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Show COMMON FOODS IN U. S. WOULD BE LUXURY IN RUSSIA In mid-July the Soviet government govern-ment reduced the prices of. some type-s of goods sold in its state-owned state-owned stores. And that provides some interesting commentary on living standards under a system in which the state controls everything, every-thing, and has no competition. The average Russian industrial worker earns 500 rubles a month. A bicycle, under the new price, will cost him 1,120 rubles more than his entire income for two months' labor. A midget-sized automobile will cost 9,000 rubles. As a New York Times, account sums it up, "The average Soviet industrial worker . . . must work two and a third hours to earn enough rubles to buy a bottle of beer, more than a month to buy a radio set and nearly eight weeks to buy a sewing machine." There is an example of communist com-munist abundance. By contract, the American worker, even in these days of inflation, buys each day foods and goods which would seem the wildest luxury in Russia. What makes that possible? First of all, every American producer pro-ducer must hold costs to the minimum min-imum if he is to survive the competition. com-petition. Secondly, the same thing is true of the stores where we buy our goods. Whether we patronize pat-ronize an independent or a chain, another store down the block or In the next town is aggressively competing com-peting for our business, and is trying try-ing to offer better quality, a lower price, a wider selection, or some other inducement. In a nation where the government owns the factories and the stores, no inducement in-ducement is necessary. Every store window in America, as a matter of fact, is an argument argu-ment for the free enterprise system sys-tem of doing things. |