m Make This Comparison Writing in National Review Robert

Make This Comparison

Writing in National Review Robert V. Jones desribes the ‘ Soviet price system. It’s a system whereby the state fixes all prices aaid all wages, and establishes whatever relationship it desires between them. These prices, save for certain absolute! necessities'of life, are extraordinarily high when5 translated into the hours of labor a man or* woman has to put in tjo buy commodities. To cite one example, it takes about 3^0 hours for a skilled factory worker to earn enbuy

a suit of clqthes. ough to .. In, the course of his article, Mr, Jones says something that should be of particular interest to American consumers, who are u^ed to going into our retail stores and finding (what they want at a price most families can afford to pa£J He writes “In a free market consumers express their wants bidding for particular goods, and as prices for particular goods rise or fall producers adjust the** production accordingly. The Soviet administrative bureaucracy can obtain no such information from the price mechanism, for they themselves have set all the prices. They are consequent y compelled to order production in accordance with thfeir own ideas of what people ough to-have, rather than inF accordance* with needs as consumers themselves believe I those needs to exist....—The /result is that the Soviet Citizen hasrfvery little opportunity for self-expression in Ms-use of the material things of life. He eats the food wears the clothing, and occupies the housing that is ordered for him.—.—” ~ \ > • The Soviet shopper )ts offered r.n extremely limited assortmehf of shoddy goods at high prices. Compare this with * American retail stores with their almost incredible abun< dance t»f offerings. When you make the comparison, you are actually comparing the competitive l.ee enterprise economy with a government controlled and dictated economy.