Labor Day: Orwell and Work
“Twenty million people are underfed but literally everyone in England has access to a radio. What we have lost in food we have gained in electricity. Whole sections of the working class who have been plundered of all they really need are being compensated, in part, by cheap luxuries which mitigate the surface of life.” — George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
Today is Labor Day in the United States, a holiday celebrating workers and their contributions to society and the economy, so it seems worthwhile to take a brief look at Orwell’s most well-known piece of writing on labor, The Road to Wigan Pier (open-access copy).
