Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing

337 Pages·2013·1.75 MB·English

by  Stan Cox

SOCIAL SCIENCE $26.95 U.S.
“Richly informative and deeply courageous.” —Naomi Klein
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
Rationing:
it’s a word—and idea—that
“An iconoclast of the best kind, Stan Cox has an all-too-rare commitment to
people seem to fear and hate in equal measure.
following arguments wherever they lead, however politically dangerous that turns
Health care expert Henry Aaron has compared men-
out to be. In this richly informative and deeply courageous book, he tackles one of
tioning the possibility of rationing to “shouting
the greatest taboos of our high-consumer culture: the need to consume less
an ob scenity in church.” Yet societies ration food,
and to fairly share what’s left.”
water, medical care, and fuel all the time, with those
—NAOMI KLEIN, AUTHOR OF THE SHOCK DOCTRINE
who can pay the most getting the most. As Nobel
“Today, rationing is about as acceptable a topic of conversation as hemorrhoids. Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen has said, the
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. In fact, we do it every day, and our results can be “thoroughly unequal and nasty.”
reluctance to admit it serves us poorly. From death panels to water wars, Any Way In Any Way You Slice It, Stan Cox shows that
Stan Cox You Slice It explains with wit and sophistication how rationing happens. More fair-shares rationing is not just a quaint practice
is a plant breeder at the Land
important, Stan Cox gives us the tools to talk about rationing sensibly. And if we
restricted to World War II memoirs and stories of
Institute in Salina, Kansas. He has written on
heed him, those conversations will not only be better informed
gas-station lines in the 1970s. Instead, he persua-
environmental issues for newspapers nationwide,
but might even lead to a better democracy.”
including the Washington Post and the Los Ange- sively argues that how we ration is a crucial issue
—RAJ PATEL, AUTHOR OF THE VALUE OF NOTHING
les Times, and for many online publications. He was in our fragile present, an era of dwindling resources
voted The Atlantic’s Readers’ Choice Brave Thinker and environmental crises. Any Way You Slice It takes
“A cool and cogent analysis of a taboo subject . . . a brilliant opening of
for 2012. He is the author of Losing Our Cool (The us on a fascinating search for alternative ways of
a global dialogue on who gets what, when, why, and how.”
New Press) and Sick Planet. apportioning life’s necessities—from the wartime
—DAVID W. ORR,
PAUL SEARS PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND POLITICS, OBERLIN COLLEGE goal of “fair shares for all” in the 1940s to present-
day water rationing in a Mumbai slum, from the
“Time is running out for incremental, piecemeal solutions to looming global threats.
bread shops of Cairo to the struggle for fairness in
Cox offers a way out through a kind of ethical triage that is socially just and
American medicine and carbon rationing on Norfolk
ecologically sane. This brave book is not for the timid or those frozen by political
Island in the Pacific. And in this provocative and
taboos, but it is a must-read for those who want to forge real change before the
thoughtful book Cox asks: can we limit consumption
ecological doomsday clock strikes midnight.”
while assuring everyone a fair share?
—JEFFREY ST. CLAIR, EDITOR OF COUNTERPUNCH
The author of Losing Our Cool, the much-
AND AUTHOR OF BORN UNDER A BAD SKY
d ebated and widely acclaimed examination of air-
THE NEW PRESS conditioning’s many impacts, here turns his atten-
www.thenewpress.com tion to the politically explosive topic of how we share
our planet’s resources.
Author photograph by Paul Cox
Jacket design by David Shoemaker
THE NEW PRESS
Any WAy you Slice it
Also by stAn Cox
Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine
Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths
About Our Air-Conditioned World
(And Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer)
Any WAy you Slice it
The Past, Present,
and Future of Rationing
Stan cox
© 2013 by Stan Cox
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission
from the publisher.
Requests for permission to reproduce selections from this book should be mailed to:
Permissions Department, The New Press, 38 Greene Street, New York, NY 10013.
Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2013
Distributed by Perseus Distribution
ISBN 978-1-59558-809-8 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-59558-884-5 (e-book)
CIP data is available
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www.thenewpress.com
Composition by dix!
This book was set in Minion
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Wes Jackson

ConTenTs
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. the Material Equivalent of War 15
2. Is there a Ration Card in your Future? 51
3. Fair skies 83
4. . . . And not a lot to Drink 123
5. our Monthly bread 151
6. Painful Questions, Elusive Answers 197
7. slowing Down with the Joneses 241
notes 263
Index 309

ACknowledgmenTs
I greatly appreciate the help of Monal Abdel-baki, Abdel Aziz Ezzel
Arab, Altef, Ashraf, Mary Ann baily, Gladson Dungdung, Garry Egger,
nadine El-Hakim, Marian Fadel, Joshua Farley, tina Fawcett, Carl Fin-
amore, leonard Fleck, Alan Honick, bulu Imam, M.s. Kamath, Dadaji
Khobragade, Kishore, Fred Magdoff, Mahesh, negah, David orr, Priya,
Hugh Rockoff, Mark Roodhouse, Gene sandberg, satish, sharmila,
K.P. sinha, taheya, brian tokar, Vijaya, and Martin Weitzman. I am
especially and deeply grateful to Paul Cox, sheila Cox, Gouda Abdel-
Khalek, Jud brodie, David Evans, Jaideep Hardikar, Karima Korayem,
Mohammed, Maged nosshi, and Usama Rekabi. My special thanks, as
always, go to sarah Fan, whose tireless efforts have made this a much
better book than it might have been. I want to thank my parents, tom
and brenda Cox, and my mother-in-law, santosh Gulati, for their un-
flagging support as I was writing this book, and sheila Cox and Greg
Cox for their help in editing the manuscript. And no words can ex-
press the gratitude I feel toward Priti Gulati Cox—translator, backup
memory, photographer, and the love of my life.