One of my favorite Orwell books is The Road to Wigan Pier. And there's a line in that book where he says that we could do with a little less, this is a quote, we could do with a little less talk about capitalist and proletarian and a little more about the robbers and the robbed. I think that there is a streak in Orwell where he genuinely wants to align himself with the common person. And he finds himself critical of what he

regards as kind of overly abstract political theorizing, which to be fair to him, I think, was very

common among the intelligentsia. It's important to remember that supporting international communism

in the 1930s or 40s, you know, it didn't just imply being a sort of supporter of the USSR,

even in some cases, you know, the case of some communists, even when it was signing a non-aggression

pact with Adolf Hitler, as it did, you know, with the Molotov-on-Ribbentrop pact in 1940.

You know, in some cases, it also meant allegiance to these incredibly sort of doctrinaire ways of thinking about history or thinking about history is this kind of scientific and measurable thing in a way that was very totalizing.

I don't know if you've ever read Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, but that's a book that I think describes and kind of explains that way of thinking very well.

And so that was something that Orwell was also positioning himself against.

And I love this line about the robbers and the robbed, as opposed to capitalist and proletarian.

I think Bernie Sanders would agree with this.

Bernie Sanders, when have you ever heard him talk about capitalism?

You could probably find, I mean, I'm sure you can find, I'm sure he's, you know, he's mentioned it. You can find clips of him talking about it. It's not something he talks

about in his stump speeches, just as he's never talked about neoliberalism. Instead,

he's going to the Walmart shareholders meeting, and he's aligning himself with the workers.

And he's talking about these people who are doing the work and they're producing the wealth that makes this company function and who are being completely screwed over by their managers and their bosses for the

profit of a small few owners and shareholders. I think Orwell's politics, you know, really need to be

seen in the same light. That is something that really defines his socialism. And I think where

I disagree with it is, is I think you can go too far with that

sentiment. And in trying to align yourself with the common person, you can assume that the common

person is perhaps more reactionary inherently than they necessarily are. That's why I don't think,

you know, for example, Kier Starmor's idea of, you know, sort of a faith and flag labor party is,

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