Does 1984 really portray an extreme capitalist country?

In English we are writing a 5 page paper on a topic of our choice that relates to something we did so far in this class. Mine is does the book 1984 really represent a communist country or does it represent a extreme capitalist country. It would probably be easier to argue that it is representing an extreme communist country because there are sources for that, but there also would be no point in arguing that because that is what is usually accepted. Another argument would be that it represents a totalitarian, but that is also widely accepted information.
Anyway, this is the arguments I wrote in my final for this argument.

- The Party shows some strong traits of capitalism even though it is supposed to be a betrayal of communism gone to the extreme. Like the party even though it is supposed to be equal there social classes are even more prominent, like how the inner party has the nice homes and all the extra things that the outer party doesn’t get along with nice apartments, instead they live in cruddy apartments. And then there is the proles which makes the 80% of the population (which Marx originally wanted to get rid of and make everyone equal), making the wealthy even more of the minority. Also the proles still have a lottery, which shows that they have dreams of being rich. p.158 Also the government care more about staying in power and less the people, which is what communism is all about the people.
- Does this mean that the party is really a criticism of capitalism, which would make sense due to the fact that Orwell was a socialist, and since criticising capitalism wouldn’t of been a smart thing to do in a the Western World during the cold war it makes sense that he would hide it behind a criticism of communism?

-Winston believes that “the spirit of Man” will defeat the party. p.222
-Does this also contribute to the fact that the party is really capitalism, because the spirit of man is the people, which communist revolutionary figures would believe would defeat an oppresive government?

-“GOD IS POWER” is a saying of the party, but God isn’t used in Communism. p.228
-Does this also allude to the fact that this story is about capitalism?

So does anyone agree with my observations and does anyone have any observations or ideas of their own?

 

If I remember rightly, I read recently that it was actually based off the situation the author currently found themselves in, not some dystopian view of the future.

 

it's not capitalist or communist. Its a totalitarian dystopian society.

 

Howlovely, that would be a near impossible argument to make about Orwell's 1984...at least to make well and soundly. Commendable that you want to take on such a difficult task but you would really need a stronger argument than those you've presented, and I doubt you will find it. If it's a rough draft, you might want to modify the argument a tad.

There is a good reason that this is widely accepted. If you've read some of Orwell's other works, it might become more clear that it was indeed totalitarianism that most offended him. A totalitarian government can come in many forms: communism, capitalism, national socialism, a theocracy, or whatever. If you haven't already, read Animal Farm where this point becomes abundantly clear, treat yourself. It's a short but fascinating work. It's final lines:

So...back to your arguments and 1984, in which Orwell made a much lengthier, but similar, allegory.

I expect you mean portrayal rather than betrayal, no? In any case, if you wish to persist in this line of argument, you need to not only specify what these traits are but also show that they are particular to capitalism and not to communism or any other ism. That will be pretty tough to do. Good literature almost always probes the human heart and mind, not its fleeting and mutable constructs. If all George Orwell ever did was rail transparently against one or another economic system, he would not have become the literary giant he is.

These observations could be made about either economic system in practice and they support the interpretation that totalitarianism is the offending thing. They don't really support your hypothesis, I'm afraid.

This is not an argument to support your point. Orwell's personal political opinion is irrelevant to the story. 1984 is not a piece of political rhetoric. It is literature. This is not to say that literature can't express a political opinion. It can, but if that's all it is, it just isn't very interesting and is destined to become as transient as 8-track cassettes or pet rocks. What is interesting about 1984 is what it says about the tendencies in all of us to become tyrannical given the attainment of absolute power.

That is a very tenuous link at best...and I'm being generous here. I'm pretty sure Orwell meant something else when he wrote "the spirit of Man"...something that transcends man's politico-economic organizations.

This and all the other "newspeak" in the novel is not meant to be taken literally. Together, they are meant to illustrate that one of the distinguishing characteristics of totalitarianism is the usurpation of language and meaning to further consolidate power and control over its subjects - to make them true believers of the lie. It really has nothing whatsoever to do with the Christian god.

I'm not being so critical with the intent to be cruel or harsh and this is not meant to be a personal criticism. You asked for opinions I assumed to help you improve your essay. I just don't think it's a good argument to try and make and if you do insist on making it you will have to come up with something more concrete than these straws you're grasping at. I did consider not responding at all, just because my opinion wasn't very supportive and might come with an ouch factor if you are one of those types who are unable to separate criticism of an idea from criticism of self...it's the Internet, and that is one of its sad realities, so I never know how something I might say might be interpreted or misinterpreted as the case may be. I hope you will consider it to be constructive criticism.

 

Not at all.

 

No. And it's portrayal, not betrayal.

 

I agree, the book is about totalitarianism, and JoanofSnarc I agree with all your arguments against it, a lot of what I said was a real stretch, but in school when the teacher teaches about 1984 they tell us it is a criticism of a communist society (this is a highschool class) and it has been commonly viewed as such. So that is what I was really writing against in a way. But here was my paper...

George Orwell’s 1984 is taught in American schools as the ultimate book against communism, so it would surprise many that George Orwell was actually a socialist and a member of the Independent Labour Party. So why was he writing such a negative portrayal of communism? The answer is that he wasn’t; George Orwell’s 1984 is really a critique of capitalism under the facade of a Stalinist society.

George Orwell’s books, including 1984, portray his political views, which he formed throughout his life. George Orwell learned early in life the wrongs of a class based system when he went to Burma with the Indian Imperial Police and saw a firsthand beating of a coolie by a white officer while others looked on and praised the officer. Orwell was disgusted that people could pretend that the coolie was no better than an animal that deserved no compassion (Storgaard n. pag.). Orwell became angry that humans beings such as himself could determine the quality of life for one individual. That’s when George Orwell decided that he would live among the poor working class in Paris to observe their troubles (Storgaard np). In Paris he lived as a dishwasher, where he formed a theory about the common worker. Calling them the “slaves of his time”, “ he (the worker) is better of than many manual workers, but still, he is no freer than if he were bought and sold. His work is servile and without art; he is paid just enough to keep him alive” (Orwell 103). This quote clearly represent Orwell’s link to the workers and growing distrust to the capitalist society that dominated Europe. When the Spanish Civil War started in the mid-1930s, Orwell and his wife decided to go to Spain to collect material for newspaper articles and perhaps join the fight” (Storgaard np). To be allowed into Spain, Orwell needed to get papers from a left-wing organization. This was when he first became allied with the Independent Labor Party, which is an English political party with socialist views. (He later joined this party, until WWII when he believed that the party’s pacifist views were “objectively pro-Fascist” (Storgaard np).) In Spain, Orwell became
even more supportive of communism and the left-wing when he saw the equality of currently anarchist (anarchism and socialism are similar in the equality they give to their people) run Barcelona (Storgaard np). He portrayed his feeling in the quote from Homage to Catalonia: “here was much in it I did not understand.........but I recognized immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for” (Orwell 8, Storgaard np). Orwell’s experiences in Spain would later influence 1984. In Orwell’s essay Spilling the Spanish Beans which discussed the Spanish Civil War, Orwell explains how the Spanish press would rewrite the recent events of the Spanish War to portray their political views and then the British papers would copy those stories. The result of this was that nobody in Britain or really anywhere else in the world knew exactly what happened in the Spanish Civil War (Orwell np). This act of changing history is illustrated through Winston’s job working in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth in 1984 (Orwell ), where Winston rewrites the news and historical documents to fit the political agenda of the Party.

In 1948 when Orwell’s political views had refined he wrote 1984 in the aftermath of World War II, by this time in his life he had a clear view of capitalist and communist ideals. Part of capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production (more modernly, corporations and profit). Although this produces inequity and distinct social classes based on money, there is also a chance of moving up in society. The ideal of communism is a “common ownership of the means of production”. Everyone is given an more or less equal paying job by the government, hence getting rid of the class system of capitalism (Storgaard np). If 1984 was truly a negative portrayal of communism, the class system would be arranged in this manner. However, in 1984 there are very distinct classes, these classes go by the names the inner party (the wealthy upper class), the outer party (the middle class), and the proles (the working class, the ones living in poverty). The inner party enjoys spacious apartments and luxury items that are not available to the common people. The inner party also get political luxuries such as being able to turn off their telescreens (Orwell 140). This is much the same as the upper class a capitalist society, they can afford to live luxurious lives and get special perks from the government (such as the system of of bail where the rich can afford to pay while the poor cannot). Then there is the outer party who can afford to eat, but pretty much nothing else, living just above the poverty line, but other then that they do not get the perks of the, supposedly equal, inner party (Orwell 158). Then there is the majority proles, who make up eighty percent of the population. The proles don’t get any government support and are left to live their own lives, which are significantly worse than the lives of the upper class, inner party (Orwell 158). This is similar to how only two percent of the worlds owns half of the worlds wealth in today’s society (No Author, np). Both in Orwell’s Oceania and the real capitalist world most of the wealth is owned by the minority of the people. Also the use of the name ‘proles’ as referring to the lower class, directly links 1984 to capitalism. Karl Marx’s communist handbook The Communist Manifesto speaks of how the ‘proletarians’ are being held down and exploited in society by the bourgeois or wealthy (Marx 61). Since the proles in 1984 are being held down by the Party members, and their lack
of government funding, shows how this the class system in Oceania is perhaps an analogy to capitalism. Part of capitalism is the dream of moving up economically, and most readers believe that the system of 1984 is not flexible. Which is true, but even in capitalist countries a small percentage of the people own all the wealth, most of the people never move up and stay where they were born. In 1984 the proles have a government run lottery (Orwell 73). Even though people never win, they still have the capitalist dream of moving up in society, though in reality this dream is very unlikely to come true, much like in a regular capitalist country.

Because of the distinct class system in George Orwell’s 1984 it is possible for Big Brother and the Party take away the people’s individuality. The inner party controls the outer party and proles by controlling every aspect of their life to abolish free thinking. They take away the people’s individuality by approving of violence such as showing World War II in a positive light (Orwell 11), by the Two Minutes Hate (Orwell 13), by making it’s citizens live in fear of betrayal from everyone in their life (Orwell 24) even their family by having regulated marriages and brainwash school systems (Orwell 56). They reduce the people to “a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting - three hundred million people all with the same face" (Orwell 77). This is similar to Marx’s argument against capitalism, where“it has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical value” (Marx 62).

Orwell wrote 1984 in the year 1948. Communism was firmly in place in Russia and, as Churchill put it ‘an Iron Curtain’ of communism had descended upon eastern europe. Not a receptive time to write positively on socialism. 1984 has been become a classic as critique of totalitarian communism. However, Orwell, who was a socialist himself, crafted this more as hidden critique of capitalism. And like Orwell said himself, “Fascism and bourgeois 'democracy' are Tweedledum and Tweedledee” (Orwell np).

 

I also appreciate the criticism of the idea, though I got it after I wrote the paper, but truthfully this paper is no big deal, it was either write about 1984, Hamlet, or Beowulf, and anything is better then the last two, so I just based my whole paper off my dialectical journals, which is what I copied and pasted from in my first post.

 

state capitalist, was my impression.

 

Probably not. Orwell also wrote Animal Farm which was a veiled look at Soviet Communism and it's inevitable effect.

 

I read the book in the mid 70s . What I remember was a gov. that was watching every one and lied about what was going on . That fits most of them .

 

Oh yeah!! Orwell is looking like Nostradamus now huh?

 

As I remember animal farm and f 451 . In f 451 ( the temp. paper burns ) they were burning all the books . They only wanted people to read what the gov. wanted them to read . As I remember animal farm the animals started with the phrase 2 legs bad 4 legs good , but as changed it to 4 legs good 2 legs better as they learned to walk on 2 legs .

 

I agree with Mike: I don't think it sets out to portray any kind of an economic system. It's about a totalitarian regime, so his model for this regime could have been Stalin's, but just as easily it could have been Hitler's.

 

To understand 1984, as in REALLY understand what was motivating the author, you've got to read his earlier works.

Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up For Air, The Road to Wigan Pier, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Down and Out in London and Paris, Homage to Catalonia

As you read them, if you're already familiar with 1984, you'll keep coming across sentences, paragraphs, whole pages even in which you can feel the thoughts that are expressed in 1984 slowly coalescing in Orwell's mind.

And the author's ultimate message?

I think it's a very depressing one. It is that rebellion - whether personal or organised - never actually achieves what it set out to achieve, no matter how "successful" it may appear to have been. You can't beat the system: the system will always end up beating you. And the system will always be there ... will always be the same ... and that is true no matter what colour the politicians profess to be. Left wing, right wing ... it doesn't matter. Because the system will always be there. And the system will always be the same. And the system will always be ultimately triumphant.

THAT, I believe, is Orwell's true message ... and 1984 is his final, perfect exposition of that theme.

 

It's by far and large a totalitarian regime, but also with dystopian elements of a technocracy.

 

And I agree with the posters who state Stalin as a major influence

 

Authoritarian not capitalist. Capitalism is an economic policy and has nothing to do with a social problem like extreme social oppression