What can happen in a disrupted economy - An example

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

I was talking to my parents over the WE about you-know-what and the conversation drifted toward the situation in France during WWII. There were some enlightning comments.

One of the most stunning revelations to me was that money was largely irrelevant during the darkest periods. The authorities, whoever they were, instituted a system of rationing tickets intended to cover basic needs. These were allocated to urban populations based on family size and would give the right to receive so many kg of butter, bread, etc. at designated stores over a given period of time. Of course, everybody was pretty hungry in my Mom's family. My grandfather would go to the countryside on Sundays with all the money he could gather and try to buy extra stuff from farmers. The problem was farmers were not interested in cash. They wanted barter items, like fabrics, tools, etc. (My father knew a guy who was feeding his family by re-tooling metal scraps into small hooks handy in vineyards.) So, my grandfather would generally come back home largely empty-handed, maybe with a few potatoes. I suspect you could get food on the black market, but at prohibitive prices, so you would not bother unless you were rich. In effect a dual economy. Interestingly enough though, the situation didn't degenerate into hyperinflation. This is probably because the market was not allowed to operate freely, while the authorities made sure everyone could obtain the bare minimum to survive.

The farmers themselves had their production heavily controlled by the authorities, and were allowed to keep only a fraction for themselves. The name of the game was to hide as much as possible in order to sell it to the black market. Farmers got rich. People went hungry.

My father, who was living in the country, although not on a farm, saw things from a different angle. For example, it was not a rare sight to find cow heads and hooves on the side of country roads. The suspicion was that organized gangs would roam the countryside to feed the black market. Now, the closest city these could have come from was 40 km away, with the most likely one being 70 km away. Mind you, this was at a time when the population in these cities and around was significantly less than what it is now. Care to guess what 2+ million hungry people are going to do the 70 km radius around their city? Let's see: take 500,000 people walking straight out at 20 km/day. In 3 1/2 days, they wouldn't even be at 100 m of each other. This is not even counting the diffuse population along the way. Now put them on all the possible roads and paths from where you can visit pretty much anything within that 70 km radius. Hmm... Pedestrian traffic jams?

Just for background. My mother was an instant GI when I brought up the issue for the first time 1 1/2 yr ago. My father was an equally instant DGI ("Programmers at Electricite de France are no dummies", "Everybody will be in the same boat", "We'll pull it together", "Even if it's true what can you do?", etc.) Guess where their situation is at now... Several months of food, alternative heating system, water purification tablets, potassium iodide tablets, you name it. My father started out very vocal. He is getting more and more silent these days. Judging from my own experience with my wife (initially a strong DGI, now leading the pack in preparing), there must have been some pretty hairy moments...

-- JD (cogito_ergo_sum@usa.net), November 29, 1999

Answers

Exactly.

-- good (well@done.com), November 29, 1999.

Thanks for sharing that.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 29, 1999.


That does make sense, the farmers would have been flush with cash from selling on the black market so naturally they would be more interested in tangable goods at some point. I remember my father talking about how he looked forward to having an orange for christmas when he grew up during the depression. A real treat he got once was a piece of candy. He grew up on a farm, they had enough to eat but it was a no-frills kind of diet.

If we have another depression I imagine a couple of bags of candy ( think small pieces, like hershey kisses ) will go a long way with local farmers next year, especially if they have kids.

-- Stanley Lucas (StanleyLucas@WebTv.net), November 29, 1999.


JD,

The image of pedestrians walking out sounds like a "waking vision" I had in 1993 when I lived in the DC suburbs (uh, not a common experience for me at all, and kinda embarrassed to post, but some here are nosey, so here goes...). Understand I only heard of y2k this year. These "pedestrians" were walking side-by-side, like I guess cops do when casing a field. I'll never forget one guys face, his expression, it was a mix of sorrow, fear, and rage. I've never seen anything like it. He was carrying a stick in his right hand, about the size of a bat. I had the understanding that they were scavenging.

"Thanks for sharing" duh

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), November 30, 1999.


Thanks for the excellent post, JD.

As an aside, I'll just remind people that the UK government's TV advert ("It's all fixed, go to sleep.") ended with a street party scene with old fashioned stereotypical Londoner types. The instant association (IMO) in the British psyche to that scene is Victory in Europe day 1945. My far out prediction? Come the end of December, we'll hear "It's fixed. But JUST in case it isn't, remember the blitz spirit, we'll fight them on the beaches, rationing was the best days of our lives, get through it together, rule Britannia, blah de blah."

Pure speculation, but it's good to have a Prediction, I think. :)

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 30, 1999.



Colin, have the reruns of "Dad's Army" started yet? Is Vera Lynn on "Top of The Pops"?

THE WARTIME SPIRIT (Smith & Jones excerpt):

M: Did you see that programme the other day about Vera Lynn. Vera Lynn. Yeah, wasn't she marvellous. Yeah, she kept us going through the dark ages, didn't she?

G: Who?

M: Vera Lynn.

G: What dark ages?

M: The war, the Second World War.

G: Oh yeah.

M: Her and Winston Churchill. What a great man. He used to go on the radio and tell us not to worry. 'Never have so few owed so little for such a lot.' Marvellous. Yeah. Exactly. And then ole Vera, bless her, she'd get on the wireless too and she sang some marvellous songs.

G: Yeah. 'There'll be blue birds over the White Cliffs of Dover','We'll meet again','Hitler, he only had one ...'

M: Yeah. Marvellous. She was an old trouper, Vera. Yeah, real old trouper.

G: Yeah. I hate old troupers, don't you?

M: Mind you, the most important thing about the war was the marvellous spirit, you see.

G: Yeah.

M: I mean, in those days you could walk your girlfriend home after the blackout, if you could find your way, and you didn't have to worry whether you were going to be mugged, whether you were going to be beaten up, the streets were safe. All you had to worry about was a bloody great bomb dropping on your head. And the German had Hitler, Goering, Goebbels ...

G: Yeah, and we had John Mills, Noel Coward and David Niven.

-- Ristear MacThomais (uachtaran@ireland.com), November 30, 1999.


My dad recently told me his WWII France story: little food, no luxuries. Soap was a luxury. A French country family he knew had no soap, a filthy bed, etc. He got them some soap -- thought they would be thrilled. They were -- and immediately traded the soap for a good bottle of wine. What's your luxury? Stockpile someone else's luxury in addition to yours, and everyone comes out ahead!

-- Dot (dromano03@snet.com), November 30, 1999.

Puhleese,

WWII France. How about 1990's USSR. Been there, done that.

-- Brooklyn (MSIS@cyberdude.com), November 30, 1999.


Our pediatrician was elderly when she tended our children in the 50's and 60's in the US. Her great friend from England, children's artist/book illustrator Margaret Tarrant, and she corresponded during WWII. When I had to stay in bed to try to keep a pregnancy, she brought me a satchel filled with Margaret's WWII letters to her. It was very moving to read of how much she appreciated the little boxes of goodies my doctor sent to her. They were soaps, tea, cookies and crackers, tinned foods, perfume, and simple things we take for granted daily.

-- Elaine Seavey (Gods1sheep@aol.com), November 30, 1999.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ