Patrick Peterson's Reviews > Animal Farm

2024-07-08 I read this book (though not this edition) my Freshman year in High School and got quite a bit out of it, to the disbelief of my English teacher. She had little appreciation for how much I loved history, freedom and the issues involved in creating/maintaining a government that does not take "too much" of our freedom away.

I reread the book at least once, but probably 2-3x over the next 55 years, and have gotten more out of it, but also understood it's mixed messages better too.
The book is a good in warning about the problems of the communist (&/or Marxist) ideology, without labelling it as such, but the ideas/beliefs/"principles" are all there.

However, the book is not good at explaining how capitalism, free markets and private property can and do work. It leaves the reader with a very confused anti-capitalist/anti-communist mix of ideas, without putting forth the benefits of a coherent system at all. That is why I give the book only 4 stars and am tempted to move it to only 3 stars.

For a comparable size but better fiction book on the subject, I highly recommend "Anthem" by Ayn Rand. It does not use animals, but rather just describes a future sad statist state of affairs for mankind, and then its ideal alternative. It was written about seven years before Animal Farm.

For an even better book on the topic, but which has many good non-fiction essays in it, not one novella length story, see "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" by Ayn Rand and others.

For more on the details about Orwell's good and bad points, from a big Orwell fan, I highly recommend the bio: "Orwell Your Orwell" by David Ramsay Steele!