Santa Claus is capitalist propaganda

[alex_antonin]

Image is a tweet by EnygmaAnn reading "Let the kids believe in Santa. After all, you still believe the troops fight for our freedom."

I personally disagree. Tell kids the truth from the beginning. Don't teach them to believe in nonsense. It's one thing for them to be imaginative, it's another thing entirely to let them believe propaganda. Santa Claus is pro-capitalism, pro-wealthy Christmas propaganda. He's an unquestioned moral authority who uses slave labor but expects kids to behave themselves, teaching children to obey authority even when that authority is a hypocrite. Sure he gives out "free" gifts, but coincidentally only to rich families, promoting the ideology of prosperity theology (the idea that if you're rich it's because God/Santa/the universe/whatever loves you, and if you're poor then that is a moral failing of yours). There is no way to interpret this figure that redeems him.