I liked a lot about this story, but exactly one thing irritated me: the ending.
I get it. Peace and love and (magical) sympathy are great... but I think we've got to earn that happy cheerful conclusion. You can't have peace until you have justice. And more importantly, the world is the way it is because there are people who like it that way. Even during the Industrial Revolution, there was enough wealth and technology around to improve everyone's lives, but the people who were on top of the heap decided that they could live even better if they forced someone else to live poorly. Those people are doing it on purpose. They have decided that their welfare is more important than anyone else's.
What I liked about this story was that it elaborated on and illustrated this concept. The gears of the empire are lubricated with blood. The common people suffer and die for the wealth of the elite, and concepts like "patriotism" and fear of starvation are used to control them. Making this fact literal via squalor-magic was brilliant.
What bothered me is that, in the end, I think that Anna is wrong and Nellie Lud is right. The fat cats crouched on top of the heap of weeping, starving humanity aren't going to step down if we ask them nicely enough. They clawed their way to the top and have been feeding themselves justifications for centuries. You think it's just that they don't know how awful it is for everyone else? Of course not. They know. They've just built elaborate lies to convince themselves that it's okay, or else they are some of the few genuine sociopaths who don't care. And the sad fact is that these snakes (first they're cats, now they're snakes - what's my problem?) have been manipulating people for so long that a lot of ordinary folks are going to fight to defend their right to be exploited, and they might get hurt in the struggle to take our world back.
So I don't think Anna is going to win by trading on her Sympathy and her love. I think she's going to be crushed. Either someone is going to just up and murder her, or enough of her followers are going to get sick and tired of their blood in the streets until someone less scrupulous or less talented takes the movement from her.
Anna is ultimately what the world needs, because once we've found a way to equalize power, we are going to need to be reconciled to living with each other, but you can't negotiate with the powerful from a position of weakness. You need to seize some power for yourself, first. Anna would succeed if she'd come after Nellie, but she'll fail if she comes before Nellie.
And before anyone tries to point out supposed real-life counter-examples, I want to make it clear that I am not necessarily talking about violence. It's possible to lead a non-violent movement that is incredibly aggressive. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. probably cost the states he protested in hundreds of thousands of dollars through boycotts, disrupting daily business, and bad reputation. That's a kind of aggression, even if it isn't violent. People - even the people he was trying to help - suffered.
But I don't get the impression that Anna understands this.
So, it was a very well written story that I really enjoyed... right up until the kind of milquetoast ending. You can't skip the intermediary steps just because they're unpleasant. You can't have peace until after you have justice.