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and since these things were no longer private property, it
followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc, which grew out of the
earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact
carried out the main item in the Socialist programme; with the result,
foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made
permanent.
But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than
this. There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power.
Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that
the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented
Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and
willingness to govern. These causes do not operate singly, and as a rule
all four of them are present in some degree. A ruling class which could
guard against all of them would remain in power permanently. Ultimately the
determining factor is the mental attitude of the ruling class itself.
After the middle of the present century, the first danger had in
reality disappeared. Each of the three powers which now divide the world is
in fact unconquerable, and could only become conquerable through slow
demographic changes which a government with wide powers can easily avert.
The second danger, also, is only a theoretical one. The masses never revolt
of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are
oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of
comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. The
recurrent economic crises of past times