After studying family budgets presented in the early chapters of the text, it becomes evident that an employed man, after paying rent, would have about as much income as an unemployed man, after paying controlled rent. There would thus seem to be little incentive to work. If you were in a similar social situation, would you actively seek work or simply live on the dole? Why?

Orwell summarizes middle-class distaste for the working-class by noting that the lower classes smell (refer to Chapter 8). In the foreword, Gollancz appears to take this statement at face value, arguing that smell is an irrational justification of class-hatred. Do you think that Orwell refers to smell in the restrictive, literal sense? Or is he using it in a broader sense to encapsulate a host of cultural differences between the classes?

Orwell characterizes the Socialist movement as composed largely...