George OrwellIt 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.
About This Quote
In a world where people are free to pursue their own desires, there is no room for the happy-go-lucky attitude that’s associated with abundance. The way of scarcity allows for many advantages. Most people see the advantages of scarcity as just an unfortunate fact of life, but they’re not. When people are denied all the basic necessities, they must become workers and wait for rewards to come back.
That wait can be long and torturous, but it creates a work ethic so strong that it will push them to succeed at any cost. The mass of humanity has no choice but to accept this arrangement. Scarcity is nature’s way of keeping us united, or else we would find ourselves incapable of working together.
Some Similar Quotes
- Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
- After all, if you do not resist the apparently inevitable, you will never know how inevitable the inevitable was.
- The first duty of a man is to think for himself
- You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker
- Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.
More Quotes By George Orwell
- Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.
- At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.
- This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.
- Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
- War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.