This is an extract from chapter 5 of ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ by George Orwell. What is particularly interesting is despite the decades in time difference, Orwell’s observations still have a ring of truth today. His explanations bear a striking resemblance to the circumstances of the working classes today, as well as offering an explanation for why there is no rebellion!
But they don’t necessarily lower their standards by cutting out
luxuries and concentrating on necessities; more often it is the other way
about–the more natural way, if you come to think of it. Hence the fact
that in a decade of unparalleled depression, the consumption of all cheap
luxuries has in-creased. The two things that have probably made the
greatest difference of all are the movies and the mass-production of cheap
smart clothes since the war. The youth who leaves school at fourteen and
gets a blind-alley job is out of work at twenty, probably for life; but for
two pounds ten on the hire-purchase he can buy himself a suit which, for a
little while and at a little distance, looks as though it had been tailored
in Savile Row. The girl can look like a fashion plate at an even lower
price. You may have three halfpence in your pocket and not a prospect in
the world, and only the corner of a leaky bedroom to go home to; but in
your new clothes you can stand on the street corner, indulging in a private
daydream of yourself as dark Gable or Greta Garbo, which compensates you
for a great deal. And even at home there is generally a cup of tea going–
a ‘nice cup of tea’–and Father, who has been out of work since 1929, is
temporarily happy because he has a sure tip for the Cesarewitch.
Trade since the war has had to adjust itself to meet the demands of
underpaid, underfed people, with the result that a luxury is nowadays
almost always cheaper than a necessity. One pair of plain solid shoes costs
as much as two ultra-smart pairs. For the price of one square meal you can
get two pounds of cheap sweets. You can’t get much meat for threepence, but
you can get a lot offish-and-chips. Milk costs threepence a pint and even
‘mild’ beer costs fourpence, but aspirins are seven a penny and you can
wring forty cups of tea out of a quarter-pound packet. And above all there
is gambling, the cheapest of all luxuries. Even people on the verge of
starvation can buy a few days’ hope (‘Something to live for’, as they call
it) by having a penny on a sweepstake. Organized gambling has now risen
almost to the status of a major industry. Consider, for instance, a
phenomenon like the Football Pools, with a turnover of about six million
pounds a year, almost all of it from the pockets of working-class people. I
happened to be in Yorkshire when Hitler re-occupied the Rhineland. Hitler,
Locarno, Fascism, and the threat of war aroused hardly a flicker of
interest locally, but the decision of the Football Association to stop
publishing their fixtures in advance (this was an attempt to quell the
Football Pools) flung all Yorkshire into a storm of fury. And then there is
the queer spectacle of modern electrical science showering miracles upon
people with empty bellies. You may shiver all night for lack of bedclothes,
but in the morning you can go to the public library and read the news that
has been telegraphed for your benefit from San Francisco and Singapore.
Twenty million people are underfed but literally everyone in England has
access to a radio. What we have lost in food we have gained in electricity.
Whole sections of the working class who have been plundered of all they
really need are being compensated, in part, by cheap luxuries which
mitigate the surface of life.
Do you consider all this desirable? No, I don’t. But it may be that
the psychological adjustment which the working class are visibly making is
the best they could make in the circumstances. They have neither turned
revolutionary nor lost their self-respect; merely they have kept their
tempers and settled down to make the best of things on a fish-and-chip
standard. The alternative would be God knows what continued agonies of
despair; or it might be attempted insurrections which, in a strongly
governed country like England, could only lead to futile massacres and a
regime of savage repression.
Of course the post-war development of cheap luxuries has been a very
fortunate thing for our rulers. It is quite likely that fish-and-chips,
art-silk stockings, tinned salmon, cut-price chocolate (five two-ounce bars
for sixpence), the movies, the radio, strong tea, and the Football Pools
have between them averted revolution. Therefore we are some-times told that
the whole thing is an astute manoeuvre by the governing class–a sort of
‘bread and circuses’ business–to hold the unemployed down. What I have
seen of our governing class does not convince me that they have that much
intelligence. The thing has happened, but by an un-conscious process–the
quite natural interaction between the manufacturer’s need for a market and
the need of half-starved people for cheap palliatives.
Orwell’s point that ‘…the result that a luxury is nowadays, almost always cheaper than a necessity.’ is still clearly evident in our modern equivalent, routinely buying fast food, and as a consequence, eating copious amounts of sugar and salt as a treat. Ultimately, we are facing an obesity epidemic in the working classes that is not just a problem in British society, for the very same reasons as Orwell identifies it is becoming a global phenomenon. The most recent, hilarious example to compensate for their damage is the brand Coca Cola. Their ‘Life’ advertisement is a pathetic attempt to try and redress this. Santa Claus had to change the colour of his suit from green to red to fit in with the Coca Cola brand, if they have changed their label to green, will he have to change it back? We will have to see if the power of advertising can still work its magic on Santa!
The recent technological boom in smart phones and tablets was evident then by the radio and as Orwell reminds us: ‘What we have lost in food we have gained in electricity.’ – Today’s modern phenomena is the internet, having a tablet, streamed Sky TV, having the very latest Smart phone – all of these gadgets go to compensate for the abject misery they could face.
The football pools is Orwell’s focus, but today we have the mighty juggernaut of the Lottery, and the massive market in online gambling. Orwell reminds us that ‘And above all there is gambling, the cheapest of all luxuries.’ – There is report published just today about the epidemic proportions of the young and gambling. The ‘fun’ Bingo ads, and the barrage of adverts encouraging bets on first goal, the score of the football, the player who scores – an almost endless stream of extracting money from the very poorest in society, and creating what can often turn into a lifelong, destructive illness. Then there is the lottery – where the very poorest pay for the ‘charitable good work’ of the Lottery Fund. The irony of all ironies, a very clear tax on the poor.
‘Whole sections of the working class who have been plundered of all they really need are being compensated, in part, by cheap luxuries which mitigate the surface of life.’ Overall, NOTHING has changed!
On the plus side: ‘They have neither turned revolutionary nor lost their self-respect; merely they have kept their tempers and settled down to make the best of things on a fish-and-chip standard.’ In relation to today’s societal issues, there has been the odd demonstration, but nothing on a revolutionary scale. Maybe the very poorest have double bluffed the government, taken everything that has been thrown at them, shrugged their shoulders and got on with their lives as best they can, as long as they do own what they consider a luxury. The working classes may have a tinge of envy of the vast luxuries of the ‘ruling classes’, but they certainly don’t aspire to be one of them, or be part of their society. I watch ‘Downton Abbey and think I’d rather do a day’s work scrubbing the kitchen than rub my chin every morning while I decide which hat I would wear, then sit through boring dinners using the right fork with the right meal – what a yawn fest of a life!!
Maybe, instead of a revolution, this is how the working class have enjoyed the very last laugh. They have enough to get by, have a few luxuries, enjoy their lives, and don’t bother getting too involved in things they now know and accept they have no control over anyway.