of communication closed. The
possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the
State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for
the first time.
After the revolutionary period of the fifties and sixties, society
regrouped itself, as always, into High, Middle, and Low. But the new High
group, unlike all its forerunners, did not act upon instinct but knew what
was needed to safeguard its position. It had long been realized that the
only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are
most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called
'abolition of private property' which took place in the middle years of the
century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands
than before: but with this difference, that the new owners were a group
instead of a mass of individuals. Individually, no member of the Party owns
anything, except petty personal belongings. Collectively, the Party owns
everything in Oceania, because it controls everything, and disposes of the
products as it thinks fit. In the years following the Revolution it was
able to step into this commanding position almost unopposed, because the
whole process was represented as an act of collectivization. It had always
been assumed that if the capitalist class were
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