Aldous Huxley was right, not George Orwell
I would propose that there currently exist a third reality: a combination of the two scenarios described in the comics.  An authoritarian state which restricts materials that are hazardous to the state's health, but also encourages huge debt taking/mindless consumption that zombifies the majority of the population.<p>Case in point: US.  It restricts information that would undermine its authority as the world's dominant power, such as BP spill, bankruptcy of its banks/cities/states, ineffectiveness at resolution in afghanistan, etc. The government offers discounts/low rates for large home mortgages, expensive cars, and big student loans that would shackle the majority of the population in debt chains.  It also condones mindless consumption such as reality TV, sports, celebrity news, and facebook games by not taxing them as addictive hazards.<p>Case in point: China.  It restricts, well, pretty much anything it doesn't want the people to know with the great internet firewall and state news programs.  It also encourages huge risk taking in mortgages, which recently has seen home prices go up to 30X average income.  It encourages its citizens to forget about the abysmal living condition by allowing internet game cafes to spread like wildfire and trapping the players in pointless alternative realities.  So they don't realize they are doing slave labor at $1/day to make ipads.<p>I further propose that this will continue as long as these governments worldwide can keep feeding its citizens at a minimum (food stamps, unemployment benefits, carb/sugar loaded cheap food), while offering cheap, mind-numbing entertainments to keep people at home, so they don't go out and riot on the streets.  They can then keep on taxing/raising the retirement age on the productive workers<p>Until oil is at $150/middle class is wiped out/Iran is attacked/North Korea attacks/US defaults on SS and medicare/Japan defaults on its bonds/food prices double/Israel is attacked/automation renders most of population useless, anyways.