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Search - The Syndic

The Syndic
Author: C. M. Kornbluth

A novel of a future age when organized crime legalized itself, and turned America into a utopia. There have been a thousand tales of future Utopias and possible civilizations. They have been ruled by benevolent dictatorships and pure democracies, every form of government from extreme right to absolute left. All over the world, ... more »financial and governmental systems have collapsed under the weight of their own red tape and bureaucracy. Most of the world had regressed into savagery. The hopelessly corrupt old North American government had been driven literally into the sea, but made occasional forays onto the mainland from bases on the coastal fringes of a Europe that had returned to the Dark Ages. In the U.S.A., it was a bit different, the dawning of a new age, due to the Syndic and the Mob.

East of the Mississippi, was the unique easy-going semi-anarchistic society ruled by the SYNDIC, that supplied liquor, gambling, women, loans, employment, and it's own harsh justice, in other words, everything the public needed, at prices everyone could afford. Here was a totally hedonistic society, moral inhibitions had gone the way of the horse. (Polo was played in jeeps with 50-caliber machine guns.) The Syndic operated as a sort of gigantic protective league. West of the Mississippi was Mob territory, a society whose entire system of values was totally opposed to the Syndic. Here morality ruled with an iron hand. The ever-resourceful Mob made America it's ultimate racket. It was, for awhile, the best of all possible worlds...until the bad old U.S. Government begins to re-emerge. Then, it was Syndic versus Mob!

When a wave of assassinations broke out in New York, it was clearly time to take action against the Mob! It was not until February 14th that the Government declared a state of unlimited emergency. The precipitating incident was the aerial bombardment and destruction of B Company, 27th Armored Regiment, on Fort George Hill in New York City. Local Syndic leaders had occupied and fortified George Washington High School, with the enthusiastic co-operation of students, faculty and neighborhood. Chief among them was Thomas 'Numbers' Cleveland, displaying the same coolness and organizational genius which had brought him to pre-eminence in the metropolitan policy-wheel organization by his thirty-fifth year.

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(SF Rediscovery, Bk 2)