p.71
They were born...grew up...went to work...passed through a brief blossoming period of beauty and sexual desire, they married...they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty.
Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and, above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult...
...It was not desirable that (they) should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations.
And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice...(the) police interfered with them very little. There was a vast amount of criminality in (the city), a whole world-within-a-world of thieves, bandits, prostitutes, drug peddlers, and racketeers of every description.
Seem strangely familiar?
How about a glimpse into the future?
Coming soon~ jus primae noctis , a law by which every boss has the right to sleep with any woman working in one of his companies.
...and the reading continues...