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Ministry of Plenty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ministry of Plenty (in Newspeak, Miniplenty) is one of the ministries from George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four that governs Oceania. The other ministries are the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace and the Ministry of Love.
The Ministry of Plenty is in charge of Oceania's economy. It oversees public access to food, supplies, and goods. It is also in charge of rationing these goods. As told in Goldstein's book, the economy of Oceania is very important, and it's necessary to have the public continually create useless and synthetic supplies or weapons for use in the war, while they have no access to the means of production. This is the central theme of Oceania's idea that a poor, weak populace is easier to rule over than a wealthy, powerful populace. Telescreens often make reports on how Big Brother has been able to increase economic productivity, even when productivity has actually gone down (see Ministry of Truth).
The Ministry hands out statistics which are "nonsense." When Winston is adjusting some Ministry of Plenty's figures, he explains this:
| “ | But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connection that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in the rectified version. A great deal of time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at a hundred and forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston however, in re-writing the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow the usual claim that the quota had been over-fulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no more the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than a hundred and forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many boots had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain. | ” |
This system of ludicrous quotas and falsified results is a reference to the quotas of the planned economy of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Like the other ministries, the Ministry of Plenty does the opposite of its name, since it is in charge of maintaining poverty and financial shortages.
| Characters | Winston Smith | Julia | O'Brien | Big Brother | Emmanuel Goldstein |
|---|---|
| Places | Oceania | Eastasia | Eurasia | Airstrip One | Room 101 |
| Classes | Inner Party | Outer Party | Proles |
| Ministries | Ministry of Love | Ministry of Peace | Ministry of Plenty | Ministry of Truth |
| Concepts | Ingsoc | Newspeak (wordlist) | Doublethink | Goodthink | Crimestop Two plus two make five | Thoughtcrime | Prolefeed | Prolesec |
| Miscellaneous | Thought Police | Telescreen | Memory hole | Goldstein's book Two Minutes Hate | Hate week |
| Adaptations | 1956 film | 1984 film | 1953 US TV | 1954 BBC programme | Opera |
| Influence | Nineteen Eighty-Four in popular media Parody: Me and the Big Guy |