Bikes were “as indispensable to a Chinese as a car to twentieth century Americans.” Those are the words of Fox Butterfield from Alive In the Bitter Sea, his 1982 book about communist-era China. Call Butterfield’s account of just some of communism’s myriad horrors essential reading when it comes to attaining a tangible grasp of how little communism associates with anything related to competition or prosperity.
As Butterfield went on to report, “To buy a bike you also had to have a special bike purchase coupon” that was exceedingly difficult to come by. Butterfield interviewed one factory worker who indicated that, “out of every one hundred workers, only two were given these treasured certificates each year.”
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