Who then benefited from the accumulated wealth of Scrooge and Marley? First Britain and then all mankind. Since Scrooge and Marley never consumed the wealth they created, its use was a gift to all. It funded the factories and railroads, the tools and jobs that fed and clothed millions of British subjects and then billions around the world. Their unspent wealth was of no use to them, but it was of sublime use to humanity.
Even as Dickens's Ghost of Christmas Present pulled back his robe to reveal the children who embodied Ignorance and Want, the wealth accumulated by Scrooge was already beginning the long drive that would do more to end ignorance and want than all the governments and charities that ever existed. Scrooge's wealth accumulation would have benefited far more people than anything he gave to charity after his reclamation, and many times more than government would have helped had they taken his wealth and spent it.
So on Christmas, as we celebrate the promise of human redemption and join in repeating Ebenezer Scrooge's famous pledge, "I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year," let us also remember the contributions that Scrooge and Marley and the wealth accumulators of our own age have made as "the founders of our feast."
