philip_k_dick_-_the_man_in_the_high_castle

. . . And these markets, the countless millions of China, set the factories in Detroit and Chicago to humming;
that vast mouth could never be filled, those people could not in a hundred years be given enough trucks or
bricks or steel ingots or clothing or typewriters or canned peas or clocks or radios or nose-drops. The
American workman, by 1960, had the highest standard of living in the world, and all due to what they
genteelly called 'the most favored nation' clause in every commercial transaction with the East. The U.S. no
longer occupied Japan, and she had never occupied China; and yet the fact could not be disputed: Canton
and Tokyo and Shanghai did not buy from the British; they bought American. And with each sale, the
workingman in Baltimore or Los Angeles or Atlanta saw a little more prosperity.
It seemed to the planners, the men of vision in the White House, that they had almost achieved their goal.
The exploring rocket ships would soon nose cautiously out into the void from a world that had at last seen an
end to its age-old griefs: hunger, plague, war, ignorance. In the British Empire, equal measures toward
social and economic progress had brought similar relief to the masses in India, Burma, Africa, the Middle
East. The factories of the Ruhr, Manchester, of the Saar, the oil of Baku, all flowed and interacted in intricate
but effective harmony; the populations of Europe basked in what appeared . . .
'I think they should be the rulers,' Juliana said, pausing. 'They always were the best. The British.'
Joe said nothing to that, although she waited. At last she went on reading.
. . . Realization of Napoleon's vision: rational homogeneity of the diverse ethnic strains which had squabbled
and balkanized Europe since the collapse of Rome. Vision, too, of Charlemagne: united Christendom, totally
at peace not only with itself but with the balance of the world. And yet — there still remained one annoying
sore.
Singapore.
The Malay States held a large Chinese population, mostly of the enterprising business class, and these
thrifty, industrious bourgeois saw in American administration of China a more equitable treatment of what
was called 'the native.' Under British rule, the darker races were excluded from the country clubs, the hotels,
the better restaurants; they found themselves, as in archaic times, confined to particular sections of the train
and bus and — perhaps worst of all — limited to their choice of residence within each city. These 'natives'
discerned, and noted in their table conversations and newspapers, that in the U.S .A. the color problem had
by 1950 been solved. Whites and Negroes lived and worked and ate shoulder by shoulder, even in the Deep
South; World War Two had ended discrimination. . .
'Is there trouble?' Juliana asked Joe.
He grunted, keeping his eyes on the road.
'Tell me what happens,' she said. 'I know! won't get to finish it; we'll be in Denver pretty soon.
Do America and Britain get into a war, and one emerges as ruler of the world?'
Presently Joe said, 'In some ways it's not a bad book. He works all the details out; the U.S. has
the Pacific, about like our East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. They divide Russia. It works for around
ten years. Then there's trouble — naturally.'
'Why naturally?'
'Human nature.' Joe added, 'Nature of states. Suspicion, fear, greed. Churchill thinks the U.S.A.
is undermining British rule in South Asia by appealing to the large Chinese populations, who
naturally are pro-U.S.A., due to Chiang Kai-shek. The British start setting up' ' — he grinned at her
briefly — 'what are called 'detention preserves.' Concentration camps, in other words. For
thousands of maybe disloyal Chinese. They're accused of sabotage and propaganda. Churchill is so
— '
'You mean he's still in power? Wouldn't he be around ninety?'
Joe said, 'That's where the British system has it over the American. Every eight years the U.S.
boots out its leaders, no matter how qualified — but Churchill just stays on. The U.S. doesn't have
any leadership like him, after Tugwell. Just nonentities. And the older he gets, the more autocratic