Coal Miners, Class Differences, and the Unpopularity of Isms: A Review Essay on George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier.

• Author: Schansberg, D. Eric
• Position: Critical essay

Last year was the eightieth anniversary of George Orwell's book The Road to Wigan Pier--a fascinating narrative of difficult working-class lives in the England of the 1930s, with applications to contemporary society and politics. In The Road to Wigan Pier, the well-known author of Animal Farm and 1984 has useful insights for Trump voters, anti-Trump voters, progressives, libertarians, and those who hope to better understand these groups.

Orwell divides his book into two halves. The first half is a riveting documentary on the immense challenges for those who worked in difficult occupations on the lower end of the economic spectrum. In particular, Orwell describes coal miners and the remarkably onerous conditions in which they worked. He "gives a first-hand account of the life of the working class population of Wigan and elsewhere.... It is a terrible record of evil conditions, foul housing, wretched pay, hopeless unemployment, and the villainies of the Means Test [England's welfare programs]" (Gallancz [1937] 1958, xi). (1)

The second half describes Orwell's admiration for socialism as well as his sense of the public's indifference toward socialism and its frequent disdain for socialists. Orwell was a committed socialist and an avid opponent of totalitarianism. (2) "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936," he once explained, "has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism as I understand it" (1963, 142). (3)

Orwell understood some of the tension between the two. Jennifer Roback observes that Orwell "believed that socialism led to totalitarianism; indeed that is the chief message of [1984], But he also believed that capitalism led to breadlines and poverty [and] strong tendencies toward monopoly and increased concentration" (1985,127). (4) Michael Makovi depicts Orwell as a "Public Choice socialist" and describes Animal Farm and 1984 as "Public-Choice style investigations into which political systems furnished suitable incentive structures to prevent the abuse of power" (2015, 183). (5)

Yet it is interesting to note that Orwell, despite his ideological passion for socialism, "looks at Socialists as a whole and finds them (with a few exceptions) a stupid, offensive, and insincere lot" (Gallancz [1937] 1958, xiv). (6) His writing is so pointed that the Left Book Club, which commissioned Wig an Pier, expressed disappointment with his effort and felt a strong need to clarify the book to its members. The editors noted that the decision to publish the book should not be mistaken for full agreement with his conclusions (Gallancz [1937] 1958, ix)--a point on which publisher Victor Gallancz, writing for the editors, elaborated for a full page (x).

Gallancz said that he had more than one hundred minor critiques of the book ([1937] 1958, xii). But he deeply appreciated Orwell's narrative and respected his "highly provocative" argument. Gallancz wrote that it had been "a long time since I have read so living a book, or one so full of a burning indignation against poverty and oppression" (xi). The editors loved the first half of the book and were willing to tolerate the critiques, polemic, and bomb throwing in the second half. Or perhaps they quietly respected the second half of the book--for its efforts to make socialism more palatable to the masses. In any case, we can be thankful that they saw fit to publish Orwell's work.

It's important to note the context of the book. It was published as England was continuing to limp along after its Great Slump (its version of America's Great Depression). England did not endure as many policy errors as America under Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal, so the times in England were not as bleak as they were in America. (For example, in the sixth year of FDR's policies, the official unemployment rate was still 19 percent. (7)) But England's recovery was still tepid, and times were tough.

Also, socialism was still ascendant as an ideology--and, to many, as an economic system. Gallancz pointed to the then apparent "successes" of the Soviet Union's economy with its "five-year plans" ([1937] 1958, xviii). With the "fall of communism," this optimism is difficult to imagine now. But even into the 1980s, there were those (including some who wrote economics textbooks) who imagined that the Soviet Union had a better economy than America.

One final observation before I dig into the substance of what Orwell wrote. He was good with a phrase and colorful in his descriptions, making the book a pleasure to read, even when one questions what he has written. For example, on the stench of one town, he said: "If at rare moments you stop smelling sulphur, it is because you have begun smelling gas" (Orwell [1937] 1958,106). (8) According to chapter l's description of the boarding-house where he stayed, "the dust was so thick that it was like fur" (5); "in the morning, the room stank like a ferret's cage" (6); and the owner climbed "the stairs, carrying a full chamber-pot which he gripped with his thumb well over the rim" (12).

Orwell's Observations on "the Working Class"

In chapters 2 and 3, Orwell turns from his lodging to the coal miners. He notes the vital importance of coal (or, by extension, energy) in his time: "In the metabolism of the Orwell's description of work in the coal mines is sobering. We might have the impression that the scene is a "peaceful" and bucolic one--that is, if we visit when the mine is not in operation (21). And, really, few people want to think about such unpleasantries: "Probably a majority of people would even prefer not to hear about it [coal]. Yet it is the absolutely necessary counterpart of our world above ... [not just] black stuff that arrives mysteriously from nowhere in particular, like manna except that you have to pay for it" (33-34).

The reality of the work is brutal. Orwell feels "a pang of envy for [the coal miners'] toughness ... an almost superhuman job by the standards of an ordinary person shifting monstrous quantities of coal" while kneeling (22). There are "[t]he heat ... the coal dust ... the unending rattle of the conveyor belt" (23), the elevator "cage" to get "400 yards under ground" (24). And then there are the "immense horizontal distances" (25), where one "walks stooping" to get there (26)--"travelling" that is not compensated (29).

When the miners come up from the pit, their faces are "so pale ... due to the foul air," even though it "will wear off presently" (36). Orwell is fascinated by the blue scars on their faces: "The coal dust ... enters every cut ... forms a blue stain like tattooing, which in fact it is. Some of the older men have their foreheads veined like Roquefort cheese from this cause" (36). Without full "pithead" baths, they could not possibly get clean. He estimates that these baths are available to only one-third of the miners. "Probably a large majority of miners are completely black from the waist down for at least six days a week. It is almost impossible for them to wash all over in their own homes" (37).

In chapter 4, Orwell turns to housing. It is "by any ordinary standard not fit for human habitation" (51). And yet "there are no others to be had ... [because of a] housing shortage" (52). Of course, based on what we know from Econ 101, this doesn't make any sense, unless there is profound monopoly power (of the sort that could be found only through government power) or government price controls. But Orwell doesn't provide any evidence of government intervention. Instead, the more likely explanation is that the housing was lousy but what consumers could afford.

From there, Orwell expresses ambivalence about "Corporation" (government-run) housing--what we would call "public housing." (9) Corporation houses are "better than the slums they replace ... [the] condemned house[s]," but more expensive--ten shillings rather than the six to seven shillings of the former rent (68).

In chapter 5, Orwell turns his sights on "the Means test"--what we would call "welfare programs" for the poor. In this analysis, Orwell is a prophet ahead of his time--at least by American standards. He is disturbed by the system's cold calculations and bureaucracy. The American Left was not bothered by...