Why does Orwell think that language has degenerated so much?

George Orwell, in his 1946 essay, "Politics and the
English Language," says that

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it is clear that the decline of a language must
ultimately have political and economic
causes:

Among the problems of
modern English are:

1. The first is staleness of
   imagery ("Dying metaphors.")


2. the
   other is lack of precision ("Pretentious diction." and
   problems picking out appropriate verbs and
   nouns

What causes these two problems?  From the
book 1984, I would
suggest:

• censorship: by the state, church, or
  other institution


• overuse of technical jargon and
  nomenclature


• overuse of politically correct language
  (euphemism and litote)


• general laziness in thought:
  thought corrupts language and language corrupts
  thought.


• too much information, so the public cannot
  recognize misinformation and propaganda from good
  information


• fear of surveillance, profiling, and
  violation of freedoms of speech by the
  government


• technology and entertainment replacing
  books

Orwell's advice to correcting these
problems:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure
of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never
us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is
possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never
use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use
a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday
English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner
than say anything outright barbarous.