Tariq Banuri and Juliet B. Schor (eds)
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198283645
- eISBN:
- 9780191684463
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198283645.003.0009
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
A country's financial markets are opened up to international forces by currency black markets. As such, the benefits of conventional policies are lowered and the costs are raised in trade ...
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A country's financial markets are opened up to international forces by currency black markets. As such, the benefits of conventional policies are lowered and the costs are raised in trade restriction, exchange rate overvaluation, and other such policy measures. Black markets are capable of initiating balance-of-payment problems through weakening the efficacy of capital controls while increasing the costs associated with defending the exchange rate. Also, they lower the effectiveness of restrictions on trade flows and other alternative defense policies through lowering the private cost of avoiding trade restrictions. Because of various policy, institutional, and technological factors, currency black markets have increased in size particularly in Third World countries. This chapter attempts to look into the relationship of these black markets to openness and how the autonomy of central banks is affected.Less
A country's financial markets are opened up to international forces by currency black markets. As such, the benefits of conventional policies are lowered and the costs are raised in trade restriction, exchange rate overvaluation, and other such policy measures. Black markets are capable of initiating balance-of-payment problems through weakening the efficacy of capital controls while increasing the costs associated with defending the exchange rate. Also, they lower the effectiveness of restrictions on trade flows and other alternative defense policies through lowering the private cost of avoiding trade restrictions. Because of various policy, institutional, and technological factors, currency black markets have increased in size particularly in Third World countries. This chapter attempts to look into the relationship of these black markets to openness and how the autonomy of central banks is affected.
Mark Roodhouse
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199588459
- eISBN:
- 9780191747564
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588459.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
Due to rationing and price control, Britain’s underground economy experienced a mid-century boom during the 1940s and early 1950s as producers, traders, and professional criminals helped consumers to ...
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Due to rationing and price control, Britain’s underground economy experienced a mid-century boom during the 1940s and early 1950s as producers, traders, and professional criminals helped consumers to get ‘a little bit extra’ ‘on the side’, ‘from under the counter’, or ‘off the back of a lorry’. And yet widespread evasion of regulations designed to ensure ‘fair shares for all’ did not undermine the austerity policies that characterized those years. This book draws upon a wide range of source material, including recently declassified documents, to argue that all these little bits did not amount to a lot because Britons showed self-restraint in their illegal dealings. The means, motives, and opportunities for evasion were not lacking. The shortages were real and felt, regulations were not watertight, and enforcement was haphazard. Fairness, not patriotism and respect for the law, is the key to understanding this self-restraint. By invoking popular notions of a fair price, a fair profit, and a fair share, government rhetoric stymied black marketeering as would-be evaders had to justify their offences to themselves and others in terms of getting their fair share at no one else’s expense. The book emphasizes the importance of fairness to those seeking a richer understanding of economic life in modern Britain, and reminds us that all trade is fair trade and all consumers are ethical consumers, at least according to their own lights. We just need to discover what those lights are.Less
Due to rationing and price control, Britain’s underground economy experienced a mid-century boom during the 1940s and early 1950s as producers, traders, and professional criminals helped consumers to get ‘a little bit extra’ ‘on the side’, ‘from under the counter’, or ‘off the back of a lorry’. And yet widespread evasion of regulations designed to ensure ‘fair shares for all’ did not undermine the austerity policies that characterized those years. This book draws upon a wide range of source material, including recently declassified documents, to argue that all these little bits did not amount to a lot because Britons showed self-restraint in their illegal dealings. The means, motives, and opportunities for evasion were not lacking. The shortages were real and felt, regulations were not watertight, and enforcement was haphazard. Fairness, not patriotism and respect for the law, is the key to understanding this self-restraint. By invoking popular notions of a fair price, a fair profit, and a fair share, government rhetoric stymied black marketeering as would-be evaders had to justify their offences to themselves and others in terms of getting their fair share at no one else’s expense. The book emphasizes the importance of fairness to those seeking a richer understanding of economic life in modern Britain, and reminds us that all trade is fair trade and all consumers are ethical consumers, at least according to their own lights. We just need to discover what those lights are.
Mark Roodhouse
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199588459
- eISBN:
- 9780191747564
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588459.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This chapter discusses the illicit retail markets and their supply networks which contemporaries classed as ‘black market’. This ‘black market’ received more attention than the ‘grey market’ ...
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This chapter discusses the illicit retail markets and their supply networks which contemporaries classed as ‘black market’. This ‘black market’ received more attention than the ‘grey market’ discussed in the previous chapter, despite being less of a problem. Popular and official concern focused on the involvement of serious and organized crime in black marketeering. This ignored the fact that legitimate businesses dominated the traffic in black market goods, with the exception of the trade in stolen and counterfeit goods and coupons.Less
This chapter discusses the illicit retail markets and their supply networks which contemporaries classed as ‘black market’. This ‘black market’ received more attention than the ‘grey market’ discussed in the previous chapter, despite being less of a problem. Popular and official concern focused on the involvement of serious and organized crime in black marketeering. This ignored the fact that legitimate businesses dominated the traffic in black market goods, with the exception of the trade in stolen and counterfeit goods and coupons.
Preston H. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816637027
- eISBN:
- 9781452945811
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816637027.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
This chapter studies the work of black civic leaders and white policy analysts who made the case that a viable black housing market existed in Chicago and other major cities, which could be ...
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This chapter studies the work of black civic leaders and white policy analysts who made the case that a viable black housing market existed in Chicago and other major cities, which could be profitably served by the housing industry. It then looks at home builders’ interests in the black housing market in Chicago, along with black civic elites’ response to the argument that it was blacks’ lack of income and class culture that hinders them from meeting acceptable housing market standards. It also traces the campaign mounted by black federal housing officials to gain the interest of the national real estate trade organizations. This demonstrates the consensus among black policy elites over the key role of private enterprise in pursuing racially democratic housing, and the tension they experienced over open occupancy.Less
This chapter studies the work of black civic leaders and white policy analysts who made the case that a viable black housing market existed in Chicago and other major cities, which could be profitably served by the housing industry. It then looks at home builders’ interests in the black housing market in Chicago, along with black civic elites’ response to the argument that it was blacks’ lack of income and class culture that hinders them from meeting acceptable housing market standards. It also traces the campaign mounted by black federal housing officials to gain the interest of the national real estate trade organizations. This demonstrates the consensus among black policy elites over the key role of private enterprise in pursuing racially democratic housing, and the tension they experienced over open occupancy.
Katherine Pence
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199827657
- eISBN:
- 9780199950461
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827657.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
Coffee, a nation-wide addiction in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was chronically hard to come by. From the rationing period after 1945 to an acute crisis and outright protests in 1977, the ...
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Coffee, a nation-wide addiction in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was chronically hard to come by. From the rationing period after 1945 to an acute crisis and outright protests in 1977, the East German populace pressured the socialist state to provide access to real coffee beans, but often had to settle for various ersatz beverages. The black markets and smuggling of beans between East and West became rampant, and East Germans perennially compared their shortages to West Germans’ easier access to beans on the world market. By the end of the 1950s, consumer dissatisfaction added to the growing number of East Germans making their way across to the other side. Even after the the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, Western coffee continued to traverse this barrier in the form of gift packages and smuggled goods, and was prized as a status symbol and a tool for bartering. In examining coffee drinking in the GDR, this essay illuminates the interconnection between the socialist state and society. But coffee drinking was also a private act. In the absence of a Habermasian public sphere in the GDR, the private Kaffeeklatsch became an important site of sociability and free expression that ran counter to the socialist ideal of a mass community of workers. Coffee drinking in the GDR was fraught with difficulties due to its scarcity, but coffee was also a resolute emblem of how East German citizens marked out their own spaces for social connections and even laughter.Less
Coffee, a nation-wide addiction in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was chronically hard to come by. From the rationing period after 1945 to an acute crisis and outright protests in 1977, the East German populace pressured the socialist state to provide access to real coffee beans, but often had to settle for various ersatz beverages. The black markets and smuggling of beans between East and West became rampant, and East Germans perennially compared their shortages to West Germans’ easier access to beans on the world market. By the end of the 1950s, consumer dissatisfaction added to the growing number of East Germans making their way across to the other side. Even after the the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, Western coffee continued to traverse this barrier in the form of gift packages and smuggled goods, and was prized as a status symbol and a tool for bartering. In examining coffee drinking in the GDR, this essay illuminates the interconnection between the socialist state and society. But coffee drinking was also a private act. In the absence of a Habermasian public sphere in the GDR, the private Kaffeeklatsch became an important site of sociability and free expression that ran counter to the socialist ideal of a mass community of workers. Coffee drinking in the GDR was fraught with difficulties due to its scarcity, but coffee was also a resolute emblem of how East German citizens marked out their own spaces for social connections and even laughter.
Susana Narotzky and Gavin Smith
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520245686
- eISBN:
- 9780520939011
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520245686.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, European Cultural Anthropology
This historical and ethnographic study of the political economy of the Vega Baja region of Spain, one of the European Union's “Regional Economies,” takes up the question of how to understand the ...
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This historical and ethnographic study of the political economy of the Vega Baja region of Spain, one of the European Union's “Regional Economies,” takes up the question of how to understand the growing alienation ordinary working people feel in the face of globalization. Combining oral histories with a sophisticated and nuanced structural understanding of changing political economies, the chapters in this book examine the growing divide between government and its citizens in a region that has in the last four decades been transformed from a primarily agricultural economy into a primarily industrial one. Offering a form of ethnography appropriate for the study of suprastate polities and a globalized economy, the book contributes to our understanding of one region as well as the way we think about changing class relations, modes of production, and cultural practices in a newly emerging Europe. The chapters consider how phenomena such as the “informal economy” and “black market” are not marginal to the normal operation of state and economic institutions, but are intertwined with both.Less
This historical and ethnographic study of the political economy of the Vega Baja region of Spain, one of the European Union's “Regional Economies,” takes up the question of how to understand the growing alienation ordinary working people feel in the face of globalization. Combining oral histories with a sophisticated and nuanced structural understanding of changing political economies, the chapters in this book examine the growing divide between government and its citizens in a region that has in the last four decades been transformed from a primarily agricultural economy into a primarily industrial one. Offering a form of ethnography appropriate for the study of suprastate polities and a globalized economy, the book contributes to our understanding of one region as well as the way we think about changing class relations, modes of production, and cultural practices in a newly emerging Europe. The chapters consider how phenomena such as the “informal economy” and “black market” are not marginal to the normal operation of state and economic institutions, but are intertwined with both.
Paulina Bren and Mary Neuburger (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199827657
- eISBN:
- 9780199950461
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827657.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
This book is a collection of essays that unwraps the complex world of consumption under communism in postwar Eastern Europe. Its editors have carefully compiled, analyzed, and contextualized new work ...
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This book is a collection of essays that unwraps the complex world of consumption under communism in postwar Eastern Europe. Its editors have carefully compiled, analyzed, and contextualized new work by both American and European scholars writing from variety of disciplinary perspectives. The result is a fresh look at everyday life under communism that explores the ways people shopped, ate, drank, smoked, cooked, acquired, exchanged and assessed goods. These phenomena, the editors argue, were central to the way that communism was lived and experienced in its widely varied contexts in the region. Consumption pervaded everyday life far more than most other political and social phenomena. From design, to production, to retail sales and black market exchange, the book follows communist goods from producer to consumer, tracing their circuitous routes. In the communist world this journey was rife with its own meanings, shaped by the special political and social circumstances of these societies. In examining consumption behind the Iron Curtain, this volume builds on a new field of study. It brings dimension and nuance to our understanding of the communist period and a new perspective to our current analyses of consumerism.Less
This book is a collection of essays that unwraps the complex world of consumption under communism in postwar Eastern Europe. Its editors have carefully compiled, analyzed, and contextualized new work by both American and European scholars writing from variety of disciplinary perspectives. The result is a fresh look at everyday life under communism that explores the ways people shopped, ate, drank, smoked, cooked, acquired, exchanged and assessed goods. These phenomena, the editors argue, were central to the way that communism was lived and experienced in its widely varied contexts in the region. Consumption pervaded everyday life far more than most other political and social phenomena. From design, to production, to retail sales and black market exchange, the book follows communist goods from producer to consumer, tracing their circuitous routes. In the communist world this journey was rife with its own meanings, shaped by the special political and social circumstances of these societies. In examining consumption behind the Iron Curtain, this volume builds on a new field of study. It brings dimension and nuance to our understanding of the communist period and a new perspective to our current analyses of consumerism.
Michael Berkowitz
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520251120
- eISBN:
- 9780520940680
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520251120.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter shows that the stigma of Jews as criminals was one of the most resilient and widespread perceptions among Germans as they confronted the remnant of European Jewry in post-World War II ...
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This chapter shows that the stigma of Jews as criminals was one of the most resilient and widespread perceptions among Germans as they confronted the remnant of European Jewry in post-World War II Europe in what came to be known as the DP, or “displaced-persons” problem. Because racial anti-Semitism was a possibly questionable way to express opinions in postwar Germany, especially in the U.S. zone of occupation toward which most Jewish DPs migrated, Germans' view of Jews as criminals was a major factor in the dynamic between Jews, Germans, and the U.S. Army. The chapter also notes that the presence of a thriving black market certainly abetted the perception of DPs as a “criminal element,” and a number of forces combined to ensure that DPs had few other means, outside of the black market, to survive.Less
This chapter shows that the stigma of Jews as criminals was one of the most resilient and widespread perceptions among Germans as they confronted the remnant of European Jewry in post-World War II Europe in what came to be known as the DP, or “displaced-persons” problem. Because racial anti-Semitism was a possibly questionable way to express opinions in postwar Germany, especially in the U.S. zone of occupation toward which most Jewish DPs migrated, Germans' view of Jews as criminals was a major factor in the dynamic between Jews, Germans, and the U.S. Army. The chapter also notes that the presence of a thriving black market certainly abetted the perception of DPs as a “criminal element,” and a number of forces combined to ensure that DPs had few other means, outside of the black market, to survive.
Bryce Evans
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780719089510
- eISBN:
- 9781781707531
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719089510.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Comparative and Historical Sociology
The department of Supplies represented the apogee of centralised state intervention in Irish history, coming to control the production, distribution, and pricing of all commodities during this time ...
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The department of Supplies represented the apogee of centralised state intervention in Irish history, coming to control the production, distribution, and pricing of all commodities during this time of crisis. This is the first critical analysis of the department’s successes and failures and its impact upon ordinary people during this period. It details how a comprehensive system of rationing was implemented too late in Ireland, by which time the culture of the black market had achieved hegemony in defiance of the state’s periodic and often contradictory issuing of price control orders. It explores the ‘war’ on the black market declared by Lemass and Leydon and finds that this worthwhile assault in the name of the common good often involved dubious means. Charting the bureaucratic expansion of the state at a time of severe shortages, it concludes that ultimately, the ‘dirty war’ against ‘gombeens’, racketeers and ‘spivs’ came down harshly on small-time crooks and allowed large-scale profiteers to escape punishment. Explores the operation of moral and political economy at the time.Less
The department of Supplies represented the apogee of centralised state intervention in Irish history, coming to control the production, distribution, and pricing of all commodities during this time of crisis. This is the first critical analysis of the department’s successes and failures and its impact upon ordinary people during this period. It details how a comprehensive system of rationing was implemented too late in Ireland, by which time the culture of the black market had achieved hegemony in defiance of the state’s periodic and often contradictory issuing of price control orders. It explores the ‘war’ on the black market declared by Lemass and Leydon and finds that this worthwhile assault in the name of the common good often involved dubious means. Charting the bureaucratic expansion of the state at a time of severe shortages, it concludes that ultimately, the ‘dirty war’ against ‘gombeens’, racketeers and ‘spivs’ came down harshly on small-time crooks and allowed large-scale profiteers to escape punishment. Explores the operation of moral and political economy at the time.
Karl Brown
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199827657
- eISBN:
- 9780199950461
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827657.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
From 1948 to 1956, the communist regime in Hungary sought to transform the state into a centralized command economy on the Soviet model. It was largely unsuccessful in doing so—especially in the ...
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From 1948 to 1956, the communist regime in Hungary sought to transform the state into a centralized command economy on the Soviet model. It was largely unsuccessful in doing so—especially in the countryside, where peasants deployed the “weapons of the weak” against the state’s relatively poor surveillance and control. Wood theft, which had been practiced by Magyar peasants for centuries, continued in the communist period; pig-killing, previously a major element of peasant life and newly criminalized under the communist regime, was also widely practiced. Using the story of one successful black marketer in illicit meat and wood, Karl Brown demonstrates how most if not all Hungarian peasants were involved in these illicit practices, and how the rural social network transformed into a thriving black market in which even the Roma (or Gypsies) had opportunities for profit. In attempting to centralize the rural economy, the party-state actually encouraged a hyper-capitalist mindset among the peasantry as wood and meat—previously stolen for individual use or shared to strengthen kinship and local bonds—became commodified on the black market. To whatever extent the rise of a consumer economy in the Eastern Bloc enabled the eventual downfall of communism, this process began at the very outset of communist rule.Less
From 1948 to 1956, the communist regime in Hungary sought to transform the state into a centralized command economy on the Soviet model. It was largely unsuccessful in doing so—especially in the countryside, where peasants deployed the “weapons of the weak” against the state’s relatively poor surveillance and control. Wood theft, which had been practiced by Magyar peasants for centuries, continued in the communist period; pig-killing, previously a major element of peasant life and newly criminalized under the communist regime, was also widely practiced. Using the story of one successful black marketer in illicit meat and wood, Karl Brown demonstrates how most if not all Hungarian peasants were involved in these illicit practices, and how the rural social network transformed into a thriving black market in which even the Roma (or Gypsies) had opportunities for profit. In attempting to centralize the rural economy, the party-state actually encouraged a hyper-capitalist mindset among the peasantry as wood and meat—previously stolen for individual use or shared to strengthen kinship and local bonds—became commodified on the black market. To whatever extent the rise of a consumer economy in the Eastern Bloc enabled the eventual downfall of communism, this process began at the very outset of communist rule.
Fenggang Yang
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199930890
- eISBN:
- 9780199980581
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199930890.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter introduces four types of state-religion relations in human history – religious monopoly, pluralism, oligopoly, and a total ban. It argues that religious oligopoly is the most common ...
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This chapter introduces four types of state-religion relations in human history – religious monopoly, pluralism, oligopoly, and a total ban. It argues that religious oligopoly is the most common practice in the world today and applies that understanding to the situation in China. The chapter illuminates the operation of triple markets in China: a red market of legal (officially permitted and regulated) religions; a black market of illegal religious groups and activities; and a grey market of spiritual organizations and practices of ambiguous legal status. This triple market is dynamic, as some groups, such as the Falun Gong, moved from ambiguous to illegal status, while some illegal underground Christian churches have moved into the gray category. The chapter draws upon these findings to challenge and refine dominant theories about the operation of religious markets.Less
This chapter introduces four types of state-religion relations in human history – religious monopoly, pluralism, oligopoly, and a total ban. It argues that religious oligopoly is the most common practice in the world today and applies that understanding to the situation in China. The chapter illuminates the operation of triple markets in China: a red market of legal (officially permitted and regulated) religions; a black market of illegal religious groups and activities; and a grey market of spiritual organizations and practices of ambiguous legal status. This triple market is dynamic, as some groups, such as the Falun Gong, moved from ambiguous to illegal status, while some illegal underground Christian churches have moved into the gray category. The chapter draws upon these findings to challenge and refine dominant theories about the operation of religious markets.
Bryce Evans
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780719089510
- eISBN:
- 9781781707531
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719089510.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Comparative and Historical Sociology
This chapter provides the ‘bottom up’ story of material survival during Ireland’s wartime experience. It reveals a comprehensive social geography of price differentiation, black market hotspots, and ...
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This chapter provides the ‘bottom up’ story of material survival during Ireland’s wartime experience. It reveals a comprehensive social geography of price differentiation, black market hotspots, and travel and retail disparities. While recounting stories of hardship has become somewhat hackneyed post-Angela’s Ashes, this chapter employs new oral evidence to convey the harshness of life in Ireland at the time, particularly in her western peripheries where the threat of starvation – one hundred years old – returned once more. Contrasting life in urban and rural contexts, it takes the novel approach of exploring the interaction of ordinary people with the state’s system of supply and distribution and reveals how an alternative system, or ‘moral economy’, operated in defiance of legal and institutional checks intended to ensure equitable distribution and fair price. It provides a case study of the operation of Irish co-operatives at the time and reveals large-scale black market activity across sections of society.Less
This chapter provides the ‘bottom up’ story of material survival during Ireland’s wartime experience. It reveals a comprehensive social geography of price differentiation, black market hotspots, and travel and retail disparities. While recounting stories of hardship has become somewhat hackneyed post-Angela’s Ashes, this chapter employs new oral evidence to convey the harshness of life in Ireland at the time, particularly in her western peripheries where the threat of starvation – one hundred years old – returned once more. Contrasting life in urban and rural contexts, it takes the novel approach of exploring the interaction of ordinary people with the state’s system of supply and distribution and reveals how an alternative system, or ‘moral economy’, operated in defiance of legal and institutional checks intended to ensure equitable distribution and fair price. It provides a case study of the operation of Irish co-operatives at the time and reveals large-scale black market activity across sections of society.
Geoffrey Charles Emerson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622098800
- eISBN:
- 9789882206977
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098800.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter discusses the securing of goods or money by illegal means known as the “black market” in Stanley Camp. It notes that trading is considered illegal as it is against the rules of the ...
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This chapter discusses the securing of goods or money by illegal means known as the “black market” in Stanley Camp. It notes that trading is considered illegal as it is against the rules of the Japanese occupying Hong Kong. It observes that there were several facets to the black market: first, there was trading “over the wire” between the guards and internees; secondly, there was trading within the Camp, either from the guards or internee traders. It further observes that the trade was largely one in which the internees sold jewellery, gold, or other possessions for yen and the internees could also buy yen by writing sterling cheques to fellow internees who had yen to dispose of. It notes that these cheques were payable after the end of the war. It further notes that there was a great deal of trading of articles themselves, both among the internees and between the internees and guards.Less
This chapter discusses the securing of goods or money by illegal means known as the “black market” in Stanley Camp. It notes that trading is considered illegal as it is against the rules of the Japanese occupying Hong Kong. It observes that there were several facets to the black market: first, there was trading “over the wire” between the guards and internees; secondly, there was trading within the Camp, either from the guards or internee traders. It further observes that the trade was largely one in which the internees sold jewellery, gold, or other possessions for yen and the internees could also buy yen by writing sterling cheques to fellow internees who had yen to dispose of. It notes that these cheques were payable after the end of the war. It further notes that there was a great deal of trading of articles themselves, both among the internees and between the internees and guards.
Andrew Konove
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520293670
- eISBN:
- 9780520966901
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520293670.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
For more than three hundred years, Mexico City’s Baratillo marketplace was synonymous with crime, vice, and the most disreputable elements of urban society. Despite countless attempts to disband it, ...
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For more than three hundred years, Mexico City’s Baratillo marketplace was synonymous with crime, vice, and the most disreputable elements of urban society. Despite countless attempts to disband it, the Baratillo persevered, outlasting Spanish colonial rule and dozens of republican governments. In the twentieth century, transformed the neighborhood of Tepito it into a global hub of black-market commerce. Black Market Capital argues that the Baratillo and the broader shadow economy—which combined illicit, informal, and second-hand exchanges—have been central to the economy and the politics of Mexico City since the seventeenth century. The Baratillo benefited a wide swath of urban society, fostering unlikely alliances between elite merchants, government officials, newspaper editors, and street vendors. Vendors in the Baratillo turned their market’s economic appeal into political clout, petitioning colonial and national-era officials and engaging in the capital’s public sphere to defend their livelihoods. Using records from municipal and national archives in Mexico City, newspapers, travelers’ accounts, and novels, Black Market Capital reconstructs the history of one of Mexico City’s most enduring yet least understood institutions. It provides a new perspective on the relationship between urban politics, the informal economy, and public space in Mexico City between the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries.Less
For more than three hundred years, Mexico City’s Baratillo marketplace was synonymous with crime, vice, and the most disreputable elements of urban society. Despite countless attempts to disband it, the Baratillo persevered, outlasting Spanish colonial rule and dozens of republican governments. In the twentieth century, transformed the neighborhood of Tepito it into a global hub of black-market commerce. Black Market Capital argues that the Baratillo and the broader shadow economy—which combined illicit, informal, and second-hand exchanges—have been central to the economy and the politics of Mexico City since the seventeenth century. The Baratillo benefited a wide swath of urban society, fostering unlikely alliances between elite merchants, government officials, newspaper editors, and street vendors. Vendors in the Baratillo turned their market’s economic appeal into political clout, petitioning colonial and national-era officials and engaging in the capital’s public sphere to defend their livelihoods. Using records from municipal and national archives in Mexico City, newspapers, travelers’ accounts, and novels, Black Market Capital reconstructs the history of one of Mexico City’s most enduring yet least understood institutions. It provides a new perspective on the relationship between urban politics, the informal economy, and public space in Mexico City between the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries.
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804784092
- eISBN:
- 9780804784641
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804784092.003.0003
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Public and Welfare
This chapter examines the current state of the global organ procurement system and discusses the most direct consequence of the organ shortage: transplant waiting lists. It analyzes waiting list ...
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This chapter examines the current state of the global organ procurement system and discusses the most direct consequence of the organ shortage: transplant waiting lists. It analyzes waiting list dynamics and the situations both in and outside the United States. It examines the secondary effects of the shortage and analyzes the increased reliance on living donors and the rising use of marginal donors. A third “secondary consequence”—the black market for kidneys—which is considered an especially dire effect of waiting lists, is treated at some length. Finally, the chapter reviews the future prospects for the global organ shortage.Less
This chapter examines the current state of the global organ procurement system and discusses the most direct consequence of the organ shortage: transplant waiting lists. It analyzes waiting list dynamics and the situations both in and outside the United States. It examines the secondary effects of the shortage and analyzes the increased reliance on living donors and the rising use of marginal donors. A third “secondary consequence”—the black market for kidneys—which is considered an especially dire effect of waiting lists, is treated at some length. Finally, the chapter reviews the future prospects for the global organ shortage.
Paulina Bren
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199827657
- eISBN:
- 9780199950461
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827657.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
Through a discussion of Bony a Klid, a controversial film from the late 1980s in Czechoslovakia, Paulina Bren explores the role of the hustler under socialism. The hustler was closely associated with ...
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Through a discussion of Bony a Klid, a controversial film from the late 1980s in Czechoslovakia, Paulina Bren explores the role of the hustler under socialism. The hustler was closely associated with Tuzex, the hard currency retail chain where goods as varied as Austrian coffee, Sony television sets, foreign and domestic cars, and weekend houses were on offer. Hard currency stores, present throughout the Eastern Bloc but expanding significantly in the 1970s, reoriented value systems and social hierarchies. Central to these changes, certainly in the case of Czechoslovakia, was the hustler—a hard currency gangster, the middle man between ordinary citizens and the state-run Tuzex stores. These hustlers, who bought store vouchers for German marks and American dollars and sold them at profit for Czech crowns, soon morphed into syndicated criminal gangs. With the power and money to live outside of the socialist framework, they were the underground counterpart to the Party elite, and the poster boys of consumer excess. While the hustler was frowned upon by much of the public as criminal and extortionary, at the same time his consumption, for many, represented an attractive ideal. This contradiction impacted both the communist and post-communist era: Bren argues that because of Tuzex and the hustler, corruption and capitalist economic practices had been closely linked in the public’s mind long before the democracy revolutions of 1989 and the post-communist economies.Less
Through a discussion of Bony a Klid, a controversial film from the late 1980s in Czechoslovakia, Paulina Bren explores the role of the hustler under socialism. The hustler was closely associated with Tuzex, the hard currency retail chain where goods as varied as Austrian coffee, Sony television sets, foreign and domestic cars, and weekend houses were on offer. Hard currency stores, present throughout the Eastern Bloc but expanding significantly in the 1970s, reoriented value systems and social hierarchies. Central to these changes, certainly in the case of Czechoslovakia, was the hustler—a hard currency gangster, the middle man between ordinary citizens and the state-run Tuzex stores. These hustlers, who bought store vouchers for German marks and American dollars and sold them at profit for Czech crowns, soon morphed into syndicated criminal gangs. With the power and money to live outside of the socialist framework, they were the underground counterpart to the Party elite, and the poster boys of consumer excess. While the hustler was frowned upon by much of the public as criminal and extortionary, at the same time his consumption, for many, represented an attractive ideal. This contradiction impacted both the communist and post-communist era: Bren argues that because of Tuzex and the hustler, corruption and capitalist economic practices had been closely linked in the public’s mind long before the democracy revolutions of 1989 and the post-communist economies.
George Solt
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780520277564
- eISBN:
- 9780520958371
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520277564.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Chapter 2 analyzes the food crisis of the period immediately after World War II, when a lack of access to produce from the colonies, a diversion of manpower and resources away from food production, ...
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Chapter 2 analyzes the food crisis of the period immediately after World War II, when a lack of access to produce from the colonies, a diversion of manpower and resources away from food production, Allied bombings, and bad harvests led to widespread scarcity, malnutrition, and death. After the war, when the US military formally occupied Japan (1945–52), rāmen and other foods made from American wheat served an important function in providing emergency sustenance at a time when rice was scarce and there were severe food shortages. The dependence on wheat flour imported from the United States as a substitute staple for rice during and after the Allied Occupation produced a resurgence in the availability of Shina soba, as well as bread and biscuits, which drastically altered the eating habits of those who came of age after the war from those who did before. This chapter also explores the shift away from words tainted with the memory of imperialism and war.Less
Chapter 2 analyzes the food crisis of the period immediately after World War II, when a lack of access to produce from the colonies, a diversion of manpower and resources away from food production, Allied bombings, and bad harvests led to widespread scarcity, malnutrition, and death. After the war, when the US military formally occupied Japan (1945–52), rāmen and other foods made from American wheat served an important function in providing emergency sustenance at a time when rice was scarce and there were severe food shortages. The dependence on wheat flour imported from the United States as a substitute staple for rice during and after the Allied Occupation produced a resurgence in the availability of Shina soba, as well as bread and biscuits, which drastically altered the eating habits of those who came of age after the war from those who did before. This chapter also explores the shift away from words tainted with the memory of imperialism and war.
Mark Roodhouse
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199588459
- eISBN:
- 9780191747564
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588459.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
The conclusion summarizes points made in the previous chapters, and sets out answers to the two primary questions: what was the pattern of evasion, and why did it take that shape? Drawing upon other ...
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The conclusion summarizes points made in the previous chapters, and sets out answers to the two primary questions: what was the pattern of evasion, and why did it take that shape? Drawing upon other national studies, this British experience is set in a wider European and North American context. Implications are drawn out of the argument for understanding the economy in mid-twentieth-century Britain. The underdevelopment of the grey and black markets points to the continued importance of the ethical dimension to economic life in ‘advanced economies’ after the supposed ‘great transition’ from a moral economy to a market economy. It also highlights the continued importance of non-market exchange in the modern economy, and reminds historians not to confuse monetary exchange with market exchange.Less
The conclusion summarizes points made in the previous chapters, and sets out answers to the two primary questions: what was the pattern of evasion, and why did it take that shape? Drawing upon other national studies, this British experience is set in a wider European and North American context. Implications are drawn out of the argument for understanding the economy in mid-twentieth-century Britain. The underdevelopment of the grey and black markets points to the continued importance of the ethical dimension to economic life in ‘advanced economies’ after the supposed ‘great transition’ from a moral economy to a market economy. It also highlights the continued importance of non-market exchange in the modern economy, and reminds historians not to confuse monetary exchange with market exchange.
Małgorzata Mazurek
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199827657
- eISBN:
- 9780199950461
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827657.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
A history of shortages and scarcity in postwar Eastern Europe has usually been narrated in terms of its potential to provoke mass political action or else as individual cultural practices, such as ...
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A history of shortages and scarcity in postwar Eastern Europe has usually been narrated in terms of its potential to provoke mass political action or else as individual cultural practices, such as bribing and petitioning. But in post-1945 Poland, as elsewhere in the Bloc, coping with shortages was most often addressed through tightly-knit social circles. Specifically, consumption in Eastern European was inextricably bound to extended networks of both relatives and close friends. In this chapter, Małgorzata Mazurek focuses on family circles and the ways in which they organized domestic provisions during the late communist period of 1976-1989. To unveil family stories about scarcity, she compares the experiences of two specific families based on oral histories conducted with them thirty years ago by a group of Polish social scientists and then again in 2006 by the author. By juxtaposing the previous interviews with the recent ones, Mazurek analyzes the cultural organization of family and friends (and the consequent networks of exchange and consumption) as an embedded but changing phenomenon. Here, memory seems to confound conventional wisdom about the failure of the communist system to provide, in large part because the system offered a profound flexibility, an opening for consumer strategies that the post-communist period decidedly lacks. A broader conceptualization of the consumer experience thus reveals that shortages could just as easily be associated with the loss of security in the post-communist period as they were with the anecdotal “empty shelves” under communism.Less
A history of shortages and scarcity in postwar Eastern Europe has usually been narrated in terms of its potential to provoke mass political action or else as individual cultural practices, such as bribing and petitioning. But in post-1945 Poland, as elsewhere in the Bloc, coping with shortages was most often addressed through tightly-knit social circles. Specifically, consumption in Eastern European was inextricably bound to extended networks of both relatives and close friends. In this chapter, Małgorzata Mazurek focuses on family circles and the ways in which they organized domestic provisions during the late communist period of 1976-1989. To unveil family stories about scarcity, she compares the experiences of two specific families based on oral histories conducted with them thirty years ago by a group of Polish social scientists and then again in 2006 by the author. By juxtaposing the previous interviews with the recent ones, Mazurek analyzes the cultural organization of family and friends (and the consequent networks of exchange and consumption) as an embedded but changing phenomenon. Here, memory seems to confound conventional wisdom about the failure of the communist system to provide, in large part because the system offered a profound flexibility, an opening for consumer strategies that the post-communist period decidedly lacks. A broader conceptualization of the consumer experience thus reveals that shortages could just as easily be associated with the loss of security in the post-communist period as they were with the anecdotal “empty shelves” under communism.
Richard E. Holl
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813165639
- eISBN:
- 9780813166674
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813165639.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Federal government regulation of the national economy reached an all-time high during World War II. The War Production Board (WPB), the Office of Price Administration (OPA), and numerous other ...
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Federal government regulation of the national economy reached an all-time high during World War II. The War Production Board (WPB), the Office of Price Administration (OPA), and numerous other federal agencies promulgated rules that Kentuckians had to follow. The WPB ended American production of passenger cars so that jeeps and tanks could be made for the military. The OPA put into place rationing and price controls. Kentuckians grumbled about the lack of new automobiles and steak, often resorting to the black market to get scarce goods. Even so, the U.S. government insured that more than enough weapons and other supplies were produced to win the war without a debilitating inflationary spiral.Less
Federal government regulation of the national economy reached an all-time high during World War II. The War Production Board (WPB), the Office of Price Administration (OPA), and numerous other federal agencies promulgated rules that Kentuckians had to follow. The WPB ended American production of passenger cars so that jeeps and tanks could be made for the military. The OPA put into place rationing and price controls. Kentuckians grumbled about the lack of new automobiles and steak, often resorting to the black market to get scarce goods. Even so, the U.S. government insured that more than enough weapons and other supplies were produced to win the war without a debilitating inflationary spiral.
