In many ways, Orwell's view of the future has come true. Although we do not live in a world dominated by Communist super-powers, there are many aspects of our society that are prophesied in the book. .
Take, for example, the three land masses used in Nineteen Eighty-Four. There is Oceania, which encompasses the Americas and Great Britain, Eurasia, which is Europe and the Near East, and Eastasia, which is the rest of Asia and Australia. These enormous blocks of land could now be said to exist, if not by borders, then by economic boundaries. The North America has free trade policies, as does the European union. These make North America and Europe the most powerful economic centres on Earth. However, the emergence of the Far Eastern economies shows that the world is slowly being divided into the lines that Orwell set. .
However, the more that we grow apart, the closer that we come together. The Far East is said to be,Westernising?, in that it is taking Western (i.e. Europe and the USA) ideas about economics, and putting them into practice. The success of this can be seen by how much fluctuations in, for example, the South Korean stock exchange affect the markets in the USA and Europe. .
This global integration means that we are heading down a dangerous road. Unlike Orwell's vision of a one-party dictatorship controlling hundreds of millions, we get instead the world being controlled by the stock markets, and fluctuations in currencies. This is extremely dangerous, as it means that huge multi-national financiers, such as Soros can make or break a countries economy. An example of this is the events of black Monday, when trading led by Soros? company effectively brought about the collapse of the Pound, and heralded the start of a long recession in the UK. There is too much power being put into the hands of men such as these, and un-scrupulous they can be too. For an example of this, one only has to look to Nick Leeson single-handedly bringing down one of Great Britain's largest and most important banks in just two months.
