Who or what decides what you get?
It is a Saturday afternoon, and across the United States. supermarkets are hopping and parking lots are full. Inside. brightly lit shelves are neatly stocked with every imaginable foodstuff and household item. Shoppers maneuver their carts through the aisles, deciding which products to buy from a seemingly endless array of choices.
It was on a day like this in 1989 that Boris Yeltsin. a popular political leader from the Soviet Union and formerly chief of the Moscow Communist Party. visited a supermarket in Houston, Texas. It was one of many stops on a two-week tour of the United States.
To Yeltsin, the sight of ordinary people doing their weekly grocery shopping was anything but ordinary. In fact, to someone who had lived his whole life under communism, it was a revelation. A local newspaper reported that Yeltsin wandered the aisles, shaking his head in amazement. He sampled cheese and produce. He stared at the meat displays. He stopped customers to ask about the items in their carts and how much they cost. He asked the manager whether special training was necessary to run a supermarket.
Yeltsin’s reaction was understandable. By the late 19805, the state-run Soviet economy was in shambles. Consumer goods were scarce. People had to wait in long lines to buy food and other necessities. Store shelves were frequently empty of all but one or two poorly made goods. Even the privileged Communist Party elite did not enjoy such abundance as could be found in the average American supermarket.
The stark contrast between American and Russian living standards was, Yeltsin later wrote, “shattering.”
The visit confirmed for Yeltsin the painful truth about the Soviet economic system: it was a complete failure. In Houston and other American cities, he saw a very different economic system at work.
In this chapter, you will explore different economic systems. You will see why one has succeeded where the other has failed. And you will find out who, in our society, determines what you get.