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1984 (2,9) A General State of Scarcity
Jul. 5th, 2012 04:46 pmIn today’s reading from Emmanuel Goldstein’s book, Winston learns about the policy for maintaining near-scarcity conditions even for the favored groups and the Inner Party. It favors cohesion, which works very well with the condition of continuous warfare. Fear and scarcity are primary ingredients, along with enforced ignorance, for successful totalitarian rule in Orwell’s nightmare future.
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It is deliberate policy to keep even the favored groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another. By the standards of the early twentieth century, even a member of the Inner Party lives an austere, laborious kind of life. Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy - his large well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the better quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two or three servants, his private motorcar or helicopter - set him in a different world from a member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party have a similar advantage in comparison with the submerged masses whom we call “the proles.” The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.
-- “1984” by George Orwell
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The idea of the ruling elite living in artificial scarcity is another of Orwell’s themes that we may account unrealistic. What is the point of being the big dog if it is not to live like a big dog? North Korea immediately comes to mind as an example of a regime that is content to live in royal luxury even as the population cringes under famine conditions.
However, maybe we should understand that this is the new wisdom of the totalitarian states in Orwell’s dystopian future: too much wealth in the hands of the ruling few more readily leads to laxity as well as dissension and instability, and maintaining sustainable power is more important than enjoying lavish riches. However, if this is the case, then we probably need never fear the emergence of true Big Brother governance, since human nature is too corruptible and the empowered would not long be able to deny itself the relish of sybaritic splendor.
_ _ _
It is deliberate policy to keep even the favored groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another. By the standards of the early twentieth century, even a member of the Inner Party lives an austere, laborious kind of life. Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy - his large well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the better quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two or three servants, his private motorcar or helicopter - set him in a different world from a member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party have a similar advantage in comparison with the submerged masses whom we call “the proles.” The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.
-- “1984” by George Orwell
_ _ _
The idea of the ruling elite living in artificial scarcity is another of Orwell’s themes that we may account unrealistic. What is the point of being the big dog if it is not to live like a big dog? North Korea immediately comes to mind as an example of a regime that is content to live in royal luxury even as the population cringes under famine conditions.
However, maybe we should understand that this is the new wisdom of the totalitarian states in Orwell’s dystopian future: too much wealth in the hands of the ruling few more readily leads to laxity as well as dissension and instability, and maintaining sustainable power is more important than enjoying lavish riches. However, if this is the case, then we probably need never fear the emergence of true Big Brother governance, since human nature is too corruptible and the empowered would not long be able to deny itself the relish of sybaritic splendor.
