Chapter 7-8, Book Two Chapter 1-2, "Capitalists"

"But in among all this terrible poverty, there were just a few great big beautiful houses that were lived in by rich men who had as many as thirty servants to look after them. These rich men were called capitalists. They were fat ugly men with wicked faces, like the one on the picture on the opposite page. You can see that he is dressed in a long black coat which was called a frock coat, and a queer, shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was called a top hat. This was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else was allowed to wear it. The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw him into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap and address him as a 'Sir'." (Chapter7, page 63)

Now in this specific moment, Winston is speaking about the proles and how basically they have not indoctrinated the ideas of the Party and how because of this they were very different than the Party members. Winston describes how there is more crime among the proles and they were able to do things the Party members couldn’t—like get divorced, religious worship (if they showed signs of needing it), and they were not punished for promiscuity. From this, he transitions to talking about the uncertainty of knowing the true history of the past, the time before the Revolution. This is where the concept of Capitalism brought up.

In the quote itself they talk about the time before the Party (when it was capitalist based) as basically a horrible point in time, they described it as though it was uncivilized because they mention how young children began to work and the uneven distribution of wealth among the people. Winston even notes that in the history textbook for children that most of the money belonged to rich men, who because of such wealth had a great deal of power. It is this portrayal of Capitalism that we get, basically, a ‘rude awakening’ to our society now. There is a huge parallel in multiple ways, such as the very uneven distribution of money and, the people who actually have the money and the power they yield towards the ‘ordinary people’.

It is heavily noted that there is such an uneven distribution of money in the portrayal of Capitalism shown, in the sentences before the quote it is noted how the ‘ordinary people’ had horrible living conditions, they never had enough to eat or a roof over the heads yet the rich men could afford a lot of land and ‘thirty servants’ to look after them. This may seem farfetched but it is something that is still a reality nowadays. Most of the money and wealth stays between the 1% of the country while poverty rates are going up, this is because all of the wealth stays between those who are already wealthy. This combined with the issue of taxes being raised, rent/house prices constantly increasing and the prices of everyday items becoming more and more expensive it is taking a toll on the citizens because they cannot afford what they need. This is why it is a big parallel because it is something that has always been happening and it was pointed out by Orwell yet no changes have been made to fix this because quite frankly those in power do not care to change how much power they have. Which leads us to either big parallel we can draw from this quote, which is the actual people who have the money and the power they yield.

People in power are the ones who have wealth and we can see that they do not use their power all that great. In the quote, it notes that those with money could make it so that those who disobeyed are punished (i.e. thrown into jail, starved, or take away their jobs) and this is something that we can still see nowadays. When people tend to disobey those in power it usually does not end well for the person. An example of this is the music, acting or modeling industry. Usually, those in power (which tends to be men) do not like what their employee is doing (mainly speaking out against them or anything they find unfavorable), they usually try to get rid of them. A very well-known example of this issue is one that is gaining a lot of attention in the news these days which is the issue of Harvey Weinstein. In recent days someone accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct and after it came to light we now hear more from the others whom this has also happened to. The one that many knows was greatly affected by Weinstein was Rose McGowan, this is because she had reported what Weinstein did to her a long time ago but instead of someone helping her she was blacklisted from acting because she had spoken out and the issue was brushed away until now. It is these instances that we are seeing how much power people have because of the amount of money they have. This is not the only case more and more people are speaking out about these things that have become so normalized in these industries because they were afraid of the backlash. This is why this quotation is important, you can still draw very important parallels to our society now which raises concern because it is something that has been happening for so long.

This quotation really makes people think and draw the parallels to our society now, it really shines a light on the fact that not much has changed. Those with wealth almost automatically have more power than the ‘ordinary people’ who do not have a lot of money and the wealth is usually only circulated between those who already have wealth. This really proves how times really have not changed in this aspect which is why this quote is so important.