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>The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour. A hierarch

>The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact." https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_(film) https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_(film)

jerf 10y ago
Yeah, but despite the provenance of the quote, it's very hard to square with how the real world has evolved since Orwell wrote that can make a stronger case for the idea that a government pretty much has to keep its population a certain degree of comfortable or it's going to get overthrown than I can for them deliberately keeping them in poverty. The other problem with it is that the elite of a given culture draw their eliteness from the wealth of the culture itself. The elite of the US and the EU draw their outsized influence from the fact that they are the elite of a wealthy, powerful culture. If they set about making their cultures deliberately poorer, they are cutting their own influence off by destroying the things they're being the elite of. The elite of China aren't just trying to make their own countrymen relatively wealthier for its own sake (though that probably has an impact), it is also because it raises their own power in the rest of the world. I don't think he was correct about this. I think he just had a couple points from very early in the modern era, and drew the wrong extrapolation through them because they weren't representative. He was very intelligent, but having bad data is hard to overcome.
- wu-ikkyu 10y ago
  >The other problem with it is that the elite of a given culture draw their eliteness from the wealth of the culture itself. The elite of the US and the EU draw their outsized influence from the fact that they are the elite of a wealthy, powerful culture. The marketplace is global, and wealth is easily siphoned off from other cultures and peoples across the world whom the elite are likely to never interact with otherwise. Cultures do not exist economically independent of others. Where do you think empires get their wealth from? >If they set about making their cultures deliberately poorer, they are cutting their own influence off by destroying the things they're being the elite of. This assumes the elite are idealistically patriotic rather than self-interested. On the contrary, they are increasing their margin of power over their subjects by taking their wealth and increasing their debts, and can easily move across to other cultures, bringing their wealth with them, if need be.

jerf 10y ago

Yeah, but despite the provenance of the quote, it's very hard to square with how the real world has evolved since Orwell wrote that can make a stronger case for the idea that a government pretty much has to keep its population a certain degree of comfortable or it's going to get overthrown than I can for them deliberately keeping them in poverty. The other problem with it is that the elite of a given culture draw their eliteness from the wealth of the culture itself. The elite of the US and the EU draw their outsized influence from the fact that they are the elite of a wealthy, powerful culture. If they set about making their cultures deliberately poorer, they are cutting their own influence off by destroying the things they're being the elite of. The elite of China aren't just trying to make their own countrymen relatively wealthier for its own sake (though that probably has an impact), it is also because it raises their own power in the rest of the world. I don't think he was correct about this. I think he just had a couple points from very early in the modern era, and drew the wrong extrapolation through them because they weren't representative. He was very intelligent, but having bad data is hard to overcome.

wu-ikkyu 10y ago
>The other problem with it is that the elite of a given culture draw their eliteness from the wealth of the culture itself. The elite of the US and the EU draw their outsized influence from the fact that they are the elite of a wealthy, powerful culture. The marketplace is global, and wealth is easily siphoned off from other cultures and peoples across the world whom the elite are likely to never interact with otherwise. Cultures do not exist economically independent of others. Where do you think empires get their wealth from? >If they set about making their cultures deliberately poorer, they are cutting their own influence off by destroying the things they're being the elite of. This assumes the elite are idealistically patriotic rather than self-interested. On the contrary, they are increasing their margin of power over their subjects by taking their wealth and increasing their debts, and can easily move across to other cultures, bringing their wealth with them, if need be.