Charles Dickens: Happy 200th Birthday! What Would “Oliver Twist” Read Like Today . . .?
To the great good fortune of literature Charles Dickens was born 200 years ago. Dickens lived in England during the mid-19th century, which like today in the U.S., was a period of extreme income inequality and a political economy whose theories supported it. In the 1830’s Dickens was a critic of the Malthus-inspired lack of public social programs to support the poor, as well as the prevailing system of work houses and debtors’ prisons then in vogue. Nowhere more, perhaps with the exception of A Christmas Carol, did he depict and underscore the plight of the poor than in his iconic Oliver Twist. These days it serves to remind us of the hazards of laissez-faire social policy driven by an unexamined and cruel social theory. What would he write today? Perhaps Donald Twist?Back in December 2011, I wrote about a provision in the House version of HR 3630, the payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance extension proposal now being considered by Congress for extension for all of 2012. The provision I wrote about then was labeled “Ending Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefits for Millionaires,” which was a poorly cast joke, a poorly thought out proposal, a sitck in the eye to Democrats, or all three. No matter. It was not a serious proposal, and I wondered, if it had been passed into law, to whom would it apply? Imagine, millionairess denied food assistance!? Here’s how it might appear to a reborn Charles Dickens (‘Boz’), whose 200th birthday we celebrate today, in his new novel Donald Twist.
Also, for the identity of the other “wastrels” at the table,
see the illustrated legend below.)
Who’s who?
