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Mihir Tak
Dr. Rogers
English 106
April 22, 2013
A Critique of Statism in Huxleys Brave New World
Give me liberty or give me death- Patrick Henry
Aldous Huxley presents a dystopian world in which an all- powerful state controls the
behavior and actions of its people to preserve its own stability and power. The World State has
rigid control over reproduction, technology, economic welfare, and social hierarchy, all
characteristics of statism. According to Jonah Levy, author of The State After Statism: New State
Activities in the Age of Liberalization, statism is defined as a political system in which the state
has substantial centralized control over social and economic affairs (1). Unchecked statism leads
to the mechanization and the death of liberty, as well as the exploitation of the poor.
The main tools the World State uses to oppress its people are a stratified social hierarchy
and technology. There are five castes named after the first five letters of the Greek alphabet:
Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Each has their own role in society, but Alphas and
Betas are the top tier, controlling the government and the scientific field. All the castes are kept
under control by pre-birth conditioning and genetic engineering. The World State rewards the
Alphas, Betas, and most Gammas with apartments, cars, clothes, and unlimited sex when they
reach adulthood. If anyone rebels, they are taken away and re-educated. The government also
has absolute control over reproduction through technological and medical intervention, including
the surgical removal of ovaries, the Bokanovsky process, and hypnopaedic conditioning. Even

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though people are free to act as they please, they are confined within social parameters. This
allows the state to have supreme power, a fundamental characteristic of statism.
The debate over whether power should rest with the government or with the people has
been raging for the past two centuries. It was the basis of the Cold War, and the battle between
democracy and communism. Emma Goldman, an anarchist from the Russian Revolution,
believes that statism is responsible for the destruction of liberty:
Strange to say, there are people who extol this deadening method of centralized
production as the proudest achievement of our age. They fail utterly to realize that if we
are to continue in machine subserviency, our slavery is more complete than was our
bondage to the king (40).
The centralization of power in the hands of a government not only signals the end of liberty, but
also of health and beauty, of art and science, because all of them are impossible in a clocklike,
mechanical atmosphere. In Brave New World, the government restricts what people can do
before they are born. Alphas and Betas are freer to pursue their passions than the other castes
that are left to take menial jobs.
Statism creates hierarchical societies like the one depicted in Brave New World, which
devours nature like an untreated disease. According to Murray Bookchin, President of Goddard
College, a capitalistic society based on competition and growth for its own sake must ultimately
devour the natural world, just like an untreated cancer must ultimately devour its host (15). An
economy that is structured around the maxim, Grow or Die, must necessarily pit itself against
the natural world and leave ecological ruin in its wake. This type of government-based society
exploits and degrades the poor. The people who long for the triumph of justice are soon forced
to recognize that the realization of their generous and humanitarian ideas cannot take place in a

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socially stratified society. In 1880, Peter Kropotkin, the editor of Le Revolt, wrote a thoughtprovoking article in support of the French Revolution that discusses the chaos statism would
cause:
In periods of frenzied haste towards wealth, it becomes evident that the economic
institutions, which control production and exchange, are far from giving to society the
prosperity, which they are supposed to guarantee (3).
In reality, prosperity is replaced with poverty and insecurity and a perpetual war of the exploiter
against the worker. His argument was proven to be true when the French Revolution broke out
into sheer madness, and millions of people lost their lives.
Although it could be argued that governments try to protect their citizens, the reality is
that they are inherently destructive and cause crime. Goldman explains how the State fails to
prioritize the interests of its people:
Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written
law, stealing in the form of taxes, and killing in the form of war and capital punishment,
it has come to a standstill in coping with crime (41).
The State has failed to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation. The
United States of America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, infringes on countless
peoples rights every day, simply to promote its agenda. The government tries to curb
lawlessness and prevent atrocities like murder from happening, but the state is equally
responsible for putting people to death and killing thousands of civilians abroad each year. The
key distinction between individuals and the State is that the State has never had, and never can
have, a morality. It is the complete opposite of humanity in that it opposes human freedom and
justice, as well as causes the forcible disruption of the common solidarity of mankind.

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On the other hand, putting technology in the hands of the State poses a great threat to the
people of the world. This is evident in Brave New World, where breakthroughs in embryology
have rendered motherhood meaningless. Since the State can make medical decisions on behalf
of its people, it has absolute control, and eliminates reproductive autonomy. The real world has
seen its fair share of atrocities caused by technological advancements. World Wars I and II were
directly triggered by advanced weaponry and machinery, and millions of people died. The
ability for governments to decide what technology can be used is extremely dangerous. If the
government doesnt want research to be conducted on embryonic stem cells, then the people
have to oblige, even if it hinders medical research. Joseph Kockelmans, philosopher at Penn
State University, explains how we have lost control over our science and technology:
Scientists have the ability to synthesize, split, and change living substances at will. We
all admire these daring research projects without; however, thinking about it. The world
is becoming more scientific, but we are not prepared for this change. No individual is
capable of controlling the atomic age (253).
Huxley shows that people essentially become pawns of the State when they lack free will and
have no control over technology.
The most logical alternative to statism is a State that has limited control over social and
economic issues. Freedom is the only condition under which the intelligence, the manliness, and
the happiness of the people, can develop and expand. The World State in Brave New World has
absolute authority and controls individuals from the cradle to the grave. This kind of police State
in the long run is destined to fail because historically the poor always revolt against the ruling
class. Statism pits the goals of the State against the goals of the people, making it a flawed

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political system. Essentially, statism creates a social hierarchy that restricts autonomy and
exploits the poor, and for this reason must be rejected.

Works Cited
Berneri, Camillo. Peter Kropotkin: His Federalist Ideas. London: Freedom, 1943. 3. Print.
Bookchin, Murray. Remaking Society. Montral: Black Rose, 1990. 15. Print.
Goldman, Emma, and Richard Drinnon. Anarchism, and Other Essays. New York: Dover
Publications, 1969. 40-41. Print.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Publishing, 2006. Print.
Kockelmans, Joseph J. Philosophy of Science; the Historical Background,. New York: Free,
1968. 253. Print.
Levy, Jonah D. "Introduction." The State after Statism: New State Activities in the Age of
Liberalization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2006. 1. Print.