George Orwell on Socialism

It pays to actually read Orwell for oneself: "I am well aware that it is now the fashion to deny that Socialism has anything to do with equality. In every country in the world a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy 'proving' that Socialism means no more than a planned state-capitalism with the grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of Socialism quite different from this. The thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the 'mystique' of Socialism, is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society. In that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege and no boot-licking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what the opening stages of Socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see Socialism established much *more* actual than it had been before."

From chapter 8 of "Homage to Catalonia" (1938). It is from this book (really a memoir) that one gets perhaps the fullest picture of what attracted Orwell to socialism.

"One of Orwell's very best books and perhaps the best book that exists on the Spanish Civil War." - The New Yorker

Free copies of the book are readily available online.

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[CrossoverManiac]

It's sad to see that this fool has learned nothing. You can not have a classless society without having some sort of overlord enforcing equality *of results* (not to be confused with equality under the law) on others by redistribution of wealth and penalizing success. The very tyranny he so detested and warned others about in "Animal Farm" and "1984" is the only means by which his classless society can come about via the enforcement of conformity.

[yrrmom]

@CrossoverManiac Clearly you're far wiser than Orwell

[RussianBarbarian]

Great! All liberals/"libertarians" who think Orwell is a capitalist hero should listen to this. 1984 was his protest against the terror and propaganda he witnessed in Spain and the USSR, he was FOR equality, sharing wealth, democracy etc. He also stated that "American materialism is just as abhorrent as Russian authoritarianism". But free market extremists did a nice propaganda job by convincing everyone Orwell is their man... assholes.

[seigneurvoland666]

@CrossoverManiac false. voluntary socialism is possible. 

[dustinjt]

@scalp340 Because you don't understand what Marxism and communism are. They're not similar to totalitarianism. They are democratic systems, which have been implemented by fascists. That's what Orwell critiques: the complete bastardization of the idea of socialism by fascists (who called themselves socialists); particularly Stalin.

[scalp340]

i dont know about the liberals, but us libertarians (and i speak for me only) enjoy orwell because of the not subtle way he nails Marxism, communism totalitarianism, and tyranny to the wall. as for him being a socialist, that has always been a head scratcher for me.

[autonomia386]

Orwell got it right, libertarian socialism is the way to liberate man from the evils of fascism, capitalism and monarchy.

[GambitFox79]

@CrossoverManiac Considering he's among the scarce few political writers in all history to have ever backed up his philosophies by risking his life to test them (shot in the neck in Barcelona, self-imposed poverty in London), I can only say wow, I think got dumber reading that post. Socialism is inherently liberal. Totalitarianism is inherently conservative. If you think socialism is a kiddy-ladder leading to communism, you've been watching way too much Glenn Beck.

[rcarass1]

very well narrated