Friday 26 November, 2010
5:00pm
Beveridge Hall, Senate House
Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London
WC1E 7HX
Fee: Free
Watch video
Speaker
- Ferdinand Mount (author, novelist, former head of the policy unit at 10 Downing Street and former judge of the Orwell Prize)
Details
Orwell and the Oligarchs: Back in 1946 George Orwell wrote that the general drift was towards oligarchy. We like to think that, on the contrary, modern society has been stumbling in the general direction of democracy and the wider spread of ownership, control and income. Recent events suggest that Orwell had a point and that power and reward these days are more not less concentrated in the hands of the few, not the many. We have, it seems, bred our own oligarchs. What’s the remedy?
Links
- George Orwell: Second Thoughts on James Burnham
- Anna Chen: Ferdinand Mount’s ‘Orwell on the Oligarchs’ lecture – how George would have loved the Tory cuts
- Orwell Lecture 2009: Hilary Mantel
- Orwell Lecture 2008: Andrew O’Hagan
- Orwell Lecture 2007: Michael Rosen
- George Orwell Memorial Lecture at Birkbeck College
Video
