1984 - an anti-capitalist tract?

A subversive reinterpretation of Orwell's great novel

I recently reread ‘1984’, inspired by a recent BBC radio series of actors reading extracts from Orwell’s famous novel. The book is typically - and no doubt correctly - described as a depiction of a totalitarian dystopia and one couple’s doomed rebellion against profoundly repressive government. But I was struck by another, rather unexpected, interpretation of the book.

To my surprise, I realised that it could be read as a critique of the capitalist state. As far as I’m aware, there’s no evidence that Orwell intended it as such, but the meaning and significance of texts change over time, sometimes departing from the original designs of the author. Indeed, in parallel with its readings of the novel, the BBC also ran a podcast called ‘Orwell vs Kafka’ which discussed the significance of these two ‘dystopian’ authors for our world of the 21st century - whether mobile phones and ubiquitous surveillance cameras are the contemporary embodiment of the all-seeing telescreens of ‘1984’ for instance. Indeed, one could go further by claiming that texts are only significant in what they tell us about our current times. Texts that don’t carry that import tend to be forgotten. We watch Shakespeare for what he can tell us about our contemporary condition, not Elizabethan England.

So why did I think 1984 could be read as a critique of capitalism? The answer requires connecting the dots between different elements of the novel.

But before getting into that, the first thing I realised is that the novel is not about communism of the Soviet kind which existed when Orwell wrote the book in 1946. ‘1984’ is commonly assumed to be an attack on the brutal Stalinism of the day (for instance by Wikipedia), represented by the savage rule of ‘Big Brother’, the all-powerful authority in the state of ‘Oceania’ where the story takes place. Concluding otherwise is not a matter of overimaginative textual re-interpretation. The book itself clearly indicates that it is not about Stalinism when Winston Smith, the chief protagonist, secretly reads the manifesto of Emmanuel Goldstein, the supposed underground leader of the rebellion against Big Brother. The manifesto depicts socialism (i.e. communism) as a phenomenon of the past. In other words, the current version of authoritarianism (Big Brother etc) has transcended that state:

"Socialism, a theory which appeared in the early nineteenth century and was the last link in a chain of thought stretching back to the slave rebellions of antiquity, was still deeply infected by the Utopianism of past ages. But in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly abandoned.”

Goldstein continues that new movements - Ingsoc, Neo-Bolshevism, Death Worship - subsequently emerged in the mid-20th century, firmly placing socialism/communism into the earlier half of the century i.e. the past.

Later, during Winston’s interrogation, his torturer and nemesis O’Brien makes explicit that Oceania practices a different kind of totalitarianism from Stalinism:

"Did I not tell you just now that we are different from the persecutors of the past? We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be."

Under Stalin submission and obedience was the end in itself, not unthinking belief in the ideology. By contrast, the ruling Party of ‘1984’ demands not obedience to its domination, but that Party members wholeheartedly believe in Big Brother, the iconic personification of authority. So, ‘1984’ is not an analogy for the Soviet Union, a least not a direct one, contrary to common perceptions. It is a portrait of a new iteration of totalitarianism, one that has gone a step further than Stalinism. This opens interesting possibilities and space for new interpretations.

So, what might the world of ‘1984’ tell us about capitalism, neo-liberalism or whatever we want to call it, our contemporary ideological condition? Here’s Goldstein’s manifesto again, this time with a brilliant and concise description of the cycle of history, and how we arrived at our current juncture:

"Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims."

Goldstein’s distinction between ‘High’ and ‘Low’ is an obvious analogy for the dominant capital-owning upper classes and the working class. In Oceania, the ‘Low’ are the ‘Proles’, an uneducated underclass that the Party doesn’t bother to indoctrinate, because not being ‘Middle’, they will never revolt.

Goldstein continues,

"It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters."

A more pointed critique of our contemporary dispensation would be hard to find. But ‘1984’ goes further. Goldstein argues that the true nature of reality itself is concealed by the system:

"All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived."

What is popular culture, with its sugar-high superficiality and expertly-engineered devices of distraction, but a tool - whether intentional or not - to prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived in all its injustice and destructiveness?

Winston’s torture is designed to render him not so much obedient but a believer. Likewise, capitalism does not demand obedience, but it does arguably require belief. We mostly do not consider ourselves to be part of a system that requires submission. Instead, we believe in the system and thereby act as the instruments of our own oppression. For capitalism is a kind of subtle and unnoticed oppression. Short of casting ourselves out of society altogether and joining an anarchist commune, we are required to go along with it: earn a salary, pay rent, ignore manifest injusticee, obey the boss, pretend to be entertained by the facile utterances of social media and culture etc., while all the time feeling the deep hollowness of consumerism and social fracture and anxiety at imminent species suicide. Capitalism’s domination and destruction of nature, intrinsic to its operation, is likewise something we are obliged to collaborate with and remain silent about - only recently has this domination begun to be questioned.

If we fail to collaborate or rebel, as Winston futilely does, we do not face torture and suffering, as he did. Instead, we face a kind of bleak and hopeless alienation where we are disaffected from the system but see little chance of an alternative emerging. As O’Brien tells Winston during his torture,

"What happens to you here is for ever. Understand that in advance. We shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you could not recover, if you lived a thousand years. Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves."

This might strike the reader as an overstated way of describing the condition in which we obey - and mentally accept (with little questioning) - the diktats of a capitalist order, but it is not wildly inaccurate. The ‘joy of living’ is surely diminished when we are trapped on the mousewheel of material progress and social advancement, condemned to work in jobs we often despise (for work, as Marx pointed out, is being paid to do things we would not freely choose to do). The state, which operates in partnership with the capitalist economy, does indeed crush all attempts at disobedience. Those who attempt to bring reality into the light are cruelly punished. Only a few days ago, climate protesters who blocked the M25 motorway were sentenced, grotesquely, to four and five years’ imprisonment - for non-violent protest. O’Brien’s claim that there will be no recovery in a thousand years is also germane for the neo-liberal and allegedly democratic system presents itself as permanent, a logical end-point - for some, notoriously, the very ‘end of history’.

But Orwell’s biggest claim is that within the totalitarian society of ‘1984’ the possibility of love is destroyed. Winston’s torture makes him betray his lover, Julia. Punish her instead!, he cries in his agony and despair. As the story ends, Winston, now released from imprisonment, meets Julia and they are tragically indifferent to one another. For it is the Party that Winston now loves, not real people. In the final scene of the book, he sips gin in a cafe. His eyes moisten as he contemplates his love for Big Brother.

Is it too absurd to wonder if this critique is not in some way relevant to our own society? There is no Big Brother, but it is not crazy to question whether people love material things and status more than they love each other. It is not crazy to question whether our self-policing into acceptance of the status quo is a kind of ‘masking’, where our authentic selves are denied and concealed. And without genuine authenticity is love really possible? Further, as I argued last week (in ‘Anarchy = Love’), love can only truly flourish when relationships are equal, without hierarchy or domination. In a society rife with these ills, is true love possible? Above all, neo-liberal ‘democracy’ prevents us living in freedom, where we have meaningful agency over our affairs. We are permanently constrained by laws and social norms we have no part of deciding (save the paltry cross in a box every five years). Can love exist without freedom?

I can’t help but suspect that Orwell, a trenchant critic of capitalism and lifelong socialist (and also, perhaps, an anarchist - an admission he makes in ‘Homage to Catalonia’), may have been influenced as much by the Britain of 1946 as he was by Stalin’s Soviet Union, and considered, perhaps unconsciously, where both might one day lead. The tools of capitalist domination and oppression may be more subtle and less overtly vicious than Big Brother, but they still existed and continue to exist. Above all, the notion that Winston is ultimately transformed not into obedience but into belief in the system itself, a belief in his own oppressor, is one that remains relevant but deeply subversive in our current dispensation.