Scrooge and Marley own a counting-house. Today, this is a business function that would be carried out by book-keepers and accountants. Yet there are also references in the story to warehouses, implying that Scrooge and Marley are involved in some kind of wholesale business. In Victorian England there were many businesses that took on the role of middlemen, so firms like Scrooge & Marley's often carried out a number of related functions that would nowadays...
Scrooge and Marley own a counting-house. Today, this is a business function that would be carried out by book-keepers and accountants. Yet there are also references in the story to warehouses, implying that Scrooge and Marley are involved in some kind of wholesale business. In Victorian England there were many businesses that took on the role of middlemen, so firms like Scrooge & Marley's often carried out a number of related functions that would nowadays be done by specialist firms.
The firm's money-lending role may be a formal one, or could it simply be a sideline to its main business. Scrooge and Marley are incredibly rich and successful men, operating a thriving business in a poor part of town. They would, then, have counted on a regular stream of customers beating a path to their door in order to borrow money. This would've enabled them, in turn, to lend money at extortionate rates of interest, making them incredibly rich while their clients remained poor.
Whatever the precise nature of Scrooge and Marley's business, there can be little doubt that it takes more out of the local community than it puts back. It doesn't really create anything; it simply makes money out of money. Such unproductive business, and the greed it generates, make it a prime symbol of the soullessness and rampant exploitation of unrestrained Victorian capitalism.
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