In describing the modern, postwar world, Huxley acknowledges the prophetic power of George Orwell's 1984. In communist nations, Huxley points out, leaders used to control individuals with punishment, just as the representatives of Big Brother frighten and at times torture citizens into submission in Orwell's novel. But in the Soviet Union at least, the death of Stalin brought an end to the "old-fashioned" form of universal tyranny. By the late 1950s, in the Soviet bloc, governments attempted to control high-ranking individuals with rewards — just as in Brave New World. Meanwhile, the government continued to enforce conformity on the masses by fear of punishment. Communist totalitarianism, therefore, combined the Brave New World and 1984 styles of oppression. Both novels proved sadly prophetic.
Still, Huxley argues, the future will look more like Brave New World than 1984. In the West, pleasure and distraction, used by those in power, control people's spending, political loyalties, and even their thoughts. Control through reward poses a greater threat to human freedom because, unlike punishment, it can be introduced unconsciously and continued indefinitely, with the approval and support of the people being controlled.
In place of the Nine Years' War — the calamity that brought the society of Brave New World into being — Huxley points to the danger of overpopulation as the trigger for tyranny. Just as the fictional war brought the call for a totalitarian World State, the chaos caused by overpopulation may be demanding control through over organization. Instead of many little businesses producing necessities, an over-organized society allows big business to mass-produce anything and everything saleable, while controlling consumer spending through commercials and social pressure. The resulting programmed consumption — "Ending is better than mending" — of Brave New World had already begun to take over the post-war world, at least in the West.
