This is the second book I’ve read for my “month of George Orwell” and also the second non-fiction book that Orwell published. It was published in 1937 and gives an account of working class conditions in the Midlands at the time. Orwell lived in the area from January to March 1936, lodging with, visiting, and talking to various poor households. He was commissioned to write it by Victor Gollancz of the Left Book Club. The book consists of two parts; the first is a very journalistic account of his journey and the conditions and people he encounters, the second consists of a long discussion of why socialism is not as popular as he thinks it should be.

The first half starts with his description of a lodging house run by the Brooker family and the various characters who inhabit it. He describes the squalid conditions and blames these on the ignorance and narrow mindedness of the Brookers. He thinks that even with their difficult economic circumstances, their laziness and lack of care make the conditions in the house far worse than they could be. He doesn’t say where the place is, other than “the industrial north”. Orwell goes down a mine and describes the work of the miners. It sounds horrendous. Cramped tunnels deep underground, full of dust and dangerous gas. Hard physical labour for seven hours a day. What a life! He goes on to describe the awful housing conditions of the working class in northern cities, describing a succession of awful hovels he visited. Tiny rooms, crammed with beds. Everywhere overcrowded. No running water or sewage, filth everywhere.

Orwell discusses the unemployment figures of mid 30s, he suggests that they are misleading and that the true numbers affected are multiples of the headline numbers. He discusses whether the unemployment benefit and PAC (Public Assistance Committee) payments are sufficient. He also talks about the working class diet and complains that they often choose poorly: white bread, lots of sugar, condensed milk; and that this contributes to malnutrition.

Part two opens with a discussion of the British class system. Orwell famously describes himself as lower-upper-middle-class. So finely grained. I’m not sure anyone could do that today. He points out that the middle class is a cultural as well as a financial class, with a different accent, and different prejudices and beliefs. He discusses whether the working class smells bad and concludes that they do! Of course most poor houses didn’t have running water, so it was difficult to have a full-body bath, and the most that working people could manage was a weekly soak in shared water.

He asks why socialism hasn’t emerged in Britain, despite it being, in his mind, an obviously better system. He thinks its lack of appeal to the working class is its culturally middle-class proponents, the academic and inaccessible language it’s often couched in, and the eccentric crankiness of many of its adherents. He talks about his own political journey, from snobbish public schoolboy, to Imperial policeman, to an avowed enemy of oppression, both imperial and domestic. He says he tried to understand the working class by becoming a tramp, but then admits that they as little represent the working class as the literary establishment represents the middle.

There is a long polemic decrying technology and mechanisation; the “machine age” as he calls it. He thinks many socialists’ obsession with industrialisation is a reason for their unexpected (in his eyes) unpopularity. He makes several sweeping assumptions; that the profit motive and capitalism is the reason that poverty exists, and that society should make a choice to slow or stop technological progress. He thinks that culture is cheapened by industrial society and people eat less well because of it. In many ways he’s similar to J.B. Priestley in this respect, but Priestley has the humility to understand the counter argument, and makes the point that people weren’t just poor, they frequently starved to death in the pre-industrial era. Orwell is on stronger ground when he criticises socialists for decrying everything bourgeois. He thinks it’s pointless harassing people for their middle class tastes, when it’s more important to persuade them of the economic and practical benefits of socialism. Disliking them for who they are is counter productive in his opinion.

I would have liked Orwell to be more specific in what he means by “socialism” and “capitalism”; which particular characteristics he wants us to keep or abandon. He says “democratic socialism” frequently, which must imply that it’s something people would choose, but does he want a revolution? He rails against technological progress and the profit motive, so one assumes his ideal world is some kind of agrarian collectivism?

Orwell is an excellent writer. Direct and unornamented, but exceptionally good at capturing an image and an atmosphere. He makes the reader fully understand the hopelessness and squalor of working-class life during the depression, especially among the unemployed. The book, and Orwell, are often credited with winning the 1945 general election for Labour. It seems he very much succeeded in his aim of bringing the hardships of the poor to the attention of the public, so in that it must be considered a success. For me, I found the second half polemic fascinating as a critique of the comfortably off middle-class left-wing; much of it could be said of the same kinds of people a century later. He apparently upset a lot of communists and socialists with this book, but nowhere near as much as he would with Animal Farm and 1984. One thing you can be sure of with Orwell, he’ll never write what he thinks will make him popular; he just doesn’t care who he upsets. That’s what makes him such an undisputed great of the 1930s.