The Government Before Christmas

Every Christmas since God knows when, I’ve watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, one of Tim Burton’s better films. It’s about where holidays come from and what happened when someone from “Halloweentown” discovered “Christmastown.” This explorer—Jack Skelington—is tired of being the “Pumpkin King” (which I assume is the star of the annual Halloween festivities) and anxiously tries to understand Christmas so his comrades can celebrate it. I was humming songs in anticipation of my movie-watching ritual when I discovered this seemingly kind gesture by Jack is really a libertarian lesson in action.

Jack doesn’t just want to celebrate Christmas with his Halloween friends. The folks of these holiday towns bring their holiday to the real world. Now Jack wants a crack at it and doles out Christmas jobs to Halloween workers. In doing so, Halloweentown emulates the state—and Jack an important politician—as it shoves its nose in places it doesn’t belong. Not surprisingly, Halloweentown gets Christmas horribly wrong.

Some of the strongest evidence comes from the fact that they kidnapped Santa Claus, using coercion to get their way. Jack snagged Cringle’s hat and—with Santa out of the way—impersonated him so Halloweentown could take care of Christmas. This is exactly what government does when it takes over an industry.

Government never does a good job at the industry and neither did the Halloween folks. Instead of giving people what they wanted (like Santa or the private sector does), Jack and the crew gave them horror-themed gifts (exactly what they thought the people would like). Jack-in-the-boxes had monstrous surprises, a Christmas (Halloween?) tree tried to eat an old lady and there were shrunken heads all around. The National Guard was called in, people barricaded their homes (including their chimney) and there was general chaos and sorrow. It was a disaster.

Why did the Halloween people do such a bad job even though they meant well? Because they had exactly the same problems government has: they lacked the knowledge. In the song where Jack tries to explain Christmas, he points out this knowledge is tacit: “It’s a world unlike anything I’ve ever seen / And as hard as I try / I can’t seem to describe / Like a most improbable dream” and local: “Well, at least they’re excited / Though they don’t understand / That special kind of feeling in Christmas land.”

But even Jack doesn’t get it right. There’s a whole song he sings as he tries to figure Christmas out and in the end he simply concludes: “Just because I cannot see it / Doesn’t mean I can’t believe it!” He merely believes “in Christmas” and he assumes that belief is all that’s needed. He doesn’t consider there are things involved he can’t understand: knowledge that’s wrapped up in the holiday. Because he simply “believes,” he combines Halloween values with Christmas customs (just as state legislators combine their values with industry customs).

With his mere belief comes the slippery slope of tyranny. In the song that he “figures out” Christmas, Jack moves from communism (“And why should they have all the fun? / It should belong to anyone”) to fascism (“Not anyone, in fact, but me / Why I can make a Christmas tree / And there’s no reason I can find / I couldn’t handle Christmas time”) to outright megalomania (I bet I can improve it too / And that’s exactly what I’ll do. [Evil laughter] ”). Remind you of anything?

I’m all in favor of experimentation and trying new ideas and combinations but not when it’s forced on people, as Jack forced his version of Christmas on the world. Like the typical politician who wants to expand his realm of control (though Jack did it because he was bored: not a common reason government meddles with industry), Jack made fundamental mistakes because he lacked the tacit and local knowledge needed to pull off the endeavor. He had to resort to stealing, kidnapping and other coercive acts. Thus, he had no incentive to correct this knowledge problem. This bit of a song Jack sings at the end of the movies sums up many politicians’ reaction when they unwittingly discover their new pet policy only made a mess of things:

“But I never intended all this madness, never / And nobody really understood—well, how could they? / That all I ever wanted was to bring them something great / Why does nothing ever turns out like it should?”