Thoughts on the Individual

After finishing George Orwell's "Animal Farm," which is an allegory featuring animals as communists (very funny in a scary/odd way), I have been thinking about Orwell's hypothetical dilemma of the individual versus "Big Brother" (or "Big Pig," in this case).

Orwell wrote "Animal Farm" as a prophetic novel, but I find it interesting to note that his "prediction" of what the future would be like, never came to fulfillment. The horrific terror of totalitarian dictatorship never materialized as the conqueror of the world. Instead, the U.S.S.R. collapsed under economic and political pressures, the Individual triumphed, and disaster was avoided. But why? Why didn't Orwell's imagined world materialize?

I think that the main reason communism failed, is the uncontrollable nature of man. No dictator, no secret police, no hobnailed boots, can stomp out man's natural tendency toward evil. Men will always be selfish and greedy, and no amount of regulation can stomp out those feelings. Communists have shown the brutal efficiency with which they can subdue a people, but a few years down the road the system will always collapse. Few people beside idealists will work after they realize that everything they do is profiting someone beside themselves. The dictator will, of course, force the people to work, but no one works as hard for others as he does for himself. Fairly soon, people will be starving because there is not enough food to go around. Then the people will find, as George Orwell said, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." The "pigs" will take the food, live in the farmhouse, and keep the other animals working for them, until finally the system collapses.

"Utopia" has long been the mantra of socialists (liberals) and communists (liberals with attitude problems), but utopia has never succeeded. Instead, it merely adds to human suffering by ignoring man's nature and forcing him to attempt the impossible. Capitalism is not the most perfect system, but we can safely say that it is the only system that actually works.

Long live Capitalism!