It's 1984 in the Third Age

[Wayland]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

How does The Shire begin to fall? With the hand of 'venture capitalism', as exercised by Lotho's family, buying up supplies and property to artificially inflate demand and thus prices - it's a common business practice, legal but greedy. You can see a similar thing today when people started buying up property in order to sell at a later date for profit - the result is that they have lots of money and capital but a lot of other people are now priced out of the housing market.

The Shire became destabilised by the Sackville-Bagginses efforts (as it would in the real world which is why we have anti-monopoly regulations) and of course his not-so benevolent 'business partner' Saruman steps in.

Hi Lalwendë,
What a good thread. A similar thought came to my mind as I read the Lotr.

The humble Hobbits, I mused, may be non other than the good-hearted yeomanry of the English Shires, forced by brute economics from their land and into the dark mills and squalid housing of the Industrial Revolution.

Our little fellowship, in their journey, took a road back through time and encountered the twin streams of their powerful ancestry - the vital, warrior-like Riders of Rohan (Anglo-Saxons) and the mighty heirs of Numenor (Classical Civilisation and the knowledge it brought from across the sea).

They grew as individuals and returned to liberate the Shire from the nightmare which had enveloped it.

Perhaps what Tolkein would have liked to have seen?

Then again, I may be reading too much into it.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Wayland

Hi Lalwendë,
What a good thread. A similar thought came to my mind as I read the Lotr.

The humble Hobbits, I mused, may be non other than the good-hearted yeomanry of the English Shires, forced by brute economics from their land and into the dark mills and squalid housing of the Industrial Revolution.

Our little fellowship, in their journey, took a road back through time and encountered the twin streams of their powerful ancestry - the vital, warrior-like Riders of Rohan (Anglo-Saxons) and the mighty heirs of Numenor (Classical Civilisation and the knowledge it brought from across the sea).

They grew as individuals and returned to liberate the Shire from the nightmare which had enveloped it.

Perhaps what Tolkein would have liked to have seen?

Then again, I may be reading too much into it.

That's a really good way of looking at it. I suppose in this thread we are drawing comparisons with the 'political' machine - but the best of all comparisons with regard to what happened in The Shire is simply the impact of the Industrial Revolution. In the name of profit machinery came and not only bespoiled the landscape but took people away from the land, from their localities (and hence from their histories and culture) and made them mere servants to these machines. That was also the change that Morris and his contemporaries disliked - Socialists funnily enough!

And I do like the idea that the Hobbits travelled back into the heart of their ancestry as this is the sense that I get from LotR, that I'm somehow 'seeing' the past. I remember reading the book for the first time and having a vague sense that the Rohirrim were a bit like the Saxons and Norse, the Elves like the Celts, and so on. Of course reading LotR stirred up a lot of change in my outlook - including a never ending thirst for our history, a need to work out the mysteries of our past, and a wish to prevent Sarumans from spoiling what was left. I wonder if Tolkien intended his work to be seen like that - as a journey 'back'? It might make sense of his whole idea of 'creating a mythology he could dedicate to England'.

[alatar]

Excellent posts, Lalwendë. You presented some British history alongside personal observations - all with Tolkien references. Pick out a shiny medal from those that you were prepared to distribute and pin it on.

My father lived through what we call here the Great Depression. That colored how he lived the rest of his life. My parents/in-laws were, by American standards, poor folk, and hearing stories about their lives have made some impression - learning that my step-father's toys would disappear a few weeks before Christmas to reappear newly painted under the tree, and that my father-in-law got shoes once a year, to wear on Easter Sunday then not again until the winter - and (hopefully) makes me realize how good life is.

I personally remember the Nixon price- and wage-fixing, and the gasoline shortages caused by Carter. Not sure if it were Reagan, my parents, reading 1984 or some other influence, but I'm big on the invisible hand as described by Adam Smith. We the people will figure it out, given the freedom to act (or not).

Lotho, at first, may just have wanted to increase his wealth, but mammon took over his head, and he begun lording himself around. To me this then is about wanting/having power, and as you say, not about socialism. He may have began treating other hobbits as things, replaceable cogs in the machine, as eventually he was replaced. (Interestingly, the Chief, like Big Brother, becomes a name and not a physical person as actions are done in the name of, but not exactly by, the person).

Saruman, obviously, wanted to acquire the Ring that he might order Middle Earth as he saw fit. Power he wanted. Depravity and deficiency he created because he cared not for the means, but only the end.

The Party, in 1984, obviously acquired and kept power to ensure its perpetual existence. The shortages weren't the result of socialism ("IngSoc") but were by design. By keeping the Low in a state of 'bare survival' (typically below), the riches for the Party and Inner Party members were easily produced as it didn't take much to seem to be beyond the 'poor.' Plus, with everyone scraping for survival, time for thinking and plotting were kept to a minimum.