last (probably) from Orwell’s road to Wigan pier:
We live, admittedly, amid the wreck of a civilization, but it has been a great civilization in its day, and in patches it still flourishes almost undisturbed.
August 4, 2009
almost undisturbed
August 1, 2009
averting revolution
more orwell (road to wigan pier”
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
