1984 - Planet eBook

ing the bare needs of the population. In practice the needsof the population are always underestimated, with the resultthat there is a chronic shortage of half the necessitiesof life; but this is looked on as an advantage. It is deliberatepolicy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere nearthe brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcityincreases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifiesthe distinction between one group and another. Bythe standards of the early twentieth century, even a memberof the Inner Party lives an austere, laborious kind of life.Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy his large,well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the betterquality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two orthree servants, his private motor-car or helicopter—set himin a different world from a member of the Outer Party, andthe members of the Outer Party have a similar advantagein comparison with the submerged masses whom we call‘the proles’. The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city,where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the differencebetween wealth and poverty. And at the same timethe consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger,makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seemthe natural, unavoidable condition of survival.War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction,but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way.In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surpluslabour of the world by building temples and pyramids, bydigging holes and filling them up again, or even by producingvast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them.