There are few, if any stories anywhere, to rival the Old Testament story of Jacob and Esau. In a nutshell, the boys are twins, Esau the firstborn coming just minutes before Jacob. The boys grow up, the elder, Esau, loved by the father, Isaac, and the younger, Jacob, loved by the mother, Rebekah. One day after the boys have grown to young manhood, Esau, because of hunger pangs, trades his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup. Fantastic!
Before I go on, let me declare that this piece has only two objectives. The first is to affirm Jacob as the father of capitalism, and the second, to temper the smear job on Esau’s name. Waste not, want not, other interesting questions pop out of this story and I am drawn on my first tack, to wander a little out of boundary. Please to suffer my diversion, it is fleeting. Then, cross my heart, “we will stick like white on rice”, to our objectives.
Really, why should the birthright go to the firstborn anyway? Yap, what if the second born, or third, or the tenth born has the best acumen, and the compassion to manage a family’s wealth? What of prophecy? Does it matter what we do if life is pre-ordained, if it will end how it will end, whatever? Does the stronger person (physically) have the right to seize and control? Does the weaker person (physically) have the right to wiles to gain their ends?
That out of the way, windward ho! Braa, do you get the sense that this Esau was some big jackass to trade his rights for a bowl of soup? And was it proper for Mister Jacob to put such a cruel wap on him? And, after pulling off the deal to trump all deals, this man, Jacob, should we consider him the father of capitalism?
Allow me a little space here Braa, elbow room, to put a firm collar on this capitalism. In the simplest terms, it is a system in which all is fair in the marketplace. The foundation of this system is: buy cheap, sell expensive.
There are many lofty discussions about, and noble achievements attributed to capitalism, but the bitter real of this system is that if a foolish son brings his mother’s only pig to market, or a junkie his daughter’s prized gold chain, it is there, all legal, without qualms, I repeat, without qualms, for the taking.
The man who will buy cheap must be a hard, cunning so and so (please to pardon a socialist’s outburst). The capitalist must also be patient, and possess great timing, at the ready always to seize the moment when it presents itself. No, our man Jacob could not have made his trade after supper! Esau would have laughed at him. Jacob could not, or might not have been able to make his trade either (unless he was made of steel), if he was hungry himself. No, he could only have played this hand from a position of great strength, from a position of full belly, maximum support. Flush!
Well, we know all that followed after the conquest. After acquiring Fort Knox for a song, Mister Jacob went on to glory beyond description. AND, he spawned this economic system that has gripped the world by the, yes, you know exactly what, since. Buy cheap (rights), sell dear (soup)! Wait until the sucker is down and out; cloud not your mind with thoughts that his wife, children, and grandchildren starve; yours is the kingdom of great wealth if you hold the ehm…ethic of cold, cold Ebenezer Scrooge, near to your heart.
Ho! Let’s push the pause button on the economic activity of this most intriguing Jacob, and take a close gander at this other fellow, Esau. I say, unlike his younger brother, whose motive is very clear, strictly business, this is a very complicated chap.
The first sense you get about him is that he must have scorned book larning,and spat on the wisdom of his elders. My, on the surface it doesn’t look good for him at all. How come this brother was so fool fool not to know he was trading prime land for trinkets, Braa? My, for a mere bowl of soup! Crazy!
Ai! Groan! Dis da di kain a balli weh wood-a seh, noh waahn nothn’! But, thanks to a little kindness, we will not write him off the map completely without first covering all the bases. As the saying goes, there’s straws in the ocean for every drowning fellow. Our first attempt to prove that this Esau wasn’t the bum simpleton as it appears on the first take of the story might be a leap, but we must hide no evidence in our effort to clean his slate.
In One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote about a bowl of soup thus: The prisoners were at their coldest and hungriest when they checked in through these gates in the evening, and their bowl of hot and watery soup without any fat was like rain in a drought. They gulped it down. They cared more for this bowlful than freedom, or for their life in years gone by and years to come.
The Bible story records Esau’s trade of his birthright for Jacob’s bowl of soup thus (Genesis 25:32): Esausays: Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? Now, can you give the maximum to this guy? The brother was starving to death! Pray, is owning all the gold in El Dorado worth more than life? I don’t think so, friend.
Okay, okay, I concede, the Bible story does suggest that Esau’s trade was folly, that this was more a case of a weak mind than a man at death’s door from starvation. And indeed, he wasn’t living in the frozen tundra! Point for Jacob, I guess. We must appreciate that the man who was going to father the twelve tribes of Israel needed mettle, couldn’t wilt in the noonday heat.
But then again, is it right for a sinister so and so to take advantage of a sucker? Was Jacob as cold as Siberia? It sure does look so! Hmmm.… I hate to be the one to spoil it, but there is another saving grace for a lopsided bargain. This story takes place near four thousand years before Christian principles entered the world!
Back on the track of this Esau, there is another take that might disprove him a fool. Unfortunately, this side of the coin might be more disconcerting than the bo-bo accusation. Sigh, it is possible that maybe, maybe our victim was a hood. Yes, it is possible he thought that with Isaac (the power) in his corner, maybe, maybe he could cop the bowl of soup, AND STILL KEEP THE CROWN! So maybe it was just an unfortunate twist for him that at crunch time old Isaac was down and out, Rebekah ruled, and he got, yap, a most deservéd shaft. Ai.
Well, as you can see, we have set the tabs squarely on Jacob. For the good, and for the bad… Father of capitalism! And I have tried my darnedest to put away the dummy ink on Esau. Really, he looks like a lost cause, but because we like him, yes, for the love of Esau, we’ll take one, one last try.
I know, I know, the jury is set for conviction, but in the interest of justice let’s put on his shoes, yes, one last time, and smell the grits in the hot corner. Hmmm…hmmm… Got it? Good. Now, pray…what would a sensible man like you have done when you smelled the early morning coffee, saw the crosshairs? No? Yu don’t smell it? Well I do!
Check it, with Rebekah stacked in the wily Jacob’s corner, and knowing that they, women, always, always win, Esau took the only sensible road before him… sell before the bottom fell completely out of the market. Under the circumstances, fair exchange: Jacob’s best bowl of soup!