# Was there really a factory in Communist Poland that made only left shoes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 27, 2006, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-a-factory-in-communist-poland-that-made-only-left-shoes/362415 "2006-06-27T23:45:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2006, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-a-factory-in-communist-poland-that-made-only-left-shoes/362415/21 "2006-07-02T21:49:40Z")
> [@deevee](#): > > Meeting quotas trumped common sense, Yeah, that \*never \* happens here… I’m not trying to be inappropriately political, just irreverent. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-a-factory-in-communist-poland-that-made-only-left-shoes/362415/22 "2006-07-03T01:12:22Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > He could sell them at I Hop 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-a-factory-in-communist-poland-that-made-only-left-shoes/362415/23 "2006-07-03T02:32:05Z")
> [@](#): > > I heard the story years ago in a Soviet history class. The version I heard was that the machinery that made the right shoe broke down but the company had its central planning quotas to meet so it simply kept producing only left shoes. Meeting quotas trumped common sense, something that wouldn’t have happened in a free market economy. Whether the story is true or not I don’t know but stranger things have happened in centrally planned economies. The version of this I’d heard was also Soviet and involved a quota. Supposedly, a shoe factory decided the easiest way to meet its quota was to make ten thousand identical shoes rather than five thousand pairs. Obviously this was a comment on the problems of a planned economy. No idea whether or not it was actually true. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-a-factory-in-communist-poland-that-made-only-left-shoes/362415/24 "2006-07-03T10:25:13Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > Some beachcomber kept finding shoes - in itself, not unexpected, but he observed they were all one particular foot, and the question was why he wouldn’t find an equal assortment of right and left shoes washing up on the beach. Alas, reality is much more boring than misremembering the past. The [first two shoes](http://www.beachcombers.org/NikeShoes.html) were both lefties, but the rest were pretty much a 50/50 split. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-a-factory-in-communist-poland-that-made-only-left-shoes/362415/25 "2006-07-03T10:30:48Z")
That last link goes to the Great Maritime Shoe Loss of 2002. This was preceded by the [Nike Overboard Snafu PDF](http://www.msc.ucla.edu/oceanglobe/pdf/nike_invest.pdf) of 1990. It too, had involved losses from both feet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-really-a-factory-in-communist-poland-that-made-only-left-shoes/362415.md?page=1)