Living a Ration Book Life

[LizzieMaine]

"Cow parties" fall more into the category of raising rabbits in your back yard. The black market was a matter of rationed goods being diverted underground and sold at extortionate prices, in contravention both of rationing and of OPA ceiling price regulations. There were penny-ante operators at street level, but their suppliers tended to be big-money operations. One major operation run to the ground by OPA investigators and the IRS in 1945 led to tax evasion charges of over $3,000,000 on top of the violations of the rationing laws.

 

[vitanola]

Since the term "black market" is an arbitrary, perjorative term for "free market", and I'm a defender of the free market, I will.


This is a separate issue. Ethically speaking fraud is fraud whether the transaction is legal or not. The fact that the State won't prosecute fraud committed by so-called "black marketeers" is immoral, imo.



As I said, I believe the ethics of the market are on the free side and it's State that's acting immorally when it's interferes into it's operations except to prosecute cases of fraud and coercion.



I've answered your questions truthfully. What do my answers reveal?



Now to the subject of the poster - I don't believe that it would ever have been as depicted. Think about it - do soldiers eat more sugar away from home, or less? How about butter? Meat? Ahh, but tires/metal/gasoline you say. And my reply is a shortage only exists at a given price. Let prices freely fluctuate as they do in peacetime, and supply would meet demand. Long-term, shortages only exist because gov't policies (eg, price, wage controls, legislative restrictions) create the conditions of shortage.

The American rationing scheme, imperfect though it may have been, was informed by a thourugh study of conditions on the omefints of he belligerents during the Great War. In a wartime economy usual market signals are traduced by the effects of the war effort. A lack of control leads to social unrest, with the majority of war workers suffering nutritional distress, unable to afford hoarded foodstuffs while they see the privileged few dining in plenty. The corrosiveness of such a situation on civil society is terrific. The pernicious effects of unregulated wartime markets were well known in Europe, and have been pretty consistent over centuries.

"As for the poster, I don't believe that it would ever have been as depicted."

Really.

You don't?

It certainly was in France in 1915-16, same too in Germany.
The effects of wartime iniquity were profound, and led to near collapse on both sides in 1917, until the
worked out programs to allow a somewhat more equal sharing of suffering.
This was one problem which was minimal in Britain, for it was foreseen at the very beginning of the War, and stringent rules were put in place as part of DORA to prevent it.

As far as your query "Do Soldiers eat more sugar or butter away from home or less?". Well, the very question betrays a deep lack of historical context. We were feeding not only our own Boys, but we were supplementing the rations of the British and Soviet soldiers quite substantially, in addition to half-feeding the British home front.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have several war time copies of the Australian Ladies Home Journal and in them they list the names & addresses of people convicted of selling & receiving black market goods.
Personally, I'd never deal with the black market, but I imagine the national naming & shaming of those caught would also be a deterrent to those considering it.

That's similar to what was done here in the "X Card" scandal in 1942. When gasoline rationing began on the East Coast in the spring and summer of that year, the "X" ration allowed unlimited amounts of fuel, and was supposed to only be issued to people with legitimate war-essential needs. During the first rush, many X cards were issued to so-called VIPs with no actual legal entitlement to them, leading to a public outcry -- but when newspapers started publishing the names and addresses of all X card holders the VIPs suddenly stopped asking for them. Embarassment over the whole affair led to the elimination of the X ration when the gasoline rationing program went national later that year.

The use of the familiar A, B, C, and T windshield stickers was another result of the X-card scandal -- you were now required to display your ration category for all the world to see, and if you had a B or C card and were seen squandering your fuel at the ballpark or the beach, you could expect to have it revoked.

 

[kiwilrdg]

What is the cutoff? It is really all shades of gray. There are forms of black-market today that people use without thinking about it.
Many people today don't realize that if they buy knockoff purses or cologne they may be funding terrorist organizations.

It is likely that peoples views would be diffrent if they were in diffrent situations. Many people would buy an occasional black market meat if they were eating the same thing for weeks on end. It is also likely that someone who says they would not follow rationing would change their attitude after an attack.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I look at it like this -- if you find yourself torturously rationalizing whatever it is you're doing in order to justify your behavior, that's a pretty good sign you shouldn't be doing it. That applies to the black market and everything else.

 

[Flicka]

Since I'm currently knee-deep in the British rationing system I have thought quite a lot about this. To me, the "ration book lifestyle" is a reasonable approach to finding an ecologically sustainable lifestyle since it's all about the same thing: use less resources and try to make sure that the resources you do use are renewable.

Anyway, I currently buy more clothes than the 66 points the Brits were originally given would allow me and considerably more than they could buy in 1944. However, of the shoes I've bought this year only two were new (non-vintage) and the had wooden soles so I could have gotten them if I'd had the points. Most of my life, however, I have kept well within those limits and I could go back to doing so, no problem.

I actually can't control the thermostat in my flat, but I try to my energy consumption down. I don't have AC (no one in Sweden does, and I'd say it's rare in Europe altogether) and in the summer it's light enough that I can mostly do without electronic lights (outside I have solar powered lighting) and in the winter I try to keep lights off and electronic items switched off (not in standby mode as that uses a whole lot more energy).

Transport - I don't own a car, and I never have. In the summers I ride my bike to work, 5 miles in each direction, and in the winter I use the underground. I occasionally uses taxis, but never more than a short trip a month (on an average considerably less, I'd say). Right now I get groceries delivered home, which was also something that was restricted (no matter form of transport) in Britain during the war years, but I could easily stop (it's a new thing for me, something I started in the last year). Where I fail is travel - I travel long distances for pleasure. For instance, I visited friends in France earlier this year, and I'm going to England in August. So my flying is without doubt my biggest "cheat" from a ration book lifestyle.

As for food, well, I try to adapt a mix of the Swedish and British rationing system and so far, I find that I don't even come close to using my meat ration, but I use slightly more dairy products than I'm really allowed. I have actually wrestled with this, because technically you were not allowed to give away your coupons or trade with them. Technically, that was illegal. At the same time, I can't see anything immoral about me and my neighbour swapping meat for milk or cheese, and I doubt anyone would have been either outraged or bothered with such things, but technically you did break the law, in wording if not in spirit (I'm a lawyer; I can't help myself ).

My aim is to move towards a more "ration book friendly" lifestyle. One thing I'd like to do is get an allotment and grow more of my own vegetables, but the first step is trying to last one year on war rations (see blog in my sig). So far, it's not nearly as hard as I thought it'd be, but then it's summer now. We'll see how I'll get along when the sun set at 2 p.m. and I'll have to live off spuds and cabbage...

Finally; as for the necessity of a rationing system in wartime, like Vitanola says, the system during WWII was based on the experiences from WWI when all the bad effects of hoarding and uneven distribution of food were visible for all to see. Here in Sweden (and we were not even a combatant in either war and we imported very little food), people starved during WWI because they'd failed to construct a system that could ensure that the scarce resources were evenly and effectively distributed. I mean starved, not "didn't get meat", but "couldn't even get potatoes".

In theory, markets function perfectly without intervention from the state, but in the real world, outside of the think tanks, all markets are more or less imperfect. There is uneven initial distribution of resources, transaction costs that may make many of the functions that competition on the "free" market rely on useless (for information, switching, different geographical conditions etc). In practice, the state always interferes in the market. Litigation is the state interfering in the market, consumer rights is the state interfering in the market, trying to stop abuse of a dominant position is the state interfering. You do that because the market is imperfect and so by intervening you try to create a situation that is more similar to the one that would exist if the market lacked those imperfections and was more like the hypothetical, well-functioning market in economic theory. It's like air resistance in physics; theoretically a gram of steel and a gram of cotton fall with the same velocity. But in reality, you have air resistance and so the cotton will more like waft down much slower than the steel. It doesn't necessarily mean that Newton was wrong, but when you build a car in the real world, you'll have to take drag into account when you design it. To me, thinking that a market will somehow magically function without any intervention from the state is rather like building a car thinking there's no drag. Not wrong, per se, but the result may well be a rather spectacular crash in which people may even die.

And then there's the whole thing of different ideologies having different ideas about what the ideal situation is like, of course, so how much state intervention you think is appropriate and necessary will vary with your ideology. But I don't think there is anyone in mainstream economics and competition theory who claims a "free" market will work entirely on it's own, or that rationing in wartime is a disproportionate or necessarily harmful measure.

 

[Stray Cat]

Since I'm currently knee-deep in the British rationing system I have thought quite a lot about this. To me, the "ration book lifestyle" is a reasonable approach to finding an ecologically sustainable lifestyle since it's all about the same thing: use less resources and try to make sure that the resources you do use are renewable.

This is what I keep telling everyone who's wondering if I'm potentially mad.
It's not "rationing" - it's a lifestyle to us.
Self-sustainable household with the "know-how" and the provisions that can keep it full for longer than a month sounds much like "Doomsday preppers" episode, however it was the way of life here for centuries. It worked for them, it clearly works for my home (non of us is starving, non of us is badly dressed, nor do we lack in anything). So, I don't quite understand why some consider it a curiosity. [huh]

 

[LizzieMaine]

This is what I keep telling everyone who's wondering if I'm potentially mad.
It's not "rationing" - it's a lifestyle to us.
Self-sustainable household with the "know-how" and the provisions that can keep it full for longer than a month sounds much like "Doomsday preppers" episode, however it was the way of life here for centuries. It worked for them, it clearly works for my home (non of us is starving, non of us is badly dressed, nor do we lack in anything). So, I don't quite understand why some consider it a curiosity. [huh]

It's the difference in worldview between a generation raised in privation and a generation raised in excess.

 

[sheeplady]

Self-sustainable household with the "know-how" and the provisions that can keep it full for longer than a month sounds much like "Doomsday preppers" episode, however it was the way of life here for centuries. It worked for them, it clearly works for my home (non of us is starving, non of us is badly dressed, nor do we lack in anything). So, I don't quite understand why some consider it a curiosity. [huh]

The fact that people would think a month's worth of food is Doomsday preppers is so telling about modern society. The survivalists I knew as a kid had 2 to 3 years worth of food and water if not more. The person I knew who was the most into it had 5 years of food for his entire family. Including 5 years of firewood- and he lived in the middle of the woods.

It's also a very suburban middle class phenomenon to not have "extra" food on hand and think that people who do are weirdos. People who live pay check to pay check often stock up on food to keep a supply in case those paychecks stop- you throw an extra can of vegetables or bag of beans or rice into your cart when you can afford it, just in case. People who live where grocery stores aren't plentiful (inner cities and the rural areas) tend to have more food on hand because getting to the store is impossible. And in rural areas it isn't uncommon in the northeast to be trapped without power or usable roads for days or weeks in the northeastern U.S., so extra food is a must.

 

[CLShaeffer]

5 days supply minimum here in Hawaii, as recommended by local civil defense and most have 2 weeks to a month around here. Just makes sense when a tsunami could shut down the docks. Or an earthquake. Or a hurricane. Even a lava flow for this island, though that is ~really~ unlikely. The same events could make roads impassable, take down utilities, etc. Whenever there is a tsunami or hurricane warning standard practice is to head to costco to buy toilet paper (the thing which tends to run out first, experience tells us) and fill all the cars up. Almost everyone has 12V inverter so the vehicles are both transportation and mobile emergency generators.

When the docks shut down for any reason here the store shelves are empty in 2 days max. Stores on the mainland are about the same, maybe 3-4 days if the trucks and trains couldn't move for some reason. For most people this isn't a clear and present danger but it can happen pretty much anywhere for a variety of reasons. Here, at least, it is common opinion that anyone who does not have at least some food and supplies stored for emergencies is irresponsible and destined to become a burden on others when (not if) there is an emergency.

The vast bulk of human history (and prehistory) would suggest that it is the families (or cultures) that do NOT store supplies against the inevitable emergencies that are weirdos. But then I'm and anthropologist so I have odd points of view like that at times. Even hunter/gatherers had caches throughout their territories.

 

[HudsonHawk]

5 days supply minimum here in Hawaii, as recommended by local civil defense and most have 2 weeks to a month around here. Just makes sense when a tsunami could shut down the docks. Or an earthquake. Or a hurricane. Even a lava flow for this island, though that is ~really~ unlikely. The same events could make roads impassable, take down utilities, etc. Whenever there is a tsunami or hurricane warning standard practice is to head to costco to buy toilet paper (the thing which tends to run out first, experience tells us) and fill all the cars up. Almost everyone has 12V inverter so the vehicles are both transportation and mobile emergency generators.

5 days is the standard here on the Gulf Coast during hurricane season too. I usually try to have a week's worth in my hurricane box, but I've found that most people have more in the pantry, fridge and freezer than they realize.

The last hurricane here was in 2008, and I was without power for 22 days. Stores were closed about 10 days, so the first week was one continuous community BBQ. Everyone fired up their grills and emptied their freezers to share with the neighborhood.

 

[Stanley Doble]

In the north it is common sense to have on hand food, fuel, warm clothes, blankets, flashlight and radio batteries etc. to last a week or two. If you are prepared, a blizzard is a pillow fight. If you are not prepared it can be a disaster.

Every time there is a blizzard or bad snow storm one reads of people freezing to death. It is always someone who has no food in the house, an empty oil tank, no wood stove and no sense who loads the kids into a car with 1/4 tank of gas and tries to drive to town through 2 feet of snow on bald tires.

 

[sheeplady]

5 days is the standard here on the Gulf Coast during hurricane season too. I usually try to have a week's worth in my hurricane box, but I've found that most people have more in the pantry, fridge and freezer than they realize.

The last hurricane here was in 2008, and I was without power for 22 days. Stores were closed about 10 days, so the first week was one continuous community BBQ. Everyone fired up their grills and emptied their freezers to share with the neighborhood.

The one advantage to living in the north is most of the time when we lose power, it's because of snow. So you can keep things cold.

Otherwise, you start cooking and canning.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Every time there is a blizzard or bad snow storm one reads of people freezing to death. It is always someone who has no food in the house, an empty oil tank, no wood stove and no sense who loads the kids into a car with 1/4 tank of gas and tries to drive to town through 2 feet of snow on bald tires.

This has nothing to do with the thread, just an anecdote...but I'm 46 years old and have never seen it snow. I've seen it on the ground in the mountains and such, just never actually seen "snow".

 

[scotrace]

The 12 gallons of gas a month takes me out. The rest, I have to adhere to anyway.

 

[Gregg Axley]

5 days is the standard here on the Gulf Coast during hurricane season too. I usually try to have a week's worth in my hurricane box, but I've found that most people have more in the pantry, fridge and freezer than they realize.

The last hurricane here was in 2008, and I was without power for 22 days. Stores were closed about 10 days, so the first week was one continuous community BBQ. Everyone fired up their grills and emptied their freezers to share with the neighborhood.

We learned in 2003 to be prepared, after going 8 days in 95 degree heat with nothing but protein bars.
Now we have a stove, canned items, etc in case that happens again.

12 gallons of gas? I'd need a scooter to maintain that, and it had better come with training wheels.

 

[Flicka]

This has nothing to do with the thread, just an anecdote...but I'm 46 years old and have never seen it snow. I've seen it on the ground in the mountains and such, just never actually seen "snow".

As a Swede, I'm struggling to grasp that there are people who have not seen snow. I just cannot imagine.

I don't have a stove or fuel or anything like it, since I live in a studio flat and that would be illegal (not to mention dangerous). I also cannot store too much food due to space, but then if our capital went without electricity for days, we'd have bigger problems than my lack of canned food... On the other hand, I have to say that Sweden as a country seems to have a little different approach than the US – there's generally less responsibility placed on the individual and a lot more activity from the government, local and national, and we have a sort of general "winter is coming approach" because it always is coming, sooner or later. When I have read about snow chaos in other countries I'm always confused, because here roads are always kept open by the public and if there's a longer power or water shortage the government will set up temporary solutions within days if not hours. Also, we have extremely rigorous building standards as a precaution. Then again, we don't have earthquakes, tornadoes or even regular hurricanes due to geography so there are a lot of things we don't have to worry about be prepared for.

ETA: people in the countryside, especially in the northern part, almost always have alternative heating arrangements as well as a well-stocked pantry, just in case. Also, you never drive anywhere in the country in the winter without a supply of food, water and clothes to withstand arctic temperatures in the car. It's not something they even think about, I think. It's like checking you have enough petrol.

 

[HudsonHawk]

As a Swede, I'm struggling to grasp that there are people who have not seen snow. I just cannot imagine.

All of the places I've lived get snow, just never when I was actually present. I am the anti-snow. If I moved to Sweden, it would never snow there again.

It's like bears in Alaska...I've been to Alaska, even the remote parts, for work and play a dozen times and have never seen a bear. As far as I'm concerned, there are no bears in Alaska.

 

[LizzieMaine]

ETA: people in the countryside, especially in the northern part, almost always have alternative heating arrangements as well as a well-stocked pantry, just in case. Also, you never drive anywhere in the country in the winter without a supply of food, water and clothes to withstand arctic temperatures in the car. It's not something they even think about, I think. It's like checking you have enough petrol.

The advantage in living in town is that you don't *have* to drive if circumstances don't permit it. We had a blizzard for the ages this past winter -- snow was piled five feet high in some streets, including my own, but I was able to get to the store, which was open, and was also able to get to work.



Not everybody rose to the occasion though. A local "man" beat up a 60 year old woman for throwing the snow cleared from her driveway into his.

As far as stored food goes during rationing, in the US the same principle was followed as with sugar. When you applied for Ration Book 2, which covered meat and processed goods, you were required to report everything you had on hand at the time of the application, and that quantity of stamps was deleted from the ration you were issued, thus preventing the accumulation of private hoards.

 

[Stray Cat]

ETA: people in the countryside, especially in the northern part, almost always have alternative heating arrangements as well as a well-stocked pantry, just in case. Also, you never drive anywhere in the country in the winter without a supply of food, water and clothes to withstand arctic temperatures in the car. It's not something they even think about, I think. It's like checking you have enough petrol.

I don't see anything strange with that; those people (like us) are just being prepared. You are right - winter is coming. It comes every year.
It does, however that fact still comes as a shock to some - and they get "surprised" by snowfall in December. Snow always falls in winter (it's winter!), so I'm genuinely amazed when they say it on the TV: "We got piles and piles of snow on the roads; we've got taken aback by it's sudden arrival"..
Yes, well: just because it hasn't snowed in one season, doesn't mean it will never snow again. [huh]

The advantage in living in town is that you don't *have* to drive if circumstances don't permit it. We had a blizzard for the ages this past winter -- snow was piled five feet high in some streets, including my own, but I was able to get to the store, which was open, and was also able to get to work.

..and, as I see in the evidence provided, you did just fine.
I bet have a snow shovel in the shop. :thumb: