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ORWELL AS ADVOCATE FOR WORKERS AND AGAINST EXPLOITATION  
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Mark Satta
August 25, 2025
The Conversation
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_ That George Orwell, famous as the author Animal Farm and 1984, came
to his ideas about freedom via his thinking about work, poverty and
democratic socialism, among other themes, may surprise those familiar
with only his dystopian fiction _

"George Orwell Complete Collection", by Abee5 (CC BY 2.0)

 

George Orwell’s dystopian novels “Animal Farm
[[link removed]]” and
“1984 [[link removed]]” have
remained popular in the U.S. ever since their initial publication in
the 1940s.

What’s less well known is that in the years before the publication
of “Animal Farm” and “1984,” Orwell’s writing often focused
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primarily on other themes including work, poverty, anti-imperialism
and democratic socialism.

In fact, Orwell remained a committed democratic socialist
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until his death [[link removed]] in
1950.

“Animal Farm” tells the tale of a group of farm animals who take
ownership of their farm from their human master by means of rebellion,
but who eventually end up re-enslaved by the farm’s pigs. “1984”
tells the story of one man’s failed attempt to resist totalitarian
rule in a hypothetical future dictatorship set in Orwell’s home
country of England.

Part of these books’ initial appeal came from their critiques of
Soviet communism as the U.S. was entering the Cold War. Part of why
the books seem to have remained popular are their anti-totalitarian
and pro-freedom messages, which have been praised by people across the
U.S. political spectrum.

Orwell, who died of tuberculosis
[[link removed]] at age 46, is a
writer famous for the ideas that preoccupied him in the final years of
his life. His journey to those ideas via his thinking about work,
poverty and democratic socialism, among other themes, may surprise
those familiar with only his dystopian fiction.

Communism and socialism not synonymous

Orwell’s democratic socialism may surprise some Americans for at
least two reasons.

First, when many Americans talk about politics, they often treat
communism and socialism as interchangeable terms. How could Orwell,
the great satirist of Soviet communism, have been a socialist?

The answer is that communism and socialism are not synonymous.

 merely masquerading as socialism.

Orwell claimed
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1937 book, “The Road to Wigan Pier
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that “Socialism means justice and common decency” and a commitment
to “the overthrow of tyranny.” Elsewhere in the same book, he
maligned communism’s anti-democratic behavior as like “sawing off
the branch you are sitting on.”

A second reason that Orwell’s commitment to democratic socialism may
surprise some is because in the U.S., democratic socialism is often
associated with the nation’s most left-leaning political figures,
such as Sen. Bernie Sanders
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
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City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani
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And Orwell is often not viewed in popular imagination as a political
progressive.

Yet, by American standards, Orwell was very politically progressive.
He argued [[link removed]] in “The Lion and the
Unicorn
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that his home country of England ought to nationalize mines, railways,
banks and major industries. He also argued for limits on income
inequality. Some of these policies run to the left of even most U.S.
democratic socialists.

For Orwell, such left-leaning economic policies were not only
compatible with, but required, a strong commitment to the central
pillars of democracy, such as intellectual freedom
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speech
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a free press
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and genuine rule by the people
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I think the best way to understand how these aspects of Orwell’s
political views came together is to look at the evolution of his
writing.

Work and poverty

Two of the most important themes in Orwell’s first decade as a
professional writer, the 1930s, are work and poverty
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These are what he focused on most in his first book, the
autobiographical “Down and Out in Paris and London
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1933. There he recounts his experiences living among the poor and
unemployed in France and England in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

The book is full of pithy insights, such as “poverty frees people
from ordinary standards of behavior, just as money frees people from
work,” and “the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher
dressed in a new suit.”

The latter quote highlights one of the key ethical and political
messages of “Down and Out”: It is primarily social and political
circumstances, and not moral character, that separates the rich from
the poor.

Another key theme in “Down and Out” is that without a certain
amount of leisure, people are incapable of doing certain kinds of
thinking.

For example, Orwell argued
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the kitchen staff in French restaurants had not gone on strike or
formed a union was because “they do not think, because they have no
leisure for it; their life has made slaves of them.”

Orwell blamed the owners of such establishments for exploiting their
workers. As he saw it, at most upscale restaurants “the staff work
more and the customers pay more” and “no one benefits except the
proprietor.”

In multiple [[link removed]] novels
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of nonfiction in the 1930s, Orwell continued to explore the idea that
social and political circumstances robbed people of the time they
needed to engage in tasks like serious thinking and writing.

Imperialism and democratic socialism

One of Orwell’s earliest and most enduring political commitments was
anti-imperialism – opposition to extending national power by means
of colonialization or military force.

Orwell was of English and French descent. He was raised in England
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His father worked for the British Civil Service, which at the time
exercised administrative control over India as a British colony.

Following his father’s footsteps, he spent five years working for
the Imperial Police in Burma, now Myanmar. He came away from that
experience with a deep hatred of imperialism. He drew upon this in his
novel “Burmese Days
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and his essays “A Hanging
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and “Shooting an Elephant
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In “The Road to Wigan Pier,” he wrote
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I was serving with a bitterness which I probably cannot make clear.”

“Wigan Pier” also displays Orwell’s commitment to democratic
socialism. In the book’s first half, he reports on the dismal
working and living conditions of the poor and unemployed in northern
England. In the second half, he uses that material to make a case for
democratic socialism.

In Orwell’s view, in deciding whether to embrace democratic
socialism
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“to decide whether things at present are tolerable or not
tolerable.” He concluded that present conditions were not tolerable
and that democratic socialism was the way to make things better.

[An antique-looking application to join the Indian Police Force.]
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George Orwell’s 1922 application papers to join the ‘Indian Police
Force’ – in this case, the Burma Police – using his real name,
Eric Blair. Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images
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Propaganda and totalitarianism

Orwell developed into a sharp
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critic
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of Soviet Russia after witnessing how they used propaganda to mislead
much of Europe about the Spanish Civil War. He discussed this in his
book “Homage to Catalonia
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his time during the Spanish Civil War as a volunteer soldier fighting
with the Spanish left against Gen. Francisco Franco, who would go on
to become the country’s longtime dictator.

From Orwell’s perspective, communism highlighted the risks
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of how socialist revolution could go wrong. He thought that, without
care, attempts at socialist revolution could create opportunities for
a new form of oppression through totalitarianism.

He saw that totalitarianism was not limited to either the political
left or right
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Soviet communism represented left-wing totalitarianism, while Nazi
Germany and Fascist Italy represented right-wing totalitarianism.

Thus, a major preoccupation in his final years was trying to warn
people about the risks of falling into totalitarianism
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during times of political upheaval. Orwell wanted radical political
change, but the change he wanted was in the service of increasing
freedom and democracy, not decreasing it.

“Animal Farm” is a story about falling into autocracy. “1984”
is a story about just how much autocracy can take from us.

But the things Orwell wanted to preserve, such as freedom of the mind,
were also things that he thought were at risk from circumstances like
poverty, oppressive working conditions and imperialism.[The
Conversation]

Mark Satta [[link removed]],
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law, _Wayne State University
[[link removed]]_

This article is republished from The Conversation
[[link removed]] under a Creative Commons license. Read
the original article
[[link removed]].

* George Orwell
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* DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
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