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Worldbuilding

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    $\begingroup$ Are you sure that sufficient food and literacy are necessary? If most of the population is illiterate, secret communication is just that much harder. The ability of a small number of elites to read mean they can control those who can't (For example, see Animal Farm, which was also written by Orwell). As for food, in modern dystopias and in books like 1984, much of the population is starving. Is sufficient food needed just to begin taking over ("If you're starving, join our country, we have food", and then you take over and slowly lower food rations), or do you always need sufficient food? $\endgroup$
    – John Locke
    Commented Sep 19, 2018 at 18:23
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    $\begingroup$ Starvation is common throughout most rebellions in history, 'sufficient' food is relative. 'Let them eat cake!' The average caloric intake for people in much older versions of society would be around 1000 calories, whereas by today's standard a man of average height should have an intake of 2000 to maintain current weight. So long as food is always reliably available there should be a lower chance of rebellion. It is also true that having literacy comes with risk of subversion, I maintain that it is a unavoidable flaw for social control output scaling up. $\endgroup$
    – J T
    Commented Sep 20, 2018 at 6:49
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    $\begingroup$ Why do you think that population-wide literature is necessary for controlling a population in the first place? $\endgroup$
    – John Locke
    Commented Sep 20, 2018 at 11:50
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    $\begingroup$ @DaBaum "Monitoring someone's every move... would be a herculean task." You seem to have grasped this better than all of the other answers. "Big Brother" isn't limited by technology or social status, but by the sheer magnitude of man-hours it takes to sift through all of the data generated by an entire population's daily lives! I mean, Winston in the book was caught because he was extremely careless, not because Big Brother kept particularly good tabs on him. $\endgroup$
    – Michael W.
    Commented Sep 20, 2018 at 15:57
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    $\begingroup$ Ok, so each person being able to read means they will see the laws, not hear them from word of mouth, which could mix them up. Is that what you're saying? $\endgroup$
    – John Locke
    Commented Sep 21, 2018 at 10:35