Marxism In Brave New World

The novella, “Brave New World,” by Aldous Huxley, introduces a futuristic world in which there are different social classes in order to keep a happy society and taught nothing else other than what the people of the world need to know. The world is meant to keep people all over happy and create no issues. The author throughout the book connects this with Marxist theory. This can be shown through the different social classes that there are in the book. There are significant differences between the classes throughout including, the condemnation of social classes, the different ends of the spectrum each class is on, and the idea that society is more important than the individuals within it.
Aldous Huxley creates a society where humans are made
to have specific qualities and are made to respond in a certain way to help keep the society as stable as possible. In the beginning, the director gives students a tour of where most every human is made or the ones of the World State. “One egg, one embryo, one adult - normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo and every embryo into a full sized adult”(4). Explaining this furture, humans are being made in labs in this futuristic society and the lower classes will be made individually but being on the higher end of the spectrum, the eggs will be divided into more of that type of class. Not to mention, all of these classes all serve a specific purpose towards society. The jobs that the lower classes are given, for instance, are ones that no one want to do but are the ones that need to get done. They compare work of epsilon work to certain people in society. “Six-year-old men and women were too stupid to do even Epsilon work” (14). The work for brainless people and to be compared to this low class was a downgrade to themselves. The social classes that appear throughout the story from least important but with jobs that are essential to the most high up and important classes go from Epsilon, Delta, Gamma, Beta, and Alpha. These classes all have their own specific purpose in serving in this created society.
To put into perspective, marxist theory results in only two classes on complete opposite ends of the spectrum.
In Marxist Criticism by Tony Benn, explains the two sides of classes in society and how when you’re in a higher rank of class, people will do anything to keep that sense of power. “Because those who control production have a power base, they have many ways to ensure that they will maintain their position”(82). The way that marxist theory explains how people keep this power is the way they manipulate places and people including politics, government, education, and news media. They overall take control of all related needed things to stay at the top.This follows Brave New World because proletariat and bourgeoisie are key contributors to the story and the way their society works. “‘ And that,’ put in the Director sententiously,‘that is the secret of happiness and virtue - liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny’”(15). In order to keep the power within the society, people/babies are conditioned to think the way they do so they can’t escape what they’re destined to do. Or think of their own ideas to the society stable and keep people on the higher classes in their spots. Marxist theory is compared to this way of living because of the social classes and where people end up when they are born, conditioned, and given their jobs within this futuristic society that has been made to keep people happy
throughout.
Marxism plays a big role within this book and another idea that is brought up throughout is the idea that society is more important than the individuals themselves.
Although the individuals make up the society itself, the people that have almost all the control will do anything in order to keep society stable and happy. The World State has a motto that defines the way their futuristic society is. “Community, Identity, Stability” (1). There is only one part of the motto for the entire society that they live in and it’s mostly about the society as a whole and keeping everything as stable as they possibly can. Another idea of what happens in the book about the society being more important than individuals is when the “Savage” or John, comes to the World State from the Reservation. The Reservation is the place where people either don’t fit into society go or where there is a normal life and people have mothers and fathers and are born naturally compared to being made in a lab like everyone is in the World State. In “Teaching Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World from Multiple Critical Perspectives,” by Douglas Grudzina, explains the way John can’t form into this society that he comes to no matter how hard he tries. “John’s inability to conform to the rules of society, as well as his rejection by his community of birth-the Reservation- force him to attempt to lead a new life, only to further his isolation and ultimately bring about his suicide” (par. 3). This is explained to show that
if you aren’t born the way everyone else is in the World State and coming into it from somewhere else you won’t understand how everyone lives their life. The book also explains how if you have any of your own thoughts and ideas, they will be exiled because it threatens the society they are trying to keep stable. Their society mimics Karl Marx’s ideas that they value their community far more than their own identity.
The novel Brave New World proposes many significant differences between the classes through a Marxism lense and shows the condemnation of social classes, the different ends of the spectrum each class is on, and the idea that society is more important than the individuals themselves.