Brave New World - World State versus United States

            The Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, portrays a "utopian" society that differs in many ways from the current United States. Many of these differences may be viewed by us as unnecessary or undesirable. However, to these conditioned citizens of the World State who have never experienced a different type of society, the world that they lived in was considered perfect. The World State differed from the present-day United States in how they ran their economic systems, conducted their political systems, set up their social systems, and viewed religion.
             The economic system of the World State revolved around maximizing consumption of goods. As the hypnopaedic saying goes, "ending is better than mending." In order to support the largest possible economic system, which would support a very large amount of citizens in this new world, people were strongly encouraged to throw everything that they had away and buy new again. The present day economic system in the United States revolves around a responsible spending and capitalist society rather than an irresponsible and wasteful society.
             The totalitarian-like government of the World State also differed vastly from our democratic political system. There were a mere ten people, called World Controllers, in charge of the entire planet. The lower castes of people had absolutely no right to make decisions on how their government should be run. The only reason why this system of government worked in the World State and would have never worked in the United States is because all citizens of the World State were conditioned from birth to accept and obey their government. They simply knew no better.
             The social systems of the current United States and the World State differed drastically. In the United States, people can freely move from one social class to the other. However, in the World State, all citizens are predestined from before decantation as to what social class they will be in rather than being exposed to the greedy capitalistic system that puts people into social classes by natural selection.