Some modern autocracies don't go after enemies but more protect friends:
> The transition [in Hungary] has been nonviolent, often not even very dramatic. Opponents of the regime are not murdered or imprisoned, although many are harassed with building inspections and tax audits. […] The courts are packed, and forgiving of the regime’s allies. Friends of the government win state contracts at high prices and borrow on easy terms from the central bank. Those on the inside grow rich by favoritism; those on the outside suffer from the general deterioration of the economy. As one shrewd observer told me on a recent visit, “The benefit of controlling a modern state is less the power to persecute the innocent, more the power to protect the guilty.”
* https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-...
The way information passed through the Outer Party technicians was extremely compartmentalized. It was a command economy, did anyone actually know how things were going? The statistics were basically all lies. Eventually the gin and cigarettes would stop flowing.
So the director of the agrar kolchose might lie and so on, but why should the secret informants who are installed in that company, lie about it?
So I am pretty sure, the information was avaiable. It was probably a matter of not wanting to believe the information as that would mean, the glorious sovjet union was maybe not so glorious after all - and thinking that, would make you a traitor. So lets just continue to wave and smile.
That's one of the reason that mullification through the carrot works so well in the United States... It's a very wealthy nation with vast reserves of resources to draw upon to keep people happy.
Perhaps the thing that happens is people see it's all BS and just decide they don't need all the toys, and once they don't need the toys, they don't need to work either. Plus they'll get more critical of the system.
Please take into account that most of us humans are bound by various obligations. Be it the financial type, i.e. paying off your house for 30+ years or, even more captivating, creating substitutes for natural needs. Compare with the fact that most of us live isolated, especially in these times, without real world communication beyond chats, mail, telephone and, well, Hacker News. The lack of face to face opportunities to speak and do nonverbal communication is one of the causes for rising psychological diseases, drug abuse and antisocial behaviours in the last decade.
Our post Neolithic Revolution society is based on the concept of the ruler and the ruled. Why? Because having power is also a desire which may be the most destructive one for humanity in general.
We may be living on a punishment planet or simulation.
"Resources" exist in people's minds, not in the ground. Rocks and toxic sludge have no intrinsic value.
That wealth takes the form of things in the ground, but also influence and the capacity to satisfy the desires of other countries and the people in them. Some of that is powered by processes that use raw materials that are non-renewable and dragged from the ground, but in the United States a lot of it is based on a hugely robust import export economy... Most of the things that push the joy buttons come from China.
You could describe the dystopian part of our condition as a blend of various dystopian tropes: https://i.imgur.com/kDo2NNr.jpg
Which of these is most dominant depends on where you live.
Yes please! A Brontitallian Revolution!
All we need is a mass vision of Arthur Dent Throwing The Nutrimatic Cup.
Of course when you do go for the whip, you want to newspeak it into something else, so that also works, in small doses. Your problem occurs if it escalates, then you can't hold it down with PR anymore.
So 1984 is metastable and such societies did in fact boil over. BNW is stable and invisible to a lot of people, though I suspect there is some failure mode we have yet to see. Maybe there's a line of thought where people just get sick of every damn thing being massaged to death by PR people, and they do something about it.