Worst thing since…

Posted by Marc Hodak on January 18, 2008 under History | Read the First Comment

This day in 1943, the Secretary of Agriculture banned sliced bread in the U.S. That may sound like a dumbass thing to do. It was, but at the time it was accepted as just one more sacrifice to be made for the war.

While most people in America had gotten used to the convenience of pre-sliced bread, nobody complained about this ban any more than the innumerable other rationing and similar inconveniences borne by “home front.” Most Americans, filled with patriotic fervor and more than a little fear–the war wasn’t going well for us at that point–felt that these hardships were minor compared to the sacrifices of the citizens of our war-torn allies, or by our sons, husbands, and brothers fighting overseas. Freedom isn’t free, as they say.

But did the ban on bread slicing really help? Could it? Collectivist reasoning in self-defense makes a lot of sense. We need to work together in a coordinated, non-market way to thwart a determined enemy. But collectivist reasoning in allocating scarce resources in a large economy is rarely sensible at any time, even in war. One might say that it would be ungracious to look at the ban on sliced bread in economic terms, but World War II was certainly an economic as well as military struggle. Our economic might contributed every bit as much as the bravery of our soldiers in the Allied victory over the Axis powers.

The point of the ban was that the metal that might otherwise go into making or repairing bread slicers was needed for the war effort. The problem was that none of the bread slicers already out in bakeries would be turned into munitions or jeeps. That wasn’t the point. The point was that no more slicers or parts would be made in order to reduce demand for metal being purchased by the government for armaments. Existing slicers would just stopped being used.

So, all of our hard-working citizens, mostly women, were now having to toil away in the fields and factories, then come home to take care of their children and keep their homes in order, including working through ration books to prepare for the next week or month, as well as contributing to the needs of neighbors undergoing particular hardships because their men were gone, as well as do whatever else was necessary in their communities…and now slice their own bread, too. It’s difficult for us today to understand what was really so great about sliced bread, but there was a reason it took off at that point in our history. It saved precious labor at a time when labor was our scarcest resource.

The government did not likely end up with an ounce more metal than it was already going to get–they were buying it all up, and all the factories that could be used to supply bread slicer parts had already been turned to the war effort. This ban would, predictably, simply idle a lot of labor-saving capital.

Even if the public was economically literate enough to understand that banning bread slicing was as silly as it sounds, they bore the ban graciously and without complaint. In fact, the ban played to the guilt of most people in America, acutely aware of the sacrifices going on beyond the home front, and not being able to do enough for the war. The government telling them that being denied sliced bread helped our boys in arms actually made many people feel better, even if the claim was bogus.

If our Secretary of Agriculture’s economic literacy matched his taste for economic command and control, he might have dictated that bread slicing continue as much as possible. The government could have said, “Sliced bread is patriotic. It gives our hardworking women in our factories who are building our Victory ships and planes a few moments of rest when they get back home.” Instead, our government chose to go beyond the necessary privations suffered at home into unnecessary ones. And, in a coup of collectivist ideology in which that wartime administration excelled, it probably even made the sufferers feel a little better about themselves.