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by Nightwatchdog on March 1st, 2010
Selected by the asker, LePoupon is a proper gander.. (What's this?)
Animal farm the book portrays a dictatorship - not a socialist society. There was little if any socialism in it - and in the end we see the dictator pigs and the capitalist men are very chummy and social together - so the real question is what is the difference between a capitalist society and a fascist dictatorship one.
So many people get this book wrong - he was not writing about Socialism being bad - but the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin as being bad - and how willing we were in capitalist societies to deal and trade and befriend them.
There has never been a real "Socialist or Communist" state anywhere on the planet excluding a few tribal cultures - the subtext deals with simply a change in the name of a government - and with the human oppressor of the farm animals now being replaced by the pigs and the dogs....and the end result for the animals involved was pretty much the same either way they go .
His more serious work - 1984 is the same in nature - Oceania is no more a "socialist state" than it is a pie wagon - it is a dictatorship more akin to the final years of Nazi Germany with industries and public institutions under firm state control and the party line controlled by secret police.....and there is nothing "socialistic" in any of that.
It's amazing how external propaganda can twist the meaning of something so simple into a context where it would be unrecognizable to the author and do it so well that it is actually used as a school textbook on the subject.
by Marky Mark on March 1st, 2010
I think it's because of this line...
"All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
...which suggests that the leaders of revolutionary movements are insincere and do not practice what they preach. That the new elite are soon corrupted by power. This suggestion is not without an element of truth.
by Nick1992 on March 1st, 2010
its rather political story
by Rinky Dinky Do on March 1st, 2010
Cause Amerikans are stoopid.
by -O-uknow on March 1st, 2010
First look at the portrayal of animals acting like humans. Second look at which ones for which roles.
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Comments
The criticism is valid because every state that has claimed to be socialist or adopted its tenets has been a lie. That IS the criticism. Wherever there is a so-called socialist state it is everything but.
by -O-uknow on March 1st, 2010
Of course it is...the Nazi party name itself breaks down into the National SOCIALIST workers party - and other than a token social reform program or two there was nothing "Socialistic" about it.
We have a tendency to call America a democracy - which of course it isn't - it's actually a republic with a few democratic notions thrown in the mix as well as a few fascist and socialist thoughts spread about for "flavor"....we always seem to get our "isms" wrong when we talk about governments - especially our own.
by Nightwatchdog on March 1st, 2010