E. Clothing makes less use of synthetic fabrics, since the natural equivalents are much cheaper than in our history. Draka clothing adapted early to tropical climates; it is loose, light, and nonconfining. This has had some influence on general Western styles. Trousers for women were introduced for sporting purposes in the Domination in the 1860s, and for casual wear in "daring" circles by about 1900. The U.S. followed about a generation behind, and Europe still later. Hats remain common for both sexes past the 1950's; colors are usually brighter.
F. Social intoxicants have a rather different history in the Domination's timeline. Both the United States and the Domination are exposed to cannabis on a large scale fairly early—the Draka from the North Africans and the U.S. from Mexico. Sporadic attempts at prohibition in the United States break down in the 1930's, with social acceptance (outside the Bible Belt) following during the Eurasian War. (In the process, ethnic Mexican come to dominate organized crime in most major cities, much to the discomfort of the law-abiding majority of Hispanics.) Canja is popular and legal in the Domination from the early nineteenth century; both countries launch occasional educational campaigns to prevent abuse. The first studies linking tobacco to cancer and heart disease are done in Germany in the 1930's and at first, widely discounted as Nazi propaganda. The U.S. is otherwise a spirits-and-beer country, with some wine-drinking enclaves. The Domination is a wine-and-brandy region with a minor key in (German and Scandinavian-influenced) beer.
G. Solar-power units (glass circulating-water collectors, with underground pressurized-water heat sinks) were developed for isolated plantations in the Domination in the 1860's, and spread widely in high-sunlight tropical regions. By the 1920's most ranches and farms in the American Sunbelt have one.
H. Household appliances (vacuum cleaners, etc.) are primitive, and outside the U.S. rare.
Population
World population 2,500,000,000 (approx.)
Birth Rates per thousand, 1940:
Domination: Citizen 24, serf 30 (serf death rates are also higher) Western Europe: average 17, lower in France and Scandinavia
U.S.: overall 24, Mexican states, 28, Philippines 37
South Asia: 38 China: 43 Japan: 32
In 1942, the free population of the Domination was 36,750,447, and the serf 501,792,544. Approximately 75 percent of the free and 38 percent of the serf population was urbanized. Of the serfs, 101,897,000 were owned by the Combines or the state; the remainder were in private hands. The African territories had a total population of 324,000,000 and remained the richest and most densely settled area of the Domination.
The population of the United States was 179,000,000. This included roughly 20,000,000 Hispanics and Asians (mostly Filipino) and about 11,000,000 blacks.
Race Purity Laws
Acts of 1836,1879, and 1911 forbid sexual intercourse between Citizen women and unfree males. Apart from prohibitions on rape (of free women; rape of serf women is a civil tort actionable for damages by the owner) and molestation of free children, this is the only morals legislation in the Domination, and this has been (roughly) the case since the mid-nineteenth century.
Serfdom
The institution of serfdom grew out of efforts to mobilize the labor of the native population of southern Africa, whose formal enslavement was forbidden by the British. While ordinary chattel slaves existed, prior to the British abolition of slavery throughout the Empire in 1833, they were never very common south of the Limpopo except in the Western Cape Province.
Instead, the natives were subject to a "poll tax." Since they had no access to the cash economy (and fairly soon after the conquest, no title to land) they were forced to accept employment as indentured servants, theoretically for a fixed term. However, the "wages" never equalled the charges for upkeep and the accumulated tax; hence, a servant could be legally forced to reindenture to pay off the debt. In theory only the debt and contract of indenture could be sold, but the distinction quickly became academic once the debts were made hereditary. Children of bondservants were automatically contracted to their parents' owners as they came of age.
Successive Master and Servant Acts subjected bondservants to restrictions more and more closely resembling those imposed on outright slaves. By the time slavery was formally abolished in 1833, the distinction had become very largely academic. In point of fact, the pretense of "contracts of indenture" was a legalistic farce almost from the beginning. Newly conquered population! were rounded up, culled and auctioned as property. The word slave was avoided for political reasons. "Bondservant" remained the technical and legal term until the 1880s, when the colloquial "serf' was introduced into Draka law.
In its classical form (after about 1840), Draka serfdom resembled that ofCzarist Russia. Serfs were effectively personal property, and could be sold either as individuals (although there were restrictions on separating mothers from small children) or as part of an economic unit such as a plantation or mine. All persons born to serf mothers were serfs; serf status was unchangeable, with no manumission. Originally, the institution was also racially based: the free population was of European origin, the serf, African. Miscegenation and expansion into racially Europoid areas such as North Africa (and later the Middle East) tended to blur this, as did the decline of immigration and the hardening of the caste system.
In essence, the only restrictions on a master's rights over his/her serfs were those imposed by the Domination for police/security purposes—serfs had to be kept under effective supervision, could not be allowed to wander at large, etc. Draka law held an owner responsible for torts committed by serfs, where negligence could be shown. A master who did not meet certain minimum standards of maintenance (food, clothing, etc.) would have control over their serfs removed and the serfs either auctioned or placed under a receiver. While there were no formal limits on physical punishment, informal administrative and social pressures tended to restrain the more bizarre types of sadism, at least when conducted in the public view.
By law, serfs could own no property and make no contracts. Their testimony was not accepted in law courts, and their marriages had no legal validity. In fact, their status closely approximated that of a slave under Roman law: pro nullis, pro mortis, pro quadru-pedis: "as nothing, as one who is dead, like a beast." The law forbade all education of serfs except under carefully regulated licenses. This was kept to the minimum necessary to manage an industrial economy, with a certain degree of inflexibility accepted as the price of security. Such education and training as was given tended to be as narrowly specialized as possible; e.g., serf typists would be taught sight-reading but have no knowledge of geography or history. Elaborate controls existed to prevent uncensored reading material from reaching literate serfs; as much as possible, training was conducted via visual media. Serfs were forbidden to carry any form of weapon, to travel outside their immediate place of residence or work without a permit, and were under a legal obligation of absolute deference to all Citizen adults.
Agricultural serfs generally lived in small villages near the manor of the plantation-holder. Others were usually housed in "compounds"—enclosed barracks of up to 10,000 individuals. The compound system was originally developed for mine labor, and gradually extended to manufacturing. Compounds are sited in convenient cleared zones in the industrial areas of Draka cities and towns, or at isolated enterprises in the countryside. Domestic servants, and certain types of clerical and service labor, live in their master's households. A curfew, usually dusk-to-dawn, keeps all non-Citizens off city streets unless operating under special permit. It should be noted that there were classes within the serf caste; priviledged elements—Janissaries, technicians, strawbosses, etc.—that received better material treatment and, in practice, protection from random brutality. Also note that many of the compound-dwellers had very little contact with the Citizen population, even at work.
Economics and the Standard of Living
The Domination has three economies, separate but interlinked: the command econ
omy of the Combines— huge quasi-monopolistic corporations usually partially owned by the State; the bureaucratic/civil service economy of the free employees of the State and the Combines; and a large "private sector" of small business, which employs both serf and free labor.
Most town serfs are compound-dwellers. Their lifestyle was described by an American visitor as "life imprisonment in a cut-rate boarding school." Clothing is a standardized uniform; rations (adequate and well-blanced but dull) are issued in compound messhalls; accommodations are clean but spartan dormitories. The general tenor of life is of an unutterable drabness, with virtually every non-leisure moment done by a mass lockstep "time-and-motion" system. Religion, folk-culture (e.g., song, dance, etc.) and a furtive black market in alcohol and recreational drugs are the main outlets. Compound serfs had no contact with the market economy, never touch money (and rarely even the compound-scrip issued for bonus and incentive programs), and often remain their entire life in the compound and its creches. Each compound, therefore, tends to develop its own subculture. There is a carefully maintained gradation of conditions, so that transfer may be used as a punishemnt/incentive; for example, some compounds are single-sex, others involve more disagreeable work, and so forth, until the mine-compound of the Ituri and Kashgar are reached.
Plantation life is basically similar but much more informal, with more opportunities for personal choice but also more contact with the master-caste. Privately owned serfs in the towns are in a midway position. It is important to bear in mind that serfs are cheap. They cost less both to purchase and maintain than an auto, since standardized, mass-produced ration and clothing packs are sold everywhere.
The Citizen caste lives in a cross between a very comprehensive welfare state and a consumer society. The top one-tenth of the economy is reserved for Citizen labor, which has always been scarce and very expensive . Citizen employees are usually organized in guilds, which collectively own about a third of the economy. Taxes are relatively low, since the State derives much of its income from profits on investment and ground-rent (being the only landowner, in the strict sense). Education through university, medical care and much else is provided free of charge; no Draka Citizen is actually poor. Only those with severe personality disorders manage to fall below the general upper-middle-class minimum, and they are usually institutionalized. (And sterilized, under the Eugenics Laws.) Note also that the structure of Draka society gives the Citizen caste rewards that no amount of money could buy, and that personal service and its products are very cheap—servants are the largest occupational category in the Domination, and even children usually bring at least one with them to school.
The plantation aristocrats and other members of the Draka elite live in almost unbelievable sybaritic luxury— when not under arms in the field.
Constitution and Government
For the Citizen population, the Domination is a rather mild authoritarianism. There is an elected government, and a fair degree of freedom of speech and association. However, fundamental criticism (e.g., of serfdom) is not permitted, and the power of the Security Directorate has tended to gradually increase. Since there is a large degree of uniformity of opinion among the citizen population, this is not felt as much of a hardship.
Head of State and Government is the Archon, chosen for a 20-year term by two-thirds vote of the House of Assembly, the parliament. The Archon in turn chooses the heads of the Directorates (Transportation, Conservation, etc.) which manage sectors of the economy and provide services. The War Directorate is a special case, as its Director must be chosen from the General Staff and be approved by that body. There is a Senate, appointed by corporate bodies (the guilds, the Landholder's League, the Universities, etc"), which acts as a planning and coordinating authority; membership confers great social prestige. Local government is based on Provinces and Metropolitan Zones within the Police Zone, the pacified area, and under military/Security authority in the War Zone, where pacification is still going on. The Domination is actually more managed than governed, since over 90 percent of the population is property and, strictly speaking, subject to their owners rather than the State.
A noteworthy factor in the Domination's social system is the spread of overlapping ownership—many institutions which in the Western world would be supported by tax revenue instead own interests in the Combines, and thus have independent revenues.
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