RePost: Communism and our Facist-capitalism, er ..."Democracy"

I read Animal Farm by George Orwell for the first time recently thanks to the exhortations to do so from my good friends Isaiah and Caleb, and boy, o, boy was I well rewarded with that time spent it.  I loved it, loved it!  Orwell really is amazing.  There were numerous passages I wanted to put on the blog but the one below made the cut.  First, though, a word of explanation.

For those who haven't read Animal Farm it concerns a farm (suprise, surprise) where the animals are convinced by an old boar before he dies that the humans must be expelled from the farm by revolution.  If they are able to do that, they are told, an utopia will then naturally follow and be put in place.  The revolt soon happens and the human owners are driven out.  A communistic government is established where one pig, Napolean, places himself in charge.  His police are the dogs and his administration is stocked with all the other pigs.  "Squealor" is Napolean's spokesperson.

         

Now, with that background read the passage below -- written in 1946 -- and see how eerie the animals "communist" government that Orwell describes sounds an awful lot like what we like to call our "capitalist democracy".  Hold tight and enjoy the great Orwell.
   

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"Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer -- except, or course, for the pigs and the dogs.  Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs.  It was not that these creatures did not work, after their fashion.  There was, as Squealor was never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and organization of the farm.  Much of this work was of the kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand.  For example, Squealor told them that the pigs had to expend enormous labors every day upon mysterious things called "files", "reports",  "minutes", and "memoranda".  These were large sheets of paper which had to be closely covered with writing, and soon as they were so covered, they were burnt in the furnace.  This was of the highest importance for the welfare of the farm, Squealor said.  But still, neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by their own labor; and there were very many of them and their appetites were always good."

(Repost from June 28, 2011)