The Beauty Of Standing In Lines
One of my friends was raised in a Communist country and she tells amazing stories about the time wasted navigating the bureaucracy. And I used to have some interns from formerly Communist countries who would tell stories about the first time they saw a banana or some such thing.
We forget that there are still people living under Communism who experience these indignities daily. The New York Times, though, spins it about as positively as you could imagine in the piece "As Life Passes by, Venezuelans Are Always Standing in Line to Watch."
“Why make yourself upset over such a thing?” asked Thaís Estrada, 62, a retiree waiting in line one recent morning to pay an electric bill at a government-owned utility. “Standing in line is a chance to make new friends,” she said while chatting with a woman next to her.
Good point. In fact, are there any downsides to line-standing? We do learn that criminals prey on people in line but I think the reporter claims that line-standing is endemic to Venezuelan culture. We learn about the black market for people who will help navigate or endure lines. Finally we get to an economist willing to explain the situation:
Where some see opportunity, others see inefficiency. Juan Nagel, an economist who is an editor of Caracas Chronicles, a blog on Venezuelan politics, recently composed a screed describing his ultimately unsuccessful two-and-a-half-hour wait, number in hand, to open a bank account.
“Half an hour passes. Three people get lucky,” Mr. Nagel wrote, referring to people grasping folders of documents needed to get access to hard currency. “They approach the attendants like a serf approaches a lord.”
Mr. Nagel attributes the lines partly to policies like price controls and labor rules that determine how many employees a certain company can hire. These measures also inhibit competition, he argues, making it easier for businesses to mistreat customers.
The story ends, though, with a woman saying she welcomes such policies and that when she sees a line, that's where she wants to be.
I guess I should be glad that the Times even notices the lines or their significance.
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Mar '11
Re: The Beauty Of Standing In Lines
The British, of course, are famous for standing in lines or, rather, queues. It's a socialist country, rather than communist, and the lines are often virtual.
For example, state-run health care - the way that rationing occurs. On this trip to England I noticed for the first time ads for private knee or hip replacements. It's not uncommon for people to die before they get to the front of the state-run line. But you get free pain medicines while you wait (where have I heard that before?).
Jun '10
Re: The Beauty Of Standing In Lines
When president Jaruzelski, the last communist president of Poland, was in power, there was a joke circulating that went: A man had been waiting in line two days for bread when he finally snapped and shouted to his line mates, "I've had enough, I going to shoot Jaruzelski!" Three days later he comes back to his place in the bread line where his line mate asks, "Well how did the shooting go." More depressed than ever the prospective assassin replies "There was a three day line-up of shooters."
Edited on Jul 20, 2011 at 9:53amMar '11
Re: The Beauty Of Standing In Lines
Is there any downside to standing in line?
Well, that depends on the purpose for which you are standing there.
Military drill often involves standing in lines for reasons that are not immediately apparent. A little reflection, however, on the goals of discipline, unity, and moving and standing together makes its purpose completely self-evident.
Waiting in line to buy food at the market? A forms of respect (albeit mundane) for other citizens.
Waiting in line at my local bureaucracy for whatever sheet of paper gives me permission to do whatever activity I am approved to do for however long the bureaucracy feels I should be licensed to do it before paying yet another fee and waiting in line yet again for the privilege--what higher good does that serve?
It does not serve noble goods. It does not even serve sturdy virtues. It serves baser things: the appearance of regularity (not duty), predictability (not liberty), orderliness (not order), fairness (not justice).
In so doing, modern bureaucracies sap certain kinds of strength. They discourage certain ways of thinking--in both the bureaucrat and the citizen he attends.
So, the question is: what line am I standing in, and what for?
Jul '10
Re: The Beauty Of Standing In Lines
Pinch Sulzberger is one of those children of privilege who feel guilty about having been born into wealth, but not so much that he wants to stand in lines himself. But such is his commitment to a leveled society that he is okay with the rest of us learning to become philosophical about queues. The Obama economy of scarcity will give us plenty of opportunity to cultivate many friendships as we wait. Perhaps, like the Soviet citizens of old, we too will learn the consolations of vodka and early death.
Re: The Beauty Of Standing In Lines
This gets to a long-standing gripe of mine with mainstream journalism. Many reporters excuse themselves from culpability for the content of quotes because they are simply reporting "what the people are saying". All well and good, but we know the act of selecting the quote is, in and of itself, a sign of where the writer's head is at. Sure, the Times balances it out with the quote from the economist, but should we really be giving these two sources equal weight? The latter is hard-nosed empiricism. The former nothing more than banal sentimentality.
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.:
We forget that there are still people living under Communism who experience these indignities daily. The New York Times, though, spins it about as positively as you could imagine in the piece "As Life Passes by, Venezuelans Are Always Standing in Line to Watch."
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Jul '10
Re: The Beauty Of Standing In Lines
In my experience, most countries don't have lines.
Nov '10
Re: The Beauty Of Standing In Lines
To buy a cabbage in Soviet times you had to stand in 3 lines: The first line, to select your cabbage. The second line to pay for it. The third line to pick it up.
It was not a pleasant atmosphere. People were very grumpy, especially the highly specialized clerks.
As a foreigner I rather relished this experience and its significance, but obviously it's not something you'd like to do everyday.
Oct '10
Re: The Beauty Of Standing In Lines
There's a solution if you hate waiting in long lines. He's called a "fixer".
Aug '10
Re: The Beauty Of Standing In Lines
Whenever the monetary price of something has an arbitrary ceiling, the higher price will manifest itself in some other way, such as a line or waiting list. There has to be some mechanism like that to reduce demand to equal supply.
For instance, in my community, there are two supermarkets. Once has lower prices and long lines at the checkout counters. The other has higher prices and short lines, because they have many more lines open.
Whether waiting in lines, as an alternative to paying more money, is a good thing or a bad thing depends upon how much your time is worth. But in a Communist country, the waits are so insanely long that the lost productivity is a significant drag on the overall economy.