A good article, but I am a little surprised that no mention of the telescreeen can be found.

Orwell's dystopian vision was predicated not only on manufactured history, supression of truth,. and wilful ignorance of fact, but on unceasing surveillance.  We don't have telescreens, true enough, but as I type this I am aware that it is child's play to obtain reams of my personal information simply by dint of my internet connection.  When this is coupled with a largely cashless society, privacy is more or less a thing of the past.  And Orwell would have been horrified to know that there is one closed circuit TV camera for every 32 Britons.

A final thought....Orwell's book is a warning about totalitarianism, not socialism.  Orwell himself, despite having fought fascists in Spain and writing both Animal Farm and 1984, was more or less apolitical.  He despised limitations on personal freedom and hypocrisy.....but was neither a socialist nor a fascist.