This statement shows that rich people manipulate political and economic systems to support their dominance in the society.Īgain, to explain how wealthy people seek relevance through information control, Orwell (236) says that literate people often “threaten” the rich. Orwell (258) explains this fact by saying that the ruling 1% of the inner party, which controls Oceania, would have found no relevance in the society if their subjects were wealthy. The rich understand this fact because they know if this happens, wealth would confer no social or economic distinctions in human societies. They make sure that poverty and illiteracy exist because if people become richer and more literate, they would realize that wealthy people are “useless.” As Orwell (236) says, the social and economic differences that exist today are creations of elitist groups.
The answer to the above question lies in understanding the role that poverty plays in creating today’s social and economic differences (the hierarchical society). Based on this observation, many people ask, if the solution to ending poverty is obvious, why are some people poor? Orwell (236) affirms this fact by saying that if people used technology for the sole purpose of ending human suffering, they would easily end poverty, disease, and ignorance. This intention betrays the will of well-meaning people who think that technology could end human suffering. They were not interested in raising people’s standards of living (Orwell 3). He said such people (only) wanted to “experiment” with these machines by starting wars. Using this logic, he opposed the view of modern warfare proponents who advocated for the use of advanced machinery to bring world order (Orwell 10). He also explored how societies could use technological innovations to change people’s standards of living (Orwell 10). Orwell (10) explained most of his beliefs on income inequality through “war perspectives.” Particularly, he paid a close attention to the role of technology in changing modern warfare techniques. This way, societies would be “more equal.” Why Increased Information Flow and Technology Could Reduce Income Inequality However, to do so, people need to embrace new technology because it decreases information exchange barriers.
Using the arguments of two authors, Orwell (3) and Huxley (1), in 1984 and Brave New World, this paper argues that free information flow could decrease the gap between the rich and the poor. Consequently, societies understand the need to decrease the gap between the rich and the poor. Regardless of a person’s view on this matter, there is little disagreement about the negative effects of “too much” income inequality. Some say inequality is good for attracting investments, while others believe it undermines social cohesion.
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