Marching Through Georgia (51 page)

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
.