> Chapter 6
"1984"
(By George Orwell. Orig. pub. by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1949;
presently available from Laissez Faire Books, tel. 800-326-0996)
George Orwell, the pen name for the English socialist Eric Blair,
presented in this book a very dark picture of what our world's society might
come to in the hands of an irresistibly powerful secret elite which controlled
the life or death, the economic status, and every significant movement, word,
and thought of every member of the society. We can't presume to know what the
author's motivation was for writing this widely read classic, though various
establishment figures have labeled it a warning of sorts, particularly in view
of our recent experiences with totalitarianisms of one kind or another. We
shall choose for our review, however, not to try to analyze Orwell's motives,
or those of establishment reviewers. Instead, because of the significant and
obvious parallels between the development and maintenance of collectivist
control in Orwell's fictional world and the similar development proceeding
apace in our own world, we shall operate under the hypothesis that his work is
a description of a plan which he believed to be real, a plan to which Orwell may
have been privy, or one which he may only have inferred from the political and
social events unfolding around him.
We neither know nor care whether the socialist Orwell opposed or
supported the plan that he outlines. We are persuaded, however, that he believed
it to be a concrete reality, not only because of the many parallels to actual
events of the last two centuries, but also because of the convincing human
causation which he ascribes to these events, causation obviously based on a
deep understanding of the strengths and frailties of our human nature,
including that major flaw of being corruptible by power. As we go along, we
shall mentally test our hypothesis that his work is the revelation of a Grand
Plan, spanning several centuries of time and reaching all the corners of the
earth, and aimed at conquering and holding in bondage the entire population of
the world.
Orwell refers to the Grand Plan in the past tense, it having been
completed and in operation when his novel starts. The plan is spelled out in a
fictional writing in 1984 known as The Book, which is formally entitled
"The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism." We would have
called it Elitist Socialism, but it's the same thing. The exposition of the
theory (in The Book) starts by declaring
that, from time immemorial, societies have been divided into classes called the
High, the Middle, and the Low. The goal of the High is to stay the High, the
goal of the Middle is to become the High, and the goal of the Low, to the
extent that it has a societal goal, is to abolish all class distinctions and
make everyone equal. (In our own society, of course, the High consists of those
monied folk we have been calling the banking elites plus, we suppose, the top
ranks of their prostituted followers who do their work. The Middle contains
persons in our great middle class, whom Marx labeled the "petty
bourgeois." The Low consists of those in our society who can't bestir
themselves beyond football, TV, beer, pizza, and all lesser indulgences. To
Marx, they were the "proletariat"; Orwell called them "proles.
")
The Middle are occasionally successful, usually with the help of the
Low, in ousting the High and thus becoming the new High. This arrangement then
continues until a new Middle faction arises and is in turn successful in
becoming the new High, and the process continues ad infinitum. When the High
falls, it is because it loses either the competence to rule or the will to
preserve its status. Of the three groups, only the Low has never even momentarily
achieved its goal (i.e., equality), since each new High, upon attaining its
goal, invariably re-suppresses the Low as soon as possible to consolidate its
power.
Socialism as a theory (says The
Book) took root in the early 1800's, but by the end of the century was
abandoning the professed aim of liberty and equality for all, and adopting
instead, with increasing openness, the goal of dictatorial rule (realized, we
might say, by Bolshevism in Russia and Fascism in Germany and Italy). From the
early 1900's, one particular branch of socialism, called Ingsoc for English
Socialism, took on the goal of not only ousting and replacing the High, but of
doing it with such deliberately thought-out preplanning as to make the new
arrangement permanent, that is,
arresting progress, freezing history at the chosen moment, and stopping forever
the ancient Middle/High replacement cycle. Such a goal was deemed both
necessary and possible, necessary because machine production had developed so
much during the preceding century, and was continuing at such a pace, that
economic differences among the classes were in the process of being
obliterated, along with the need for any class structure at all. Middle
groupings were acquiring so much leisure time that they were enabled to think
about, and then work toward, replacing the High rulers. Specifically, "If
leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings
who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to
think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or
later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would
sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on the
basis of poverty and ignorance." The position of power historically
maintained by a High class was therefore fundamentally endangered,
necessitating corrective attention. (Cf. our Chapter 2 re the Ruskin plan to
preserve the English upper class and its values, followed by Cecil Rhodes and
his secret society, Milner, the Round Table, etc.)
Fortunately, the technological advances responsible for producing mass
affluence also helped make possible strategies for maintaining the hierarchical
structure. The development of historical knowledge laid bare (to those who
would look) the nature of the prior Middle/High cycles, and therefore the keys
to preventing their recurrence. Technical developments in the communication
field, including printing, radio, and then television, especially its more
lately developed capability of both receiving and transmitting from the same
set, made it much easier to both manipulate public opinion and to abolish
individual privacy. (Quigley also included, on p. 15 of Tragedy and Hope, that by 1930, governments had developed weapons
much more powerful than those their citizens could obtain.) During the
consolidation of power phase, remaining dangerous opponents were readily
liquidated as necessary, and all other sources of public information
suppressed, guaranteeing the future uniformity of public opinion on all matters
of significance to the new High group.
In this final phase, the Middle and Low were substantially disempowered
by stripping all individuals of their physical resources (i.e., homes, land,
businesses, etc.), a necessary condition for oligarchical security. The new
High, utilizing the nomenclature of socialism, performed this last stage of
"collectivization" by having the "Party" (the only existing
government) take over whatever remaining property existed in private hands, and
then relegating the phrase "private property" to the memory hole. The
Low went along willingly, as they were flattered that their goal had thereby
been attained of abolishing the hated "capitalists."
The Book next examined the
ways in which Ingsoc might theoretically be overthrown, and prevention
strategies defined to block each way. Four over-throw mechanisms were deemed
possible: surrender to an external power, revolt by the Lows, overthrow by a Middle
group, or loss of High self-confidence and willingness to rule. The first
danger was met by dividing the world into three parts, each being substantially
self-sufficient, culturally homogeneous, and of approximately equal strength.
Their defensive strengths were made high enough so that each part became
essentially unconquerable, even by the other two parts together. Revolt by the
Lows (in each part) could easily be avoided by keeping the Lows ignorant of the
possibility of any state of life higher than that in which they presently
existed. Overthrow efforts from the Middle and loss of faith in the Party
within the High were to be avoided by continually enforced individual
surveillance and education, backed up by appropriate rewards and punishments, including
promotion and perks, or torture and death. The High class was to be kept
strong, not by making its membership hereditary, but rather
"adoptive," since history has shown family oligarchies to be
short-lived compared to organizational oligarchies, such as the Catholic
Church, which measured its staying power in millennia a word, "A ruling
group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The Party is
not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important,
provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same." (Our
banking elites may squabble among themselves, but they remain one in their
efforts to wipe out the world's still unconquered middle class.)
The key to keeping the Lows "stupefied by poverty" and
therefore ignorant of any better way to live, while simultaneously weakening an
entire society to the point that it is unable to become dominant over another
society, is, in a word, war - continuous, draining warfare. To that end, the
world was divided into three parts, as mentioned above, called Oceania,
The wars that were to continue among the three world powers were unlike
prior wars in human history, in that their purpose was not to conquer an
opponent but rather to assure the maintenance of control over one's own
subjects in order to keep the structure of the society intact. The wars were
therefore shams, impostures, executed by rather small numbers of professional
specialists at great distances removed from the population centers, with
information concerning them coming to the subject peoples exclusively from the
Party-controlled media. Killings and other brutalities were common, however,
but secretly controlled and delivered, by rocket bombs and such, by a given
ruling government against its own subjects, invariably the proles.
To assure the permanence of such a societal organization, the three
powers each had to be substantially self-sufficient, geographically defensible,
culturally uniform (to better permit hate to be directed at the other groups),
and on a military, economic, and social par with the other powers, all in order
to avoid either the incentive or the ability to actually defeat one another in
war. The same pyramidal social structure exists in each, and the same
dependency on a war economy. No advantage is therefore to be had by one power
conquering another, and in fact the existence of each power is now dependent on
the continuing existence of the other powers, providing an excuse for the
ongoing "warfare." (The words in our Chapter 4 of Rowan Gaither to
Norman Dodd concerning promoting convergence with the
And how does continuous war act to keep the Lows "stupefied by
poverty" and thereby assure the maintenance of the social structure? The
goal of the wars is to enable the economy to be kept going for the benefit of
the High, its military, and its bureaucracy and control personnel (the Thought
Police, etc.), but at the same time to assure that any excess production
capacity is prevented from producing consumer goods for the lower classes. That
excess capacity is instead directed to producing excess military goods which will
ultimately rust away or be destroyed in warfare; that is, the excess capacity
is deliberately wasted in order to
turn it away from the production of goods which would result in added leisure
or well-being for the lower classes. Those classes are instead continually
forced into group activities expressing hatred toward the current enemy (any enemy) and dependency upon and love
toward their benevolent rulers for protecting them from that enemy. They are
thereby led to accept the consumer shortages, the poverty, and the other
privations to which they are subjected. Their economic status is kept at the
subsistence level, forcing their priorities to be focused on simply acquiring
basic food, clothing, and shelter. They are thus denied either the time or the inclination
to question the fairness or permanence of their societal condition, or to
otherwise evolve into a threat to the established hierarchy. (We have, of
course, been subjected in this century to two major world wars, two good-sized
no-win wars (Korea and Vietnam), and a host of smaller UN involvements,
presently (1996) including an incipient war in Bosnia.)
But why, asks Orwell through the voice of his Party protagonist, does
the Party cling to power? "What is our motive? Why should we want
power?" He then proceeds to answer his own question: "The Party seeks
power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others;
we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or
happiness; only power, pure power.... Power is not a means; it is an end. One
does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes
the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.... The object of power
is power...."
Over what is that power to be exercised, the protagonist then asks. He
answers, "The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is
not power over things, but over men.... [And] how does one man assert his power
over another?" He answers his own question: "By making him suffer.
Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is
obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation.
Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in
new shapes of your own choosing.... In our world there will be no emotions
except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall
destroy - everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which
have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child
and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. But in the
future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their
mothers at birth as one takes eggs from a hen.... There will be no art, no
literature, no science. There will be no distinction between beauty and
ugliness.... All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always ... there
will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing
subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the
sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of
the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
This famous picture by Orwell of the ultimate depravity - the worst
ultimate result of man's fatal flaw of being corruptible by power - is what we
are striving, by writing this book for example, to help future generations to
avoid.