mk.miles_ > Recent Status Updates

"Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work!"

Julian does want to ban zero hours contracts though, which is pretty based. I would hope doing so would raise more than £4 billion in tax revenues, but regardless, I'd never even thought of the potential tax loss as an argument for their banning.

Zero hours is one of those policies which is great for the sons and daughters of rich parents, and terrible for children who's parents have no choice but to work them.

The reputation argument doesn't fly either - lots of companies that Julian lists which have engaged in exploitative practice somewhere in their supply chain have widely washed away any reputation issues they had yet continued to exploit regardless.

The arguments in the supermarket industry track, it does seem as though the bargain retailers do maintain good relationships across the supply chain.

Lots of arguments in benefit of treating the white collar worker well. Glosses over successful companies - namely Amazon - gaining record profits off the exploitation of the blue collar worker. Leaves the issue of exploitative banking practices hanging, where it is conceded that they are actually more profitable when they are corrupt. So far it's not a great argument for the redemption of capitalism.

This is a bit of an aside but I have no idea why, with books like this, the introductions are so esoteric. A lot of this stuff is difficult to take in properly if you're not already familiar with Plato - it's a huge historical dumping ground. However, bits of it are good - it's very useful to know the historical order of the dialogues and why they are presented in this order, how they are written.

Some more of the same. Now the woman who was once oh-so-mysterious is made out to be uninterested in any meaningful rebellion and bothered majorly by black market consumer goods.

Orwell's writing is otherwise class - every interaction with Mr. Charrington has been golden so far, the proles are soldiering on in the background, obvious parallels with Stalin's Russia throughout...

Not actually started this yet - carrying it around as my backup book currently. Hoping that starting a progress update will actually encourage me to read it!

Really great so far! No excuse for my slowness on reading it to be honest. Very accessible, easy to take notes from, takes note of historic debates where appropriate but rarely if ever gets bogged down in them.

Also makes a very compelling case for this history to be taught more widely, given how knowledge of it ought to be considered essential for any informed voter - yet few know it in nearly as much detail.

Started off well, if a bit over the top at times. Really enjoyed Winston's visit to the proles and his return to the shop where he bought his book, I could really feel the nostalgia.

But then we introduce Julia...and it turns out that George Orwell is one of those people who writes women in a really weird way. Emblematic of the time, maybe, although I have been warned about Orwell in particular. A big shame.