Word: rationality
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Until the policy began to be gradually introduced, all Chinese peasants were grouped into production teams that worked the land in common. Each laborer earned work points, which were exchanged for a ration of grain and a small cash stipend. But in Jun Tan, as in an estimated 40% of China's villages, work points have now been abolished. Instead, each family has been allocated a plot of land to farm as it sees fit. The peasant gets seed and fertilizer free the first year; the second year the farmer uses his own money, or borrows...
...been freed for other cash-producing activities. In the Jun Tan brigade Carpenter Liu Zhangying, 34, receives $212 a year building furniture. He explains: "Before, I had to hand over more than half of my carpentry income in order to get the work points I needed for my grain ration. Now I get to keep everything I earn as a carpenter." By combining farming on one acre of land with carpentry, Liu and his family are now making almost $1,200 a year, an astronomical figure by Chinese standards...
...down their tools last week to protest widespread food and fuel shortages. In Zyrardow, 27 miles west of Warsaw, 12,000 women occupied textile mills. A union official explained that the townspeople faced "real starvation"; they had to wait three or four days, he said, for their weekly ration of 1½ lbs. of meat...
...that the bloom on the Socialist rose was beginning to fade. Inaugurating France's new, high-speed train last week (see SCIENCE), he was greeted with polite applause but no great enthusiasm. Hecklers bearing placards at stations along the way included members of the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail, a union that enjoys close links to the Socialist Party. Their message: workers still expect Mitterrand to deliver on his promise of lowering unemployment and reducing the work week to 35 hours. The leftist press too has begun to be concerned that...
Moreover, the shopper who hands his 2-in. by 3-in. ration coupon to a clerk is never sure whether even that meager allotment will be available. Many Poles never got their full share of meat last month. In spite of rationing, supplies of detergent and cigarettes have also fallen short of demand. Says one Warsaw woman: "I am 75, and I remember rationing under the Nazis. At least then you could be sure of getting what you had coupons...