Santa claws

Santa Claus is the ultimate socialist- his jolly, handsome and caring outward appearance hides an inability to predict and help the people he is supposed to assist. Doesn’t Father Christmas look like Fidel Castro, the communist dictator in Cuba, but with a white beard?

The standard image of Santa Claus with his red suit and white trim was popularized by print advertisements from Coca-Cola in the 1930s. This great man is somehow able to know how all of the children behaved during the year, what they want for Christmas and organize the logistics such as purchasing those goods and delivering them all on time in the right place. This sort of customer service is truly mythical.

Santa is the ultimate depiction of a friendly socialist- all seeing and all knowing- and efficient at rewarding people according to their behavior. It is not possible for anyone to identify and deliver what a few people in any nation want, let alone what everyone around the globe wants. Bounded rationality- the limited understanding and control of events and people prevents anyone from successfully intervening in the way that politicians and Santa are according to popular myth supposed to. Whereas socialism rewards people for compliance with the will of the dictator, whatever that will is, capitalism rightly rewards individuality and independence of mind.

We all now know that Santa is a myth- that he does not exist and that he is in fact our parents or some other adult responsible for our well-being. This truth applies to our well-being all year round too- we can look after ourselves and hopefully our family and friends will be there to help out too, but no politician has a magic wand that can give us what we want and deserve when we want it. However much we want it to be true, we need to face up to the fact that it is impossible.

We should be sure to remember that just as Santa Claus is an impossibility, so too are friendly intervenors who are going to solve all our problems for us.

Otherwise Santa Claus will be Santa Claws.

Author: Simon Buckingham

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To make a comment to the author, send e-mail to simon@unorgan.com

 

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