"At Least a Few Wise and Well-Meaning Persons Found Plenty to Disagree With, and Even Dislike, in St. George"

"Orwell was moderately obsessed with class. He would probably have noted that the explosive growth of inequality in the United States over the past four decades has closely paralleled the explosive growth of the diversity industry, and would have drawn some conclusions. He might have asked: If there were two societies with the same Gini coefficient, but in one of them, the proportion of billionaires by race and gender matched that of the general population, would that society be morally better than the other? Or: If the ratio of CEO to median employee earnings was the same in two societies, but in one of them the proportion of CEOs by race and gender matched that of the general population, would that society be morally better than the other? I’m pretty sure that most diversity bureaucrats would answer 'yes' to both questions, and that Orwell would have answered 'no.'"

George Scialabba at Commonweal imagines George Orwell in the twenty-first century.