted in his admonition to the greedy miser, Mr. Potter. “You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter.”

What is needed is a different perspective, one that compels us to judge our fellow humans by their humanity rather than their pocket book. In a recent interview regarding her latest book, Love And Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution, the author Mary Gabriel makes the point that: “I think it’s safe to say that in 1844, Marx discovered the problem, which was that the nature of capitalism was…this goal called money, and that anything that stood in its way or in the way of that end goal, whether it be man or nature or whatever, was to be sacrificed.”

Karl Marx was wrong about so many things, but Gabriel is correct in making the observation that he understood that capitalism, at times, forces us to focus not on the intrinsic worth of every human soul, but on the amount that soul has in its bank account.

So this holiday season, let’s try to focus a little less on material things and remember Jacob Marley’s warning to his former partner: "It is required of every man, that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death."

Happy Holidays!