Notice the Windmill

It is probably time for us to all revisit junior high and break out a copy of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.  I couldn’t help but think of the basic outline of the Animal Farm plot the more that I learn the details of what Obama is doing to the auto industry in America.  The forced exit of Rick Wagoner from GM echoes the animals running Farmer Jones off of Manor Farm.  This week we find that as part of the Chrysler restructuring, UAW is going to own 55% of Chrysler.  Indeed, the pigs are taking over the farm.

On another note, one familiar with the plot of Animal Farm knows that the animals rally around the Utopian project of creating a windmill that will generate electricity.  The windmill is an interesting symbol to analyze.  It is a symbol of industry.  It is a symbol of capital.  Above all, it produces power out of thin air.  In theory this ancient form of alternative energy should produce perpetual energy and therefore perpetual wealth.

Like all Utopian projects, the windmill ends up being a dismal failure for the animals.  They can’t construct one that doesn’t collapse.  Of course this is because labor without capital is pretty much worthless.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the pigs in the UAW will team up with the pigs in washington to embark on building a 21st century windmill: an automobile that doesn’t burn fossil fuels.  We also shouldn’t be surprised when this project, which makes no sense from the perspective of capital, turns out to be an abysmal failure.  

This quote from the sparknotes analysis, is a good one to end with: “ForAnimal Farm serves not so much to condemn tyranny or despotism as to indict the horrifying hypocrisy of tyrannies that base themselves on, and owe their initial power to, ideologies of liberation and equality.”

Also, as we watch Obama corp. divy up the car companies, we can also remember the quote from Animal Farm, “Some animals are more equal than others.”