Thuy Mai, a former teacher at the Ho Chi Minh City Comprehensive University in Vietnam, recounted a visit he had made to a factory in Communist Vietnam:
When a [Communist] party member in my team asked a worker how many wheels were produced a day by each person, he replied that before April 30, 1975 [the day Saigon, subsequently renamed Ho Chi Minh City, fell to Communism], he made one wheel and a half, but now he made only one-third of a wheel. Why, asked the party member, had his efficiency fallen? The worker pointed to his belly and answered: “However much I work, I only get the same level of pay. If I work harder, I’ll die sooner…. I’m just not up to working.”
Source:
Nguyen Van Canh, Vietnam Under Communism, 1975-1982 (Hoover Institution Press, 1983) p.110.
