Huxley’s analysis of society and science can be traced back to one guiding principle: that power is corrupting. Huxley refers to Lord Acton, whose views on power are best known through the aphorism “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Huxley favours a society fundamentally different from the one that existed in 1946. But how should change occur, given that the overwhelming powers of violence and mass persuasion are held by what he calls the “ruling oligarchy”? Huxley believes that nonviolence is the only way forward. He sees hope in Gandhi’s methods, called satyagraha but more commonly referred to in the west today as nonviolent action, and refers to the resistance by the German people to the French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in 1923.

Huxley argues for nonviolence as the only hopeful possibility given the power that science and technology, via modern weapons, has placed in the hands of oppressors. Huxley’s support for nonviolence can be interpreted as an independent principle of action to supplement his analysis based on the corruptions of power. But support for nonviolence is a logical consequence of an overall analysis based on the idea that power is corrupting. Nonviolent action, as a method of struggle, allows widespread participation, gives any individual only limited power over others, and is most compatible with decentralised activity. Nonviolent action, then, is the method of struggle against oppression that is least subject to the corruptions of power.

With his analysis based on the corrupting influence of power, Huxley is able to make many penetrating insights. For example, he notes that oil is unevenly distributed throughout the world. Therefore, it is susceptible to monopoly control, with wars being fought to acquire and maintain this control.