Contrasting 1984 With 2007
Alexander S. Peak
9 March 2007
I was recently contacted by a young lady named Ms. Cheuka regarding my opinion on the book 1984 and its
relevance to today’s society. Ms. Cheuka had recently read 1984, a book by George Orwell which explores the
political and metaphysical implications of a fictional philosophy known as English Socialism. In short, I had come
to the opinion that although some similarities could be drawn between the dystopian world Orwell envisioned and our
contemporary reality, there are as well many dissimilar characteristics which cannot be ignored.
Ms. Cheuka wrote to me the following:
Oh well hello! Okay well i read a blog you posted back in march 2006 about the movie V for Vendetta and
hopefully you can help me with something i've taken an interest in. I'm not the smartest crayon in the box
so all these political terms kind of confuse me but i just got done reading the book 1984 and if i remember
correctly you had mentioned something about aspects of the American government showing totalitarian ideas...
i guess the question i wanted to ask you was how do you think American government today is like that in the
book 1984? I have two topics that i found but i wanted more opion on it. I had the topic of the war against
Oceania and Eurasia/Eastasia in 1984 and the war in iraq now. i posed the question..do you think that we
have put so much money and so much time into the war of the middle east so that we can feel good that we
helped them create a democratic government or is there more underlying issues..like how if we stay in war
its good for the economy because more people have more "war-like" jobs. What do you think? Another thing i
came up with was the telescreens in 1984 and how way over half of America has Television sets in their house
with the opionate news stations voicing to us what is going on around the world..and since we cannot see it
we believe what they tell us because thats all we can base it off of. I just wanted to talk to someone who
was very familiar with the American Government and who was familar with 1984. If you can help me at all with
any new ideas on how american govt can relate to the totalitarian govt in 1984 or crtique what i already
have i would greatly appreciate it! thank you so much for your time!
Well, the government in 1984 was quite extreme, and I’m not inclined to say there are as many parallels
between 1984 and contemporary America as there is between contemporary America and V for Vendetta. I
must admit that 1984 is my favourite book, and as you probably realise, Ingsoc is not only a political
philosophy, but likewise a metaphysical philosophy. If anything, it’s a metaphysical philosophy first, which leads
to certain political goals of the Party. I can’t say the same about any of the dominant philosophies in America.
A vague parallel can be made to the war, at least in so far as the fact that we were allies of Iraq one day, then
enemies thereof the next. And in a form which at first appears very similar to doublethink, most Americans seem to
totally forget that we switched from allies to enemies right after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
The economics of our war situation, however, I believe is very distinct to that of Oceania. First, I must note that
I’m very much influenced by the Austrian School of economics, and therefore reject the assumption of so many
mainstream economists today that war is in any way good for the economy as a whole. It’s certainly good for specific
industries, which no one can deny. But when there is a war effort going on, resources are redirected away from
improving the standard of living of the consumer and toward the military; thus for the economy and society at large,
war is at best a set-back and at worst a completely devastating force.
What we have in America is a system of neo-mercantilism. I’ll explain what this is in a second, but first I wish to
note that neo-mercantilism is very different from the free market or from laissez-faire capitalism. Many on
the contemporary left confuse these with neo-mercantilism and, then upon seeing how bad neo-mercantilism is, conclude
that capitalism is inherently bad. Neo-mercantilism is a system in which specific businesses gain power or profits
through collusion with the government. If a business gets subsidies from the government (i.e. money taken
from the tax-payers and handed out to businesses, otherwise referred to as corporate welfare), then that business is
neo-mercantilist. If a business profits from restrictions the government places upon other businesses that would
otherwise be able to compete with the first business, that’s neo-mercantilist. If a business profits from selling
war-heads to the government, or gets a no-bid contract from the government as Halliburton has, that business is neo-
mercantilist. This can also be referred to as military Keynesianism or the military-industrial complex, because
usually these businesses have some means by which to encourage the government to use its power to benefit said
businesses. (As a side-note, the laissez-faire capitalist is wholly opposed to such conduct, as he/she
believes that all businesses should compete with each other to see which is best and most efficient, and that when a
business gets help from the government, it causes the better business to suffer, and invariably the consumer to lose
out.)
Whereas I would say that Oceania employed military Keynesianism, I would not say it was neo-mercantilist,
because Oceania had no real businesses, except for those that worked the black market. Whereas Halliburton can at
least pretend to be a private business, Miniluv was in every way clearly a government facility. It did not have
profits. It did not have even the hint of being threatened by a competing business that could provide better
services to the state; not that the state even wanted better service. Also, there didn’t even exist the illusion of
private property in Oceania. Oceania was wholly socialist in this regard.
I believe the primary incentive for the wars differ, too. Whereas Oceania, or at least the Inner Party, realised
(when they wanted to) that they were not fighting for any purpose other than to ensure a sense of nationalism and
thus maintain power and control, I would argue that the neoconservatives essentially responsible for the war in Iraq
truly believe that they are spreading democracy, and that this is a good thing to do, worthy of the sacrifice of
human life. Now, could it be that they’re lying to themselves and employing doublethink? Sure, they could be, but
I’m skeptical of that view.
As for the televisions, obviously a huge difference exists in that we are not (likely) being spied upon through
them. If we are, which I highly doubt, we certainly don’t know about it; and the main point in having telescreens in
Oceania was to scare subjects into not doing anything for themselves, into not having “ownlife,” which Oceania could
only ensure if they didn’t keep it a secret that the telescreens broadcasted two ways. In theory, however, it could
very well be that what we are being fed on television is 100% government propaganda, but once again I’m left
unconvinced and skeptical. For one thing, the Internet is something which no government can completely control.
Even in China, people are using the Internet to discuss opposition to the powers that be there, despite all the
controls put in place by the Chinese government. If our television and newspaper media were entirely controlled by
the state, I don’t doubt this information would get lose on the Internet by anonymous insiders. For the Internet to
also be so very controlled that the government could ensure total informational awareness of the masses, the
government would have to be far, far more efficient, and I frankly don’t believe any government could be that
efficient. It can’t even deliver mail to the right place, it can’t even protect us from thieves in our own
communities, how it could achieve all that would be beyond me.
This isn’t to say the government doesn’t engage in some propaganda. It certainly does. For example, the government
has used our tax dollars to pay certain persons in the media to cast in a positive light some of its programmes.
This fact is well-documented. It has also produced clips for news agencies supposedly advertising certain
programmes. These clips, however, were composed in a way that makes them look like a segment of the news. When the
actual news has shown them, citizens believed they were seeing actual news. (These clips were in support of certain
things like Bush’s Medicare package, but nothing really ‘big’ that I’m aware of.) The Government Accountability
Office (GAO) had ordered that the federal government stop producing these, calling it propaganda. As far as I’m
aware, the government has stopped, but then again there’s no real way to know, unless it comes out in the news again
that this has been taking place.
“I hope this has helped to clear some things up,” I concluded to her. “If you have any further questions, I’ll be
happy to answer them.” After all, it’s not every day I get to talk about 1984.
Ms. Cheuka replied with:
Alex, thank you so much for all this information. It has been really helpful to me. If i have any other
questions i know who to run to! thanks again and hope you have a great...well a great life ahead for you!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. For more
information on this type of license, see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/