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this direction appear to have already reduced social tensions.

Life for the average urban family has significantly improved since early 1971, especially in Warsaw and other large cities which give the appearance of relative prosperity. The food supply is more than adequate, although in some areas of the country lack of variety and periodic shortages continue to exist. The supply of clothing is also adequate, although most mass-produced products still suffer from lack of style, poor quality, and high prices. Nevertheless, middle-class urban dwellers, especially the youth, are style-conscious, and appear to spend an increasing proportion of their budget on privately made clothes along Western styles. Although the quality of durable consumer goods remains below Western standards, the sale of such items has increased rapidly, in part because of the existence of a limited but well-developed system of installment buying. In 1970, for example, the percentages of blue-collar and white-collar families owning selected durable goods were as follows:

The government claims that by 1971 the average industrial worker's family spent less than 50% of its total budget on food, and that improvements in the availability of consumer durables have resulted in proportionately greater budgetary allowances for these items. Although these claims may not be accurate, some change in consumption patterns undoubtedly has occurred. The following tabulation shows the percentage spent by an average worker's family from its total budget on selected items in 1965, and the trend of changing expenditures by 1971:

The gradual but measurable increase in the availability of durable consumer goods has paralleled the increasing willingness of the government—even before December 1970—to take a consumer-oriented position when measuring levels of living. For example, after long considering private ownership of automobiles an irrelevant measure of material well-being, Polish authorities began in 1967 to offer comparative statistical data attesting to Poland's progress in this regard. This followed a decision to expand domestic automobile production significantly with Western aid, such as the long-range deal for the production in Poland of Italy's Fiat automobiles. The Gomulka regime's halfhearted commitment to expanded auto production, however, pales in comparison to the well-publicized and highly popular new policy of the Gierek regime to produce family cars in such quantities as to "motorize Poland"—a drive that has Soviet blessings as well as precedent.

Although exorbitant prices—generally equivalent to several years' wages of an industrial worker—still confine ownership of automobiles to the privileged members of the party bureaucracy and to the managerial elite, the number of privately owned cars in Poland grew more than eightfold between 1950 and 1969, standing at 13 per 1,000 population in the latter year. This ratio, however, is still the lowest in Eastern Europe, with the exception of Romania and the U.S.S.R. (five autos per 1,000 population) and, certainly, Albania for which data are unavailable. In 1969 comparable ratios of automobile ownership per 1,000 population stood at 430 in the United States, 276 in Sweden, 246 in France, 208 in West Germany, and 205 in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, the Polish postwar achievement in this regard must be measured against the ratio of 0.9 automobiles per 1,000 population in Poland in 1938. Figure 22 shows selected indicators of consumer goods availability in Poland and other Eastern European countries in 1969.

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