Quote:
Originally Posted by
why 
Nobody's mentioned Orwell yet?
Excerpts from
1984 that rarely receive comment:
**** [....]
The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without
increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they
must not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by
continuous warfare.
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of
the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring
into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might
otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long
run, too intelligent. ****
Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed,
their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without
producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example,
has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships.
Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit
to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is
built. In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus
that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population. In practice the
needs of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there
is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an
advantage. ****It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere
near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the
importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one
group and another.**** By the standards of the early twentieth century, even a
member of the Inner Party lives an austere, laborious kind of life. Nevertheless,
the few luxuries that he does enjoy his large, well-appointed flat, the better
texture of his clothes, the better quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his
two or three servants, his private motor-car or helicopter"”set him in a different
world from a member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party
have a similar advantage in comparison with the submerged masses whom we
call 'the proles'.
Need some recommendations, and also interested to see what people post. Some of mine: All the President's Men by Woodward/Bernstein State of Denial by Woodward The Gentleman from New York: A Biography of Daniel Patrick Moynihan by Godfrey Hodgson The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House by Seymour Hersh Will add more as I think of them.
