Thoughts on the video, both prior to watching and as I watch:
Orwell says he wants to fight against fascism for "common decency." Oddly enough, this is exactly why most fascists fought against communism. Remember, communism was first, and fascism developed as a way to stop it, with basically the fighting fire with fire idea. The third philosophy, which was free market capitalism, was inimical to both. The Marxists of the early generations attacked capitalism, but had no theoretical framework for fascism; when fascism developed, they essentially put it into the same boat as capitalism, but it was not. First of all, capitalism depends on the free use of labor and capital. Fascism does not allow that. Fascism is almost impossible to define because it was not ever developed as an inherently comprehensive and self-coherent ideology, but merely a reaction (hence the term "reactionary") response to socialism. In Franco's state, it was essentially pure authoritarian, with a side dish of traditionalism. In the Italian and German versions, it had little actual traditionalism (despite lip service to it), but more defined socialist ideologies centered around nationalism, while rejecting the internationalism of Marx and communism, which utterly cripples industry.
It's important to keep in mind regarding the Spanish example and the participant of Orwell and a lot of other Americans, that the left in Spain called itselves "Republicanism" but they were a hodgepodge of center and left groups ultimately dominated by the far left, which did things like burn down nunneries and instituting a bizarre wage scheme in which people worked so many hours and got so many credits, which basically meant that a garbage collector who put in 5 hours of work got paid more than a scientist or university instructor who worked 4.
Orwell, with a naive sense simply embraced "socialism" which meant the entire spectrum; only after he got in and realized there were moderate socialists and radical communists, did he realize he was ideologically in over his head. But his awakening on the extreme left him shaken and led to, among other things, the writing of Animal Farm.
Now, note he points out in the documentary that people under these ideologies reject objective truth to a more subjective version, and voluntarily censoring themselves to be in line with orthodoxy. Oddly enough, this happens not only with the woke crowd (which should be obvious given their origins), but also with the Trump crowd, which suggests either a fascist tendency (plausible, but sounds too much like socialist hammers looking for nails), or that the phenomenon of self-censorship is broader, ideologically.
When he talks about people under totalitarianism breaking down the belief of absolute truth, I agree this is a requirement of totalitarianism, but here too, can exist in a pre-totalitarian context. Hence we have two political parties in America who reject "truth" for their political viewpoints: Conservatives reject evidence of global warming (regardless of whether it's man-made or not), despite it being pretty overwhelming, and democrats, while claiming the high road on this issue, bizarrely declaring absolute war on the idea of biological sex through their transgenderism quasi-religion.
The problem with Orwell's solution of socialism is that he attacks capitalism as exploitative. As if any system ever devised was not. Capitalism absolutely exploits, but in doing so, provided other safeguards are in place, it renumerates the people being exploited, which empowers them and in the end, allows them to get out of the exploitative arrangement. Once you've developed your skills at Company X, you can say "Take this job and shove it" and move to Company Y. Additioanally, the exploitation is generally a function of poverty of society in resources and technology, but capitalism, alone among the systems, rapidly improves this situation. Capitalism has its faults, but those faults are not exclusive to it: they are the faults of the human condition. Capitalism (so long as labor and markets are free), however, has an off ramp to those faults. Socialism, or any system that is planned, inherently cannot do this. You can plan how many shoes to make, but you cannot plan to innovate and make better shoes.
The problems with Democratic socialism, which the documentary defines as "using democracy to vote in a new classless society" are numeorus. A few that come to mind:
1. Classes are inherent in human society. All we can do is shuffle the decks and pick new winners and losers. Any system that tries to do this based on race, or ideas or anything else definable, will always do this, and there is no way to simply pick winners without also creating losers (without "making the pie higher" in the George W. Bushism - which only capitalism ultimately can do). Capitalism recognizens this problem, but through money, allows people to (in theory) self-select. You are not a loser because someone decided in a board room you need to be a loser. You are so because you made spit balls in class instead of studying, or whatever. So long as capitalism rewards merit not inheritance or other random factors, it is as close to an ideal system as it is possible to find.
2. Equity, or equality of outcomes, is impossible. First of all, it is inflationary. If government took all wealth of the country and gave it equally back to the citizens, then everybody would have equal buying power, which means that prices would explode. This would either impoverish those who bought, or likely, would force them to find new sources of income which would either be impossible outside of capitalism, or within capitalism, would make it even more competitive and cutthroat. Secondly, if everyone were at the same playing field, there would be obvious offenses created in doing this. Brother X is a conscientious hard worker. Brother Y is a drug addict. Brother X now can't afford to feed his family of 4 and brother Y goes on a binge. Another and very obvious problem is that, unless this new status quo is protected intact by compulsion, it will instantly revert to a merit-based, which is to say a class-based system. Brother X will work harder and get another job or do what he needs to to feed his family. Brother Y will have exhausted his funds and reverted to the bottom. You ultimately haven't changed either of their positions, but you've set Brother X back in time in recovering the stolen assets.
3. The limitations of democracy are long and obvious. For all the talk about how bad white privilege is/was in American history, it should be pointed out that the electorate was for most of that time period about 70 percent white, making "white privilege" synonymous with democracy. Simple rule by the masses imparts no moral validity to what is decided. A republic, which limits democracy and provides explicit defenses for minorities (historically seen as political or geographic, not ethnic/race-based), tempers this excess.
4. Centralized means of production again, will fail to innovate. What if, in the 1950s, this was instituted. The plastics revolution would never have happened. All of our tools, implements, furniture, etc. would still be basically metal, wood or fiber. Now, this would have stopped the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but would have derailed so many other wonderful technologies, would have made space exploration nearly impossible, would have blocked cell phones, a lot of humanitarian aid, you can imagine many other issues. So yes, capitalism created one horrible evil, but saved us from innumerable other ones. And capitalism, unlike socialism, has an inherent way of fixing its own evils. Find a way to profit off the garbage patch and it will be harvested and managed in a year.
The idea of separating socialism from communism is ultimately a false hope. At its weakest, socialism just creates a stagnant, malaise economy that just moves along slowly. And don't say Scandanavia, because outside of a few sectors, their economy is actually much more open and free than ours. And the sectors frequently resorted to in mixed socialist economies (education, postal service and health care) are generally the worst examples of efficiency and quality in said countries. To make them less so requires a massive redirection of money from other, market-driven parts of the economy, robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is why my friend from Denmark can enjoy nearly 2 months of vacation, but pays about 50 percent of his entire income in taxes and lives (despite decades of work), in a tiny hovel of an apartment that most Americans move past when they're 25.
The incomparable book, "The Road to Serfdom" by Frederick Hayek, makes this point very clearly, if in a few examples overstated. He basically says once you go down the socialist road, you will end up with compulsion, and from there authoritarianism. Now, keep in mind that most systems we've seen developed were put in place in post-Orwellian and post-Hayekian landscapes, so there are people actively seeking to avoid these pitfalls. It does not mean we won't fall into them, only that we will do at a slower speed. Universal Health care doesn't make you a Nazi tomorrow. But in 50 years, when you're bankrupt, the screws will begin to tighten, or the system will collapse.
Quote from the documentary: "Orwell believed Hitler's military success, while appropriating aspects of socialism, physically debunks capitalism."
Now, this may be the dumbest thing he ever wrote, and it's important to note that he said it in the 1941 time frame. 3 years later, it would be a stupid observation. Case in point:
The Nazis embraced the Messerschmitt 109, the Ju-97 and Heinkel He-111 aircraft, and pinned all their hopes on them. So in good planned economy style, they turned out tons of them and rapidly built up a superiority to the British. The problem is, like most controlled economies, there was little room for innovation. They basically stuck with these designs (with upgrades), throughout the war, and even when they developed jet fighters, they ran them through the same crony companies.
In America, by contrast, we had rampant competition between aircraft manufacturers. This was highly inefficient, and led to a blur of arms making companies. Boeing, North American, Martin, Lockheed, Douglass, Bell, Consolidated, Curtis-Wright, Grumman, Republic, not to mention all the parts-suppliers and non-aviation companies that broke into the business like Ford and Cadillac.
This allowed the US to soak the Nazis in materiel disadvantages, both on our front, and through lend-lease, on the Eastern Front. The Germans were still clinging to the Stuka in 1945. We had gone from the Devastator to the Dauntless to the Helldiver in that timeframe. The first two were Douglass designs, the last was Curtis. In a planned economy, the boss would have said, "No, Curtis, you stick to the C-46 we asked you to make, divebombers are Douglass' job).
The documentary then goes to claim that socialism (which is proven by the Nazis' production) is good because it has better moral aims. But despite the fact that he switched from using the Nazis to defend socialsm to using them as the counterpoint as "fascists" (not socialists) in the counterpoint argument, he could just as easily credit Germany's success in the war up to that point to being their racial purity, single-minded leadership, and inherent genius (which were what the Nazis thought were their advantages). Both arguments are simplistic (and wrong).
After the war, he recognized he was in some respects wrong, but still believes in the socialist cause. Kudos to him for recognizing his error (few humans can do this), but if you were wrong to a point, who is to say that you were not also wrong beyond that point, for the same reasons. The reality is, he adopted a dogma and could not break free of it, even as its native inconsistencies became more apparent.
At the end, the documentary does bring up Hayek and his arguments. Good for them for not sweeping that under the rug, which most socialists do. But after a quarter century of seeing "good idea fairies" destroy the world, he still clings to the idea that "it's worth taking the risk." There is a term for people who continue to see evidence and continue to ignore it: idiots.
