Elogio di Scrooge

What I Like About Scrooge – More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics – Steven E. Landsburg

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Punti chiave: La generosità dell’avare sfugge solo a chi confonde l’avarizia con l’egoismo – Filantropia e avarizia: beneficare tutti e beneficare alcuni – L’avarizia va sussidiata. Come? Tassando i consumi – Chi produce senza consumare (Scrooge) e chi consuma senza produrre  (il cercatore d’oro) – Scrooge: un simbolo contro l’edonismo consumista

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Scrooge has been called ungenerous. I say that’s a bum rap. What could be more generous than keeping your lamps unlit and your plate unfilled, leaving more fuel for others to burn and more food for others to eat?

Note:LA GENEROSITÀ DI SCROOGE

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The only difference between miserliness and philanthrophy is that the philanthropist serves a favored few while the miser spreads his largesse far and wide.

Note:FILANTROPO E AVARO

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If you earn a dollar but refuse to spend a dollar, the rest of the world is one dollar richer—because

Note:DOLLARO PRODOTTO E NON CONSUMATO

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Put a dollar in the bank and you’ll bid down the interest rate

Note:CHI BENEFICIA DI QUESTA GENEROSITÀ

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Put a dollar in your mattress and (by effectively reducing the money supply) you’ll drive down prices by just enough so someone somewhere can have an extra dollar’s worth of coffee with his dinner.

Note:MATERASSO

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Ebenezer Scrooge lowered interest rates. Scrooge McDuck lowered prices.

Note:GIÙ I PREZZI PER TUTTI

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One reader actually told me that “the gold Scrooge hoarded could have fed the coal miner’s starving children.” No, actually it couldn’t have. Gold is rather low in protein,..You can trade gold for food, but then someone else eats less….

Note:LE PROTEINE DELL’ORO

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Was Scrooge selfish? Surely not. He was miserly, which is a different thing altogether. Selfishness is all about claiming a bigger share

Note:AVARO E EGOISTA

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For as long as they were digging in the gold mines, every one of those young ambitious men was unavailable to work a farm, manage a grocery store, or start a business…Some miners made fortunes, but no miner was socially productive….

Note:GOLD RUSH... L’EQUIVALENTE DI UNA GUERRA

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There are two ways to get rich. You can create new wealth or you can take someone else’s. The miner who strikes gold creates (almost) no wealth, yet he ends up wealthy…The unsuccessful miner gains nothing for himself and imposes no costs on his neighbors. The successful miner earns a fortune and costs his neighbors a collective fortune…

Note:LA CACCIA ALL’ ORO: IL COSTO DELLA STAMPANTE

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In poker, as in gold mining, you can’t win unless someone else loses.

Note:POKER

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But a miser is the mirror image of a miner—what the miner digs up, the miser (at least figuratively, and sometimes literally) buries right back in the ground.

Note:L’AVARO È L’ ANTI MINATORE

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Saving is philanthropy, and the tax system should recognize as much. If there’s a tax deduction for charitable giving, there should be a tax deduction for saving.

Note:IL RISPARMIO È FILANTROPIA: ESENTIAMOLO DALLE TASSE

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If Christmas is the season of selflessness, then surely one of the great symbols of Christmas should be Ebenezer Scrooge—the old Scrooge, not the reformed one.

CONTRO L‘EDONISMO CONSUMISTA