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The title refers to a dialog in Dickens’ 1843 short novel A Christmas Carol, in which Scrooge and Marley, his late business partner, discuss the latter’s business achievements. Scrooge, the ultimate businessman, praises Marley’s commercial accomplishments and calls him a “good businessman,” intended as the highest compliment. In the famous 1938 film adaptation, Marley’s ghost, wrapped in chains linking him to clanking cashboxes, lets out a howl of misery and cries out, “The welfare of mankind was my business!”

The Film Version and Relevance Today

I enjoyed reading the novella, but the 1938 film version made the more lasting impression on me, with Leo G. Carroll portraying the condemned spirit of Marley. (Please note, however, that the illustration above shows George C. Scott as Scrooge in a later film adaptation.)

Socialism became a dirty word in America during our Cold War with Russia. The word was misapplied in the national title “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” even though Russian citizens and their Chinese counterparts were no more free than they had been in pre-revolutionary times. Super-wealthy oligarchs still rule both countries, while ordinary citizens live with some extra benefits but are still slaves, sometimes forced or duped into serving as cannon-fodder in their masters’ military adventures.

As an essential part of the “woke” lexicon, the word “welfare” is sometimes equated with socialism and other left-leaning, wasteful ideas. Our current leadership dramatically eliminated the thousands of USAID workers active around the world with the stroke of a pen in the early days of 2025, allowing the world’s richest man to implement the executive order.

The mass firings may be historically unique in their destructive effect since they guaranteed daily incremental deaths for the future — in the opinions of some, a gift that keeps on giving, since the deaths equate to fewer immigrant refugees. Conservatives rejoiced at the financial savings while disregarding the irreversible harm to our national reputation. Even if we suddenly change course yet again, the world will see us as inconsistent and untrustworthy.

My friend, a political conservative from Ethiopia (his family’s business was taken over by a Marxist regime that seized power in 1974), readily remembers the post-WW2 program called the Marshall Plan. How many Americans today would recognize the name and could explain its benefits in terms of the lives it saved? Equally important: Do Elon Musk and fellow “conservatives” recognize the extent of the damage he has done to America’s international standing and influence?

When Musk eliminated USAID in early 2025, the message to the world couldn’t have been clearer: The richest country in the world cares nothing about your problems, which all result from your own failure to manage your nation’s finances as well as Americans have managed theirs. In the race to accumulate wealth, we are the winners and you’re the losers.

What Happens When We Relinguish a Traditional Role?

A byproduct of scrapping USAID is the opportunity for a country like China — not well known for neighborliness and philanthropy — to step into the vacuum and vigorously provide for “the welfare of mankind.”

For example, Musk’s withdrawal of USAID occurred during a major earthquake in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. At the time, the country’s ruling military junta was busy fighting for its survival in a civil war and was ill-prepared to deal with any kind of natural disaster.

China seized the opportunity to send aid workers in bright orange uniforms. Is it cynical to think that China’s conspicuous foreign aid was mainly a photo-op for the international press? And if that’s what it was, can we ignore the commensurate loss of America’s historical prestige as a voluntary helper in international emergencies?

Musk, the richest man in the world, may have fallen out of favor with his friend Trump and can now focus on more important things like establishing colonies on Mars, where the absence of air and scarcity of water could make the existence of a single human colonist a multi-million-dollar-per-day expense. Meanwhile, the daily survival of people in earthly locations suffering from desertification, disease, and famine will remain increasingly in doubt. Musk can daydream about the motion picture The Martian, but is it a practical dream?

America First

Our current federal government has resurrected “America First,” a slogan used by isolationists like Charles Lindberg and others to keep America out of World War II before Japan struck Pearl Harbor in 1941. Suddenly, the slogan was dropped as we mobilized against both Japan and the Third Reich. Then as now, few people think we have an option when confronted with a clear international threat — a real military invasion, not an ill-defined, hyped “invasion” of foreign “scum.” Maintaining protected borders is one thing; arrests and deportations without due process of the law is another. A carefully administered foreign aid program might be the best long-term answer to the worldwide refugee problem.

It soon turned out that many Republican owners of farms, slaughterhouses, restaurants, etc., complained that our deportation policy was harming their businesses, depriving them of below-minimum-wage workers. Our government quickly reversed the deportation policy. Then, when media-driven criticism lessened, the deportations resumed with vigor.

Trump’s “invasion” theory is based on his dim recollection of the Mariel Boatlift, the occasion in 1980 when Fidel Castro filled boats with Cuban convicts and mental patients, sending them to Florida. There is no evidence that any other country, now or in the past, has “sent” its unwanted citizens to the United States, or that such a policy would even work.

There is, however, plenty of evidence that people voluntarily leave places where life becomes unbearable or impossible due to famine, epidemics, war or a combination of those factors. Those refugees are willing to endure immense hardships and dangers on transcontinental migrations, often on foot. Every dollar spent improving life in those abandoned, unlivable places of origin isn’t just humanitarianism. It’s the practical alternative to our current immigration policy.

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