It cannot be said too often – at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough – that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of.
Modern progressives have applied the concept of a free economy leading to oppression by the winners to free speech as well. So they see free speech as a tool of oppression by the expected winners of the discourse
Fundamentally the perception of society as a zero sum conflict between groups, or a positive sum outcome of individual interactions, seems to be the springboard that directs people towards freedom or against it
Another thing Orwell never considered: Had the Spanish Republicans won, they might have actually joined the war on the Axis side, as their benefactors in Moscow did.
Orwell's view was that if the UK had been willing to help the Republicans they would not have been as much under Russian control, that they would have been willing to ally with anyone willing to provide them arms.
It is my understanding that Stalin did that so he could invade Poland and Finland (big mistake.) Hitler abrogated that early on. Stalin was duped, but we could not have won the war without Soviet involvement.
First, although you did not claim it, too many claim the Soviet Union won the war. This is nonsense. The US supplied the USSR with something like 300,000 trucks, 99% of their explosives filler, most of their aviation fuel, a lot of food, and a whole lot of other Lend-Lease material. The air war over Germany diverted millions of men away from the front lines. Italy and the Balkans diverted more. The Soviet Union might have survived Germany's attack and turned the tide on their own, but it would have taken much longer and they would have lost Moscow and the Caucasus oil fields.
Then to your clam that the western Allies could not have won without the Soviet Union. It might have taken a year longer to invade, they might have had to plan a different invasion, but to pretend that Germany, by itself, could have prevented the western Allies from winning is balderdash.
I understand that there's a lot of emotion at stake here. Let's first analyze from an economic point of view. All decisions are made or occur at the margin. In that sense, the US of A won WW II. No question.
The other point of view is to ask who bore the cost. That was the Soviet Union. Eighty per cent of German dead occurred on the Eastern Front. Twenty per cent of the German Army confronted the western allies from June 1944. It is not idiotic to say no Soviet Union, no German defeat.
"The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them." I've found the distrust, nay fear, of competition widespread among the literati. In part, it must be the intuition that competition will hurt them, or that lack of competition will help them. In other part, it is of course a lack of understanding or rejection thereof. And, there's a whole high sounding vocabulary available with which they can defend their views.
Agree with nearly everything you write - though it's literally inconceivable that Orwell, an English schoolboy in the early 1900s who went on to work in Burma as an imperial police officer, was unaware of the existence of Kim. I imagine that he just didn't think it was a novel. It's fairly short for a novel, and possibly he thought it was a book aimed at children, so it didn't count.
I don't have a Times account and am not sure I have anything non-obvious to say about congestion pricing, although this implementation might have interesting features.
The article is actually very supportive of congestion pricing and goes through various positive consequences. It's interesting for seeing incentives in action, if nothing else.
You disparage Orwell's predictive abilities without pointing out that Animal Farm and 1984 were two of the most profoundly prophetic books ever written. AI is ushering in a surveillance state that would have made big brother blush. Not many people have forecasting records that accurate. I wonder if you predicted the 2008 crisis or our post-COVID inflation.
Also, the final chapter on capitalism has not been written. If Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc. aren't heading us in the direction of monopoly, they are certainly fooling me. Orwell is in good company here, namely Joseph Schumpeter.
Animal farm wasn't prophesy. It was history, a description of what had already happened in the USSR. 1984 was set in his third alternative future, a world divided into two or three totalitarian empires. He wrote that eighty-one years ago and it hasn't happened.
My post was not about his fiction. It was based on the four volume letters and essays.
I'm not a fan of the fiction, am not sure I even finished 1984. I am very much an admirer of the nonfiction which is where he offered prophecies about the future.
I re-read parts of 1984 once -- in 1984! At the time I was reading other counter revolutionary stuff . In addition to The Road to Serfdom, I remember John Jewkes, Ordeal by Planning, also published 1948. Anyway, the middle part of 1984 is all about life in Britain in 1948! The thin beer, for one thing.
I'm not worried about tech at all, although I still am worried about the sort of developments described in this post.
I believe it is both possible to underestimate and overestimate the degree of freedom afforded by modern western societies. As long as, for example, tech is left to the markets, competition will prevent the worst kinds of abuse. But it's easy to overlook the degree to which commerce and industry (and possibly tech) are delineated and regimented by governments, and at times it does seem to only get worse, which should give us pause, even if this might not have been exactly the kind of danger Orwell had in mind. Worse yet, while people are perfectly aware of the dangers of tech in the hands of governments, they are content with, even eager for, economic nationalism and protectionism. That's the real danger.
Edit: I was surprised to learn, reading about Latin America during the developments of the last months, that what Cuba has evolved into is not the romantic socialist country we still imagine, nor even a Big Brother state mainly, though it is that, but a huge bureaucracy that controls all aspects of the economy, actively preventing common people from escaping poverty. That's very telling. Nowadays, they actually have a huge state-adjacent corporation (GAESA) that monopolizes various areas of the Cuban economy. For someone like Orwell understanding of economic theory, it could look like a failure of capitalism.
1. The excellence of those two novels has nothing to do with the validity of his predictions.
2. DDF's predictions have nothing to do with Orwell in the slightest. I wonder how many failed predictions you have made.
3. No final chapter has been written on every subject, considering the universe has trillions of years of life left in it. Singling out capitalism while ignoring socialism is childish. Capitalism's 2-300 years has a far better success record than socialism's failed 100 years. It's preposterous to think that capitalism will turn evil and socialism will turn into a bed of roses.
Your knowledge of the history of monopolies is deficient. I detest all three of those companies for various reasons, but monopoly is not one of the reasons. All three are innovating to maintain their lead.
If you hate monopolies so much, why are you such a statist? Governments are the worst monopolies of all time. They kill more civilians every year than all the monopolies and criminals combined. They killed 100 million in just the last century, and that's not counting wars.
All capitalist countries have (1) falling native population (2) High level of immigration leading to (3) projected takeover of their countries by others.
None of the socialist or ex-socialist country has this trend. On this alone, national extinction, the capitalism is a failure bigger than any in the history
Israel is a capitalist country with a growing native population. So is India. Neither is as capitalist as I would prefer but both, in Orwell's terms, are capitalist. There may be a few other examples. There are capitalist countries with little immigration, such as Hungary, and others where the immigrants are culturally similar to the natives such as Chile.
Of ex-socialist countries, neither Russia nor China is maintaining its population, and Russia has substantial immigration.
North Korea and Cuba are, in their terms (but not Orwell's) currently socialist and have declining populations although little immigration.
The point is national extinction or takeover by others. Which requires both falling native population and booming immigration. This niche is cornered by capitalist countries.
Capitalism hasn't failed yet. Your projections are just projections, not reality.
Socialism has failed every single time it's been tried, 100%. That's a bigger failure than a system which hasn't failed yet, and capitalism cannot beat that record, ever, since it has several centuries of success. Even if it were to fail forever starting tomorrow, it could not reach 100% failure.
And if you think capitalism is failing, what is it turning into? Surely not socialism! That would just continue socialism's 100% failure record.
It is worth noting that neither the communist countries nor the European welfare states are socialist in Orwell's terms, which included both government control of production and nearly equal incomes.
An interesting distinction. I would have thought equal incomes was standard socialist theory, and by that definition, true socialism has never been tried, and of course neither has true capitalism (whatever that is). Have any Orwell-socialist countries ever existed?
Other than the big shots getting paid more in Communist countries, I have little knowledge of their pay scales, other than vague memories of claims that doctors were paid more or less "normally".
But European nations have quite high economic equality. Between a corporate executive and fast food worker, the difference is exponential in poor countries but appears to be much less in rich countries.
The phrase "Late-Stage Capitalism" dates to 1902, and was re-popularized by Ernest Mandel's "Late Capitalism", which argued the 1970s would be the pinnacle of human productivity.
People who believe it describes our current era of extraordinary opportunity are doomsday cultists.
In the 1990's I was incarcerated in a higher education institution whose faculty was largely, how shall we say, post-modernist. The institution required oral exams of students from two faculty members of different disciplines. In one of these, my counterpart and the examinee had a lovely conversation about late capitalism. At some stage I intervened to ask: How do we know it's late?
I mean, companies are hiding internal research that theyr products are design to addict teens and that they increase rates of depression and anxiety and suicide in teens!
Modern progressives have applied the concept of a free economy leading to oppression by the winners to free speech as well. So they see free speech as a tool of oppression by the expected winners of the discourse
Fundamentally the perception of society as a zero sum conflict between groups, or a positive sum outcome of individual interactions, seems to be the springboard that directs people towards freedom or against it
Another thing Orwell never considered: Had the Spanish Republicans won, they might have actually joined the war on the Axis side, as their benefactors in Moscow did.
Orwell's view was that if the UK had been willing to help the Republicans they would not have been as much under Russian control, that they would have been willing to ally with anyone willing to provide them arms.
Interesting
Huh??!
Ever heard of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact?
It is my understanding that Stalin did that so he could invade Poland and Finland (big mistake.) Hitler abrogated that early on. Stalin was duped, but we could not have won the war without Soviet involvement.
You put too much faith in the Soviet apologists.
First, although you did not claim it, too many claim the Soviet Union won the war. This is nonsense. The US supplied the USSR with something like 300,000 trucks, 99% of their explosives filler, most of their aviation fuel, a lot of food, and a whole lot of other Lend-Lease material. The air war over Germany diverted millions of men away from the front lines. Italy and the Balkans diverted more. The Soviet Union might have survived Germany's attack and turned the tide on their own, but it would have taken much longer and they would have lost Moscow and the Caucasus oil fields.
Then to your clam that the western Allies could not have won without the Soviet Union. It might have taken a year longer to invade, they might have had to plan a different invasion, but to pretend that Germany, by itself, could have prevented the western Allies from winning is balderdash.
I understand that there's a lot of emotion at stake here. Let's first analyze from an economic point of view. All decisions are made or occur at the margin. In that sense, the US of A won WW II. No question.
The other point of view is to ask who bore the cost. That was the Soviet Union. Eighty per cent of German dead occurred on the Eastern Front. Twenty per cent of the German Army confronted the western allies from June 1944. It is not idiotic to say no Soviet Union, no German defeat.
But, again, decisions are made at the margin.
No, it isn't idiotic, but it isn't realistic either.
Tour de force!
"The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them." I've found the distrust, nay fear, of competition widespread among the literati. In part, it must be the intuition that competition will hurt them, or that lack of competition will help them. In other part, it is of course a lack of understanding or rejection thereof. And, there's a whole high sounding vocabulary available with which they can defend their views.
Agree with nearly everything you write - though it's literally inconceivable that Orwell, an English schoolboy in the early 1900s who went on to work in Burma as an imperial police officer, was unaware of the existence of Kim. I imagine that he just didn't think it was a novel. It's fairly short for a novel, and possibly he thought it was a book aimed at children, so it didn't count.
It's 284 pages, at least the edition on my shelf, probably longer than The Light that Failed.
On an unrelated note, may I suggest a news article to broach in a future post? Very much in the scope of what you discuss in your books: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/05/upshot/congestion-pricing-one-year.html
I don't have a Times account and am not sure I have anything non-obvious to say about congestion pricing, although this implementation might have interesting features.
This version should work without an account: https://web.archive.org/web/20260105152819/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/05/upshot/congestion-pricing-one-year.html
The article is actually very supportive of congestion pricing and goes through various positive consequences. It's interesting for seeing incentives in action, if nothing else.
Thanks.
You disparage Orwell's predictive abilities without pointing out that Animal Farm and 1984 were two of the most profoundly prophetic books ever written. AI is ushering in a surveillance state that would have made big brother blush. Not many people have forecasting records that accurate. I wonder if you predicted the 2008 crisis or our post-COVID inflation.
Also, the final chapter on capitalism has not been written. If Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc. aren't heading us in the direction of monopoly, they are certainly fooling me. Orwell is in good company here, namely Joseph Schumpeter.
Animal farm wasn't prophesy. It was history, a description of what had already happened in the USSR. 1984 was set in his third alternative future, a world divided into two or three totalitarian empires. He wrote that eighty-one years ago and it hasn't happened.
Alas, 1984 seems like a manual that was being implemented until very recently. In that sense, it was scary, spot on prophecy.
"Prophetic book" is apt, "prophesy" I think awkward and "prediction" misplaced.
Orwell wrote prophetic books but he did not predict anything.
On the contrary, Orwell predicted quite a lot of things in his letters and essays. I gave two examples.
I mean in his fiction.
My post was not about his fiction. It was based on the four volume letters and essays.
I'm not a fan of the fiction, am not sure I even finished 1984. I am very much an admirer of the nonfiction which is where he offered prophecies about the future.
I re-read parts of 1984 once -- in 1984! At the time I was reading other counter revolutionary stuff . In addition to The Road to Serfdom, I remember John Jewkes, Ordeal by Planning, also published 1948. Anyway, the middle part of 1984 is all about life in Britain in 1948! The thin beer, for one thing.
It wasn't altogether fiction.
I'm not worried about tech at all, although I still am worried about the sort of developments described in this post.
I believe it is both possible to underestimate and overestimate the degree of freedom afforded by modern western societies. As long as, for example, tech is left to the markets, competition will prevent the worst kinds of abuse. But it's easy to overlook the degree to which commerce and industry (and possibly tech) are delineated and regimented by governments, and at times it does seem to only get worse, which should give us pause, even if this might not have been exactly the kind of danger Orwell had in mind. Worse yet, while people are perfectly aware of the dangers of tech in the hands of governments, they are content with, even eager for, economic nationalism and protectionism. That's the real danger.
Edit: I was surprised to learn, reading about Latin America during the developments of the last months, that what Cuba has evolved into is not the romantic socialist country we still imagine, nor even a Big Brother state mainly, though it is that, but a huge bureaucracy that controls all aspects of the economy, actively preventing common people from escaping poverty. That's very telling. Nowadays, they actually have a huge state-adjacent corporation (GAESA) that monopolizes various areas of the Cuban economy. For someone like Orwell understanding of economic theory, it could look like a failure of capitalism.
Economic nationalism and protectionism are not new. We have had both for centuries.
1. The excellence of those two novels has nothing to do with the validity of his predictions.
2. DDF's predictions have nothing to do with Orwell in the slightest. I wonder how many failed predictions you have made.
3. No final chapter has been written on every subject, considering the universe has trillions of years of life left in it. Singling out capitalism while ignoring socialism is childish. Capitalism's 2-300 years has a far better success record than socialism's failed 100 years. It's preposterous to think that capitalism will turn evil and socialism will turn into a bed of roses.
Your knowledge of the history of monopolies is deficient. I detest all three of those companies for various reasons, but monopoly is not one of the reasons. All three are innovating to maintain their lead.
If you hate monopolies so much, why are you such a statist? Governments are the worst monopolies of all time. They kill more civilians every year than all the monopolies and criminals combined. They killed 100 million in just the last century, and that's not counting wars.
All capitalist countries have (1) falling native population (2) High level of immigration leading to (3) projected takeover of their countries by others.
None of the socialist or ex-socialist country has this trend. On this alone, national extinction, the capitalism is a failure bigger than any in the history
Israel is a capitalist country with a growing native population. So is India. Neither is as capitalist as I would prefer but both, in Orwell's terms, are capitalist. There may be a few other examples. There are capitalist countries with little immigration, such as Hungary, and others where the immigrants are culturally similar to the natives such as Chile.
Of ex-socialist countries, neither Russia nor China is maintaining its population, and Russia has substantial immigration.
North Korea and Cuba are, in their terms (but not Orwell's) currently socialist and have declining populations although little immigration.
The point is national extinction or takeover by others. Which requires both falling native population and booming immigration. This niche is cornered by capitalist countries.
Japan is also a noticeable exception.
Capitalism hasn't failed yet. Your projections are just projections, not reality.
Socialism has failed every single time it's been tried, 100%. That's a bigger failure than a system which hasn't failed yet, and capitalism cannot beat that record, ever, since it has several centuries of success. Even if it were to fail forever starting tomorrow, it could not reach 100% failure.
And if you think capitalism is failing, what is it turning into? Surely not socialism! That would just continue socialism's 100% failure record.
It is worth noting that neither the communist countries nor the European welfare states are socialist in Orwell's terms, which included both government control of production and nearly equal incomes.
An interesting distinction. I would have thought equal incomes was standard socialist theory, and by that definition, true socialism has never been tried, and of course neither has true capitalism (whatever that is). Have any Orwell-socialist countries ever existed?
Other than the big shots getting paid more in Communist countries, I have little knowledge of their pay scales, other than vague memories of claims that doctors were paid more or less "normally".
But European nations have quite high economic equality. Between a corporate executive and fast food worker, the difference is exponential in poor countries but appears to be much less in rich countries.
Is there such a thing as late stage capitalism and would you say we are there in developed countries?
The phrase "Late-Stage Capitalism" dates to 1902, and was re-popularized by Ernest Mandel's "Late Capitalism", which argued the 1970s would be the pinnacle of human productivity.
People who believe it describes our current era of extraordinary opportunity are doomsday cultists.
https://x.com/PalmerLuckey/status/1875302654081167744
In the 1990's I was incarcerated in a higher education institution whose faculty was largely, how shall we say, post-modernist. The institution required oral exams of students from two faculty members of different disciplines. In one of these, my counterpart and the examinee had a lovely conversation about late capitalism. At some stage I intervened to ask: How do we know it's late?
How not to win friends and influence people.
Edited to get the correct decade.
I mean, companies are hiding internal research that theyr products are design to addict teens and that they increase rates of depression and anxiety and suicide in teens!
I'm speaking of Facebook.
Isn't this just too much?
Excellent post. I've always loved that story about Churchill and throwing bottles.