Maybe it’s a generational thing, but when I read Orwell in high school (in Minnesota) in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, it was definitely not taught the way it’s described here.
Oh, it was definitely taught as more of a commentary on Communism than on Capitalism, but only to the extent that power corrupts, regardless of ideology. The pigs and the farmer were both equally bad! And if you read the end of the book, which I have semi-memorized, that’s obvious: “The animals outside looked from man to pig, pig to man, and man to pig again, but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
