rationing

(noun)

The controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.

Related Terms

Examples of rationing in the following topics:

  • Economic Conversion

    • It rationed such commodities as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, paper, and plastics.
    • Tires were the first item to be rationed by the OPA, which ordered the temporary end of sales on 11 December 1941 while it created 7,500 unpaid, volunteer three-person tire ration boards around the country.
    • Sugar was the first consumer commodity rationed, with all sales ended on 27 April 1942.
    • Coffee was rationed nationally on 29 November 1942.
    • By the end of 1942, ration coupons were used for nine other items.

  • Economic Controls

    • The OPA had the power to place ceilings on all prices except agricultural commodities, and to ration scarce supplies of other items, including tires, automobiles, shoes, nylon, sugar, gasoline, fuel oil, coffee, meats, and processed foods.
    • It rationed such commodities as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, paper, and plastics.

  • The Freedmen's Bureau

    • The Bureau distributed 15 million rations of food to African Americans, and set up a system where planters could borrow rations in order to feed freedmen they employed.

  • Pragmatism

    • Peirce was concerned with inference to explanatory hypotheses as outside the usual foundational alternative between deductivist rationalism and inductivist empiricism—though he himself was a mathematical logician and a founder of statistics.

  • Romanticism in America

    • American Romanticism emphasized emotion, individualism, and personality over rationalism and the constraints of religion.
    • The Romantics rejected rationalism and religious intellect.

  • Energy and Environmental Reform

    • Many politicians proposed gas rationing; one such proponent was Harry Hughes, Governor of Maryland, who proposed odd-even rationing (only people with an odd-numbered license plate could purchase gas on an odd-numbered day), as was used during the 1973 Oil Crisis.
    • Several states actually implemented odd-even gas rationing, including Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Texas.

  • Efficiency

    • Progressive reformers tried to apply scientific principles and rational problem-solving to social problems.
    • Many progressives such as Louis Brandeis hoped to make American governments better able to serve the people's needs by making governmental operations and services more efficient and rational.

  • Attack on Fort Sumter

    • Rations were short and fuel for heat was limited.
    • He received news that Fort Sumter had only 6 weeks of rations left.

  • The Revolutionary Army at Valley Forge

    • These women gained half the rations and wages of a soldier, as well as a half pension after the war.
    • Children received quarter rations.

  • The Battle of Chattanooga

    • Receiving intelligence that Rosecrans's men had only six days of rations, Bragg chose the siege option, while attempting to accumulate sufficient logistical capability to cross the Tennessee.
    • Union soldiers began to feel the effect of extremely short rations and many of their horses and mules died.