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And far too few darts
Meet the black market.
How many cigarettes do I get if I trade in all my soap, washing powder, flour and rice?
Seriously. It’s what I’m buying for myself for a gaming evening if I don’t want to get drunk.
0.5 liter of vodka? What were they supposed to do the other 29 days of the month?
Let alone the rest of the first day?
ah 12 packs of cigarettes and a half a litre of vodka. a complete balanced breakfast.
ah…
blin.
Only if Abe is into cheeki breeki hardbass.
Sure, but what will you eat for the rest of the month?
Would they have been expected to grow their own vegetables, or did they just embrace the average young male diet?
I believe vegetables weren’t rationed
What was the reason for rationing, was it inflation, unemployment, drought or what? I though Poland economy was free to do what it wanted, or was it subject to the same problems as the Soviet Union?
Same essential problems as the SovUnion, but in the early-mid 1980s, the Polish economy was struggling.
That is around 970 calories a day if you take 1/30th of each edible item on the Table.
It’s not enough, but surprisingly almost half the needed amount.
If Poland is anything like the US, families were expected to keep a garden where they grew many vegetables and fruits, and often kept chickens.
Are you referring to ‘Victory Gardens’ in WWII?
If so, that’s a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, since Poland had been at peace for over 35 years.
I’m Estonian, not Polish, but I’ve helped my mom grow potatoes and stuff. Because of the peasant history, our people have always grown our own food. Only in the least few decades has it been getting less common.
Prior to WWII, during the depression.
More on the history of this photograph here: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/food-rationing-communist-poland/
Thank you for the effort, that was an interesting read.
Who the hell writes like this, felt like a student that had an x word paper due and added literally every adjective they could think of to pad it.
I find it funny that a lot of people seem to be assuming that this is everything that they were allowed to eat. Fruits and veggies have been completely banned, in this world! Haha
Fruit is often hard to grow, but simple veggies like potatoes and onions are a no-brainer. Garlic too!
12 packs of cigs seems like a huge luxury
For a month? It’s just dried shredded leaves wrapped in paper, cigarettes are super cheap to produce, tax makes them expensive.
average smoker smokes about 20 cigarettes a day. so it’s a little less than half of a monthly use of cigarettes.
from what i understand the ration was meant to supplement what you consume, not provide everything
Is 20 cigs a day honestly the average nowadays?? Mind blowing and sad. My mum who was an addicted smoker since she was 10 years of age and went through maybe 5 to 10 cigs a day.
it’s been the average for a long time. it’s due to nicotine’s pharmacological effects. its half life is roughly 1~2 hours. so a smoker on average will feel the compulsion to smoke an hour or so after the last cigarette. since most people are awake somewhere 16 hours a day, that’s about ~16 cigarettes a day.
your mom’s smoking habits were definitely atypical
I was trying to figure out how to make it work for week but a month?
Their priorities were fucked up. Cigarettes and alcohol, obviously, but more sugar than rice? Huh?
Also, lots of meat but no other food groups?
Elsewhere in the comments it’s mentioned that these were just the rationed things; there were unrationed foodstuffs.
Alright, where are the anti capitalist tankies defending this?
This has little to do with socialism/capitalism and more with that fact that the economy was centrally (terribly) governed and most of the products were exported to the “friend nation USSR”
75% of sugar output exported to the Sovs while the citizens of Poland ‘enjoyed’ sugar rationing.
75% of sugar output exported to moscow and leningrad, you think the people of anywhere outside the immediate vicinity of those two cities got to see any of it? Let alone anywhere east of the Urals?
You do realize that all nations ration as necessary right?
Here in the USA I can buy whatever I want, even if it’s bad for everyone.
The US isn’t currently rationing
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_States
Here in the USA we are aware that they aren’t rationing. You don’t think it’s necessary?
Your comment is irrelevant
No it’s not
“In the 80s Poland was rationing”
“All countries ration when they need to”
“Im currently not rationing in the US”
“That’s because the US isn’t currently rationing {link to previous US rationing occurrences}”
“I know that”
So explain what relevance that has to the discussion
They are in the same place where pro-capitalist liberals are when people talk about food insecurity in today’s West, and let’s face it, the rest of the non-Western world.
Complaining about them when they aren’t here. See? They’re everywhere!
I can and do live very well off less than that.
Unpopular opinion: we need to ration electricity consumption as well as fuel today, even in capitalists countries. Because that stuff actually has incredible impact on the planet, and will (must) drive consumption down, so that companies / individuals start integrating “efficiency” into their thinking
I don’t see any other solution to the “exponentially growing power consumption” problem.
I don’t see any other solution to the “exponentially growing power consumption” problem.
In the U.S., at least, power generation has been roughly flat for the last 20 years, not growing exponentially:
That’s excluding our hard on for AI the last few years. Would love to see this updated.
electricity is only a tiny fraction of energy use.
I’m surprised by how much natural gas makes up the mix.
c/selfhosted has entered the chat
Power for the power god
Pigouvian taxes are a traditional solution to negative externalities, and they are often better received by the public than rationing.
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It’s expensive to be poor - the lights turning off a few days before the end of the month will incur even more costs than a higher electricity bill.
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Taxes raise money for other programs, instead of costing money to enforce rationing.
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Higher taxes in general will also help reduce inflation.
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Tax revenue can be spent on stimulus checks to offset the cost for people who use less energy than average.
Rather than stimulus checks we need to be using the money to subsidize alternatives. And we can just switch subsidies. Some examples of that include that by reducing cattle subsides we can subsidize lower emissions meat alternatives or even offer free classes on how to cook meals that happen to be lower emissions, and we can stop funding airports and put that money into rail systems, similarly by removing mandatory minimum parking and reducing road funding that money can be put into transit solutions that enable less car centric lifestyles.
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Four and a half kilos of carbohydrates and sugars, goddamn.
For a month, that’s only about 600 kcal/day from carbs. Maybe potatoes are unrationed.
A loaf of bread is about half a kilo of flour, that’s not much for a whole month!
I wonder why it’s 1.3kg. The soviet union adopted the metric system, so it seems like an odd choice. Maybe Poland had a historical measure that size.
lot of problems, but not diabetes
This is what Conservatives around the world want and glory hallelujah we are almost there! The only difference is all those rations will not come from the government but from corporations paid for by the government.
- 4 boxes Kraft Mac and Cheese
- 6 cans Heinz Beans
- Etc.
Half a liter of vodka monthly? Aren’t the Poles known for their consumption of vast quantities of the stuff?
Yeast is not on the list but the 2kg of sugar wasn’t just for cakes I’m sure.
What they were officially allowed to drink vs what they did drink.
