I have a feeling that people don’t hate my true stories from the Soviet Union, so here is another one.
The planned economy of the USSR was heavily invested into creating weapons and heavy machinery. There was no interest in producing consumer goods, and very few resources were allocated to their manufacture. As a result, everything was in short supply. Look around yourself right now. All of these things you see were in short supply (except the ones that have been invented since then, of course). Are the walls painted or papered? Doesn’t matter, because both paint and wall-paper were impossible to find. Paper, pens, books, shoes, underwear, condoms, cheese, nail polish,paper napkins – everything had to be hunted down and purchased at a huge black market price. The only quality consumer goods we had were the ones people brought into the country from trips abroad. Such goods would then be sold and resold for exorbitant amounts of money.
This dish sponge you see on the photo always makes me smile whenever I see it. Oh, the memories this seemingly insignificant object brings! In the Soviet Union, possessing such a sponge was a matter of great prestige. People would buy one on the black market for an amount equal to – taking into the account the difference in salaries – about $150 USD.
Of course, nobody would actually use this precious sponge to wash dishes. We had old, torn stockings for that. The sponge would be taken out of the place where it was stored together with other family treasures and placed next to the sink whenever one expected guests. People would moisten the sponge minutes before the guests’ arrival to let them know that using such expensive imported sponges was a matter of course for them.
Since the guests probably had a prestigious sponge of their own that they used to show off in the same way, this trick wasn’t fooling anybody.
Still, it felt so good to stand there by the kitchen sink, holding the precious sponge and imagining yourself for a moment as the fortunate, sophisticated, worldly person who could use these pretty sponges whenever she felt like it.
Clarissa's Blog 
In that case, it’s interesting to think what a planned economy focusing on consumer goods would be like. Certainly not as good as a market economy, but how much better than the Soviet Union?
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The planned economy is the kind of economy that has completely divorced supply from demand. The way it works is that the statisticians predict how much of every single product the population will need and production for the next year is based on that. As a result, you will find yourself inundated with things you don’t need and with perennial shortages of things you do need. Remember that the demand fluctuates a lot more rapidly that any planning can provide for.
One of the goals of planned economy is to avoid excessive production. This excessive production is the phenomenon that guarantees that whenever you want to buy whatever, you will find it on offer. With planned economy, once you have consumed the number of condoms, hygienic pads, matches, etc the statisticians had assigned to you, you can’t get any more. The result of that is always a black market. Then you get even fewer books, milk bottles, dish sponges, etc because a portion of what has been assigned to you ends up diverted to the black market. And so on. Soon, almost the entire economy ends up transferred to the black market. So the planned economy can never function without giving root to the capitalist economy.
Question: why not just skip the burdensome step of planned economy and proceed directly to capitalist economy if we will end up there anyway? 🙂
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Another problem with a socialist is in addition to there being no way for the planners to gauge demand, there is no incentive to produce a quality product. In a modern society, if a company builds and exploding television, they will get sued (so they have an incentive to be careful to begin with), they will fix the problem, or get driven out of business. In a socialist economy, if the television explodes, well tough potatoes.
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I meant another problem with a socialist *economy*
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Exactly. The quality of the products manufactured in the USSR was abysmally poor. I don’t remember a single piece of clothing, toy, piece of furniture that wasn’t horribly ugly and almost impossible to use.
I mean, why would the manufacturers try to make their products better if they faced no competition and were in no danger of going bankrupt?
This is why the bailouts to Goldman Sachs and Co bother me so much.
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I know the Soviet Union had a problem with exploding televisions and exploding light bulbs. I’ve read that you would in particular want to look at the date the television or light bulb came from the factory, because ones made near the end of the month could in particular be dangerous as that was when the workers were rushing to fill their quota.
It is truly amazing how incredibly rich and varied all the consumer goods available in modern society really is, and the average person thinks nothing about it, but if you either come from a place like the Soviet Union or are put into such a lifestyle for a while, you really appreciate it.
Myself, when I went through Army training some years back, they deprived us of everything pretty much. It was a prisoner lifestyle consumer goods-wise. The few times we were allowed to go into a market, which was only to buy certain items needed like toothpaste or a tooth brush, it was mesmerizing (“WOW, look at all of the stuff you can buy!”).
And that was only for about five months 🙂 🙂 Since then, I can only imagine what it must be like for a person raised in such an environment to come to a market economy country and see all the things. I know when the Soviet governent made the mistake of giving the impression that everyoone and anyone could cross freely between East Berlin and West Berlin in I think 1989 (they hadn’t meant that, but that’s how the people interpreted it, so the guards at the border got overwhelmed), the biggest sellers were fruit, candy, and porn 🙂
It also amazes me (although I guess it shouldn’t) how so many people in these modern countries don’t think at all about just how freaking lucky they are to be born into such a place, as the majority of the global population is born poor and stuck that way.
I was reading a book by a man where he and his wife were friends with a couple in Russia. He said the wife’s pride and joy was a special microwave and that they had a tiny apartment (and he said they were among the more affluent in Russia). He said the shops that they could shop at offered extremely poor meat (when they had it) and extremely poor vegetables and fruits (when they had them). Then the Russian couple in the early 1990s came to visit the U.S., where he said they were in awe. He said when they took the wife shopping, she burst into tears at the supermarket, seeing all the fruits and vegetables and so forth stacked as high as the eye can see (in Russia, she could shop at special designated shops, but they were nothing like that). I would love to have read about her expression upon being taken to a mall!
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I do consider myself fortunate to have been born in the Soviet Union. I’m now so appreciative of many things that people who don’t have my origins don’t even notice. When I think how much time and energy my parents had to expend on finding the simplest items, I just can’t believe it. First, you have to work all day to make money – that part I understand. But after work, you have to run around like a crazed rabbit looking for places where you can buy a coveted pound of butter or a set of buttons for your coat. What a horrible waste of time in which all these people could have been doing something more useful.
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Reblogged this on OyiaBrown.
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Could you explain, please, why when I currently enter a Russian shop for clothes in Israel, one often gets this feeling of aggression from a seller? Do you get it in US Russian shops too?
Is it also small shop vs. a big chain diffference? My mother tells sellers were eating you in FSU too. Why? Do they all felt and feel their job is humiliating, and so want to compensate?
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The store assistants in our cultures are, indeed, very rude and nasty. In the USSR, theirs was an extremely prestigious profession where they had access to any material goods they wanted. So they treated customers with contempt because it wasn’t like the customers could do anything about it. The Soviet Union is long gone but the attitudes persist.
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RE guns: he tries to sum it up:
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Also, as a post topic request, could you may be write about something good re your life in USSR? It wasn’t heaven on earth, but it wasn’t Somalia or Congo (put any African country instead) either. My Jewish relatives were happy on the whole and my grandmother, a very smart person, was a member of the party. Had things been 100% bad, I don’t think it would’ve happened.
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I hated USSR with a passion. I know many people (including my parents) remember some positive aspects but I honestly don’t. I’m sure if I’d ever spent any time in Somalia, I would have appreciated the Soviet Union but I hadn’t.
For my personality type (intensely private, heavily invested in reading and independent thinking, very individualistic), life in USSR was torture. For other personality types, not necessarily.
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And you’re exhibiting A SIX PACK? Такое декаденство!
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🙂 🙂
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