A story of draconian science government. It was published in 1932 and depicts events sixty years hence in 1990. The initial crisis is over food. This makes sense because what to eat is always an emotional issue. Wright tries to make it silly by having it over growing illegal vegetables. But its believable because food is food. It is also believable that the trigger for damaging riots will be something that is normally trivial.
Ouch! Other than that, the start is not particularly strong. This council of scientists is taking over by using high tech violence. It's not clear how humanity is benefiting from their takeover, and now that the takeover is complete he describes upcoming in-fighting that will lead to more violence. What is being described seems gangsterish, just at a higher tech level.
Nice description of his experimental pig -- contrived but nicely handled. He gets in the pig's head as well as the professor's. The biggest weakness is that he's doing his research into this compound's effects without supporting infrastructure. That's hard to imagine. LoL! He does bring up the theme I brought up in Cow Human Relations, that pigs will see humans as wonderful helpers supporting their kind.
The mix of personalities rivalries and science described in mid-book doesn't work for me. Yes, this kind of rivalry is rife in academia but that's because the academic environment can sustain them -- teachers are not rulers. What is being described here is supposedly a better ruling environment, that's why these scientists won this revolution. Given that premise this kind of squabbling seems out of place. In the same vein the personalities don't seem like those of rulers who are making wise decisions for the future of mankind. Once again what is being described is more gangsterish than Founding Fathersish.
The ending is a nice twist, but contrived. All-in-all a memorable story, but one with big Technofiction holes.