Edited-From Orwell's 1984 'expansion of private property by incorporation.

FIFTIES AND SIXTIES

After the revolutionary period of the fifties and sixties, society regrouped itself, as always, into High, Middle, and Low. But the new High group, unlike all its forerunners, did not act upon instinct but knew what was needed to safeguard its position. It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism OR INCORPORATION (ED).

Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called 'expansion of private property by collectivism. OR incorporation. ed' which took place in the middle years of the century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before: but with this difference, that the new owners were a group (Collective OR corporation)instead of a mass of single individuals.

Individually, no member of the ruling Party owns anything, except petty personal belongings. Collectively, the Party owns everything because it controls everything and disposes of the products as it thinks fit. In the years following the Revolution it was able to step into this commanding position almost unopposed, because the whole process was represented as an act of incorporation.

It had always been assumed that if the capitalist class were expropriated, Socialism must follow: and unquestionably the capitalists had been expropriated.

Factories, mines, land, houses, transport -- everything had been taken away from themas individuals: and since these things were no longer individual private property, it followed that they must be public (Collective OR corporate ed.) property.

The new parties which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist programme; with the result, foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.

Four Ways To Fall From Power

But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than this. There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power.

1.Either it is conquered from without,
2.It governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt,
3.It allows a strong and discontented Middle group to come into being (A new voting bloc- Catholics ad Cons)
4.It loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern.

These causes do not operate singly and as a rule all four of them are present in some degree. A ruling class which could guard against all of them would remain in power permanently. Ultimately the determining factor is the mental attitude of the ruling class itself.

After the middle of the present century, the first danger had in reality disappeared. Each of the three powers which now divide the world is in fact unconquerable and could only become conquerable through slow demographic changes which a government with wide powers can easily avert.

The second danger, also, is only a theoretical one. The masses never revolt of their own accord and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that
they are oppressed.

The recurrent economic crises of past times were totally unnecessary and are not now permitted to happen but other and equally large dislocations can and do happen without having political results, because there is no way in which discontent can become articulate.

As for the problem of overproduction, which has been latent in our society since the development of machine technique, it is solved by the device of continuous warfare (see Chapter III), which is also useful in keying up public morale to the necessary pitch.

From the point of view of our present rulers, therefore, the only genuine dangers are the splitting-off of a new group of able, under-employed, power-hungry people and the growth of liberalism and scepticism in their own ranks.

The problem, that is to say, is educational. It is a problem of continuously moulding the consciousness both of the directing group and of the larger executive group that lies immediately below it. The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way.

Edited-From Orwell's 1984 'expansion of private property by incorporation.

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