The Economic Myths of Santa Claus

First published on Dec. 14, 2014

Oh-Ho-Ho..Now have a Coke!  As usual reality is a lot more interesting that crass commercialism.

It’s on full blast now, Christmas jingles, holiday “cheer”, and the endless exhortations to consume.  And here comes Santa.

Why is this myth so powerful?  Why does it capture imagination so deeply?  Why do generations perpetuate this massive fraud to their children?

History of Santa  Santa wasn’t always so. St. Nicholas of Myra (he was said to be of Greek parentage born in Asia Minor), was originally known for rescuing women from prostitution.  Legend says he dropped gold into the stockings of three women who, having no dowries, were about to be sold. It’s also said that he brought back to life men butchered, or kidnapped. From this, he became a Patron saint of women, children, prostitutes, protector of the oppressed and in extremis. Later, he became the patron saint of the poor, and St. Nicholas’ feast became a day for alms and redistribution.

Over the years, however, Santa acquired other significant functions. During the Dutch slave trade, he became Sinterklaas, taking on trappings of a slave trader, kidnapping young children, with a black henchman (Zwarte Piet), and sleigh drawn by ten black slaves. In the 19^th Century, he took on now recognizable traits as a shill for corporate consumption, eventually co-opted by Coca-Cola (immortalizing his trademark colors) as a winter pitchman for cocaine-laced drinks, and before becoming the Patron Saint and canonical myth of capitalism.

One way of understanding this myth is through critical theory.

When the contradictions in our lives, our reality are so intolerable that we cannot humanly justify them and remain sane, we resort to a set of stories in order to obscure, absolve, and make bearable this state of affairs.

Think of this as similar to a dream, which expresses the contradictions and tensions in our lives, even as it covers them up symbolically through displacement, compression, and distortion.

Or as a disease symptom: a way of expressing a deep distress or imbalance. The symptom expresses the condition, palliating it, while signaling a deeper pathology at stake.

This collective defense mechanism is referred to as ideology, and it manifests as a series of narratives and myths that maintain our worldview—with our sense of self at the center– while keeping us asleep as to what’s really happening, from seeing what is unacceptable.

For example, the myth of Thanksgiving obscures the origins of a violent, colonial settler state, based on war, dispossession, and genocide. It papers this over with a reassuringly saccharine tale of generosity, cooperation, and sharing, lest the festivities stick violently in our craw and render us ill with rage, horror, grief.

So too, Santa Claus.  If we gave thought, we would realize for the majority of the world, Christmas means little more than punishing work in service, retail, or production. A moment’s thought to the conditions in sweatshops, where the majority of workers are now entering into 16, 20, 24 hr work schedules—essentially slave labor–to meet the demand for “gifts” in the west, would seriously dampen holiday cheer.

Santa thus attempts to make tolerable the intolerable with the following myths:

So once again, the sleigh of mystification flies triumphally in the dusk of reason, against the harsh, dark night of capitalism.  It’s incumbent on those of us with thinking minds and caring hearts, to eschew this palliative narcotic and to aspire for ourselves and others, the true flight that a critical, liberated mind can attain, to struggle for the heights of justice, equality, solidarity.  Thinking critically can start the journey that lightens all our hearts and souls, the better to serve one another in the dialectical expression of justice called Love. This is the best gift you can give yourself and your children for Christmas.

Puke if you must

This bloodsoaked monster is probably the most evil person on planet earth https://t.co/nGq2H1EPHt

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) April 9, 2020