because the government is not terribly good at knowing what individual people want

Last year I took a class on 20th Century Euro history, and wrote a paper on East German consumerism. It was so fascinating. I learned a lot, wrote a huge paper and always intended to pare it down to a post to share. Now I'm re-reading my paper to pare it down for a 10 minute history lesson on life behind the iron curtain, so it's probably a good time to do that.

Basically, if you lived in East Germany and wanted to buy things...you were screwed. For the East German, your consumption was restricted by rations, shortages, high prices, poor quality, limited choices, or just plain empty shelves. I think it's rather hard to wrap our minds around this, for those of us who live in America, so here are a few concrete examples:

• eggs, milk, butter, meat, fruit...basic foods were rationed in East G until 1958! (whereas it ended in West G in 1950)
  
• cocoa and coffee were often unavailable
• the food on the shelves might be ruined; the meat spoiled
• the packaging was poor
• If you would like to buy a luxury item (toaster, refrigerator, TV) you faced:
  
• limited choices
• waiting list, years long
• you might wait on a list for years to get X-brand, and then be told you would have to take Y, which was poorer quality
  

East Germany = German Democratic Republic = GDR
Ruling Party as of 1949 = Socialist Unity Party = SED


The SED's goal was to reduce excesses of capitalism: capitalism thrives on production and waste. The more you spend, the mo' better our economy does (which, by the way, is why i got a letter in the mail yesterday from my government telling me a $600 check is on its way...i'm glad my government does know a little bit better at what i want, after all). But the socialist wanted none of that. They wanted to level the social classes and see that its citizens equally had just what they needed. So, the SED created a planned economy: they regulated what would be produced, how it would be distributed, and how much it would cost. Prices reflected the cost of production/distribution, rather than demand. Basic goods were subsidized by the gov't. Luxury items were taxed. Basically, the government had to make the decisions about what people would want to buy and how much would be sold. The government is not very good at knowing this sort of thing...

The government's bureaucracy, surprisingly enough, was not efficient at responding to changes in production to reflect need and demand. Trade and industry didn't cooperate. Industry, driven to meet quotas, did not care for style, quality and variety; their goal was to produce as much as possible with minimal work. The result was mass production of poor quality products that consumers did not want. Prices were set by the state, so retail stores could NOT sell the goods. Just to make a silly example, the industry might produce 500 t-shirts with the logo upside down; they didn't care, they just had to meet quotas. Of course the stores couldn't sell them, but they weren't allowed to put it on sale. Hence, the economy could have surpluses when it still was not meeting its citizens' basic needs.

The reality for consumers in East Germany was terrible. Ration cards were left undelivered; rotten meat was delivered to stores; the overall quality of the food was poor. Products available for purchase in the store had little variety. There was no brand-name competition to drive quality or encouragement improvements. Products stayed the same from the 1960s to 1989. Poor craftsmanship, poor appearances, bland packaging and lack of design characterized GDR goods. With subsidized goods and higher wages, scarcity was a serious problem: the result was great frustration which often became ugly in stores. The discrepancy between supply and purchasing power increased as prices fell and wages increased. High taxes were imposed to “soak up as much purchasing power as possible." Consequently, citizens complained that they could not afford goods.

And this was a problem. Because communism wanted to prove to the world that it was better. Since East Germany was in proximity to the west, it was supposed to be the "showcase" of socialism. The world was watching to see who would win. And the SED felt pressure to show that communism was superior through the products of their economy. They promised their citizens that socialism would win. The competition between capitalism and communism was most evident in East and West Germany because divided Berlin was an easy place for those behind the curtain to see the consumer successes of life on the other side - where the Marshall Plan was helping West Germany get back on its feet, where the Soviet Union was not demanding reparations, and where capitalism was working - where citizens could buy quality consumer goods.

The GDR bureaucracy didn't fulfill its promises; it was unable to meet the consumer demands. And so East Germans fled. They fled in such great numbers that the crops didn't get harvested because the farmers left the land...and the food shortage problem was compounded. Of course eventually they built the Berlin Wall to stop the refugees (in 1961). But the wall didn't fix the consumer problems, nor did it stop the consumers from demanding more.

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and in 1990, the SED was voted out of office. Socialism was discredited as a viable economy. As long as consumer goods were a measure of GDR success, the SED failed. Consumption had been a problem for the whole life of the GDR. Mass consumption was an important element of the twentieth century, and a “culture of consumption” was created through a rise in fashion and advertising. East Germany, for all its efforts to be different and to shut out the West, was not immune to this. While socialism tried to fight against such bourgeois, capitalist ideas, the ever present example of prosperity in West Germany was too alluring. The GDR promised that it would be a place of social mobility and the end of class, but there was no workable plan for consumption. Instead, its citizens suffered through shortages and deprivation.

• For further reading: These were a novelty in East Germany in the 1950s: self-service stores. It really is a fascinating concept: read about it.
• A side note: the SED attempted to match product and demand by working with the fashion industry. It didn't work.
  
• I really really wanted to include this quote in my paper. I couldn't squeeze it in.
  

(please email me for citations. =)

Why we oppose votes for men:

1. BECAUSE man's place is the armory.

2. Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it.

3. Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them.

4. Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms and drums.

5. Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them peculiarly unfit for the task of government.



more from Alice Duer Miller

Why we oppose pockets for women:

1. Because pockets are not a natural right.
2. Because the great majority of women do not want pockets. If they did they would have them.
3. Because whenever women have had pockets they have not used them.
4. Because women are required to carry enough things as it is, without the additional burden of pickets.
5. Because it would make dissension between husband and wife has to whose pockets were to be filled.
   
6. Because it would destroy man's chivalry toward woman, if he did not have to carry all her things in his pockets.
   
7. Because men are men, and women are women. We must not fly in the face of nature.
   
8. Because pockets have been used by men to carry tobacco, pipes, whiskey flasks, chewing gum and compromising letters. We so no reason to suppose that women would use them more wisely.
   

Are Women People?: A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage
by Alice Duer Miller


(we're studying the Twenties right now)

have you ever seen this?

Tomorrow we are going to study Dada: an anti-art movement that rose out of World War I; artists that wanted to challenge the accepted, blur the boundaries between art and life, and provoke conventionalists.

What's fascinating to to me about Dada is the name. Its precise origins are unknown, but I think the ambiguity is intentional. Dada is a word that means 'yeah yeah' in Romanian. In French it means hobby-horse. It's a word found in several different languages, and the meaningless of the "movement's" title is the point. Of course being called a movement is counter to the whole idea of Dada. But for lack of a better word, we call it a movement, and it's called Dadaism.

We're going to look at the work of Marcel Duchamp mostly. He did the above. He's famous for taking objects already created and "perfecting" them. He would alter them somehow and declare them his artwork. Hence he made ambiguous what could be called art. He termed them Readymades. (I'm particularly good at this type of art. Yes, yes, hold your applause.)

His most startling work - well, depending on who you are: Mona Lisa defaced is pretty startling - is when he took a urinal and signed it. Titled: Fountain.

re: Rosie

If you recall the Rosie the Riveter post, this will be very cool news to you:

All the "Rosies" were meeting in Atlanta this past weekend, and the very woman of the famous poster will be there. She's 88.
More sweet pictures here on the ajc.

Rosie the Riveter

This woman worked in a factory during World War II screwing in rivets on torpedo bombers. She and her partner screwed in 3,345 rivetrs in one shift - completing an entire wing.

"self-service stores"

An East German upon visiting a self-service store in West Berlin (1956)-

"Except for meat and sausage, which are sold by salesladies, all manner of commodities are made available for self-service in shelves made of wire…All kinds of foodstuffs are offered such as legumes, flour, sugar, condensed milk, fresh milk in bottles, sweets, coffee, canned vegetables, freshly cut vegetable sin cellophane pouches, fruit and potatoes in bags. In order to ease the selection, the goods are packed in different quantities so that the contents of the packages can either be seen from the outside or determined from labels. The selling proceeds as follows: the customer takes a wire basket supplied at the entrance, one corresponding to the extent of the intended purchase and the desired selection of goods. At the cash register a saleslady calculates the prices of the goods and hands them to the customer, taking back the wire basket. These stores enjoy increasing favor because the goods on offer are easily assessed and the purchase proceeds relatively quickly."

Quote from Landsman, Dictatorship and Demand.

"As we shall see, butter was only the beginning of his problems."

Landsman on Curt Wach, minister for trade and provisioning in the GDR on end of rationing, 1957. (Dictatorship and Demand)

"It can't be prevented that Frau Mode is a downright moody lady."

(Fashioning Socialism - Stiztiel)

I'm excited because I have just found out I have an extra weekend to write my paper. So you might get to be entertained by interesting quotes and tidbits.

ampelmannchen

the things I am learning about East German culture.


and the things you can learn from wikipedia.

letter

From Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that an men are created equal ..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we viii be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?

The whole letter is amazing. You should read it if you never have. It's long-eleven pages. It was begun on margins of newspaper and scraps of toilet paper.

too late for coherence

It's really about time to start bloggin' on the ol' trip again.

But now we're talking about digging into old memories, which in frigid February, in the middle of the work year, seem like a daydream. I sort of recall waiting for the Grand Geyser to erupt, and eating hot dogs while Lake Yellowstone formed white caps before our eyes. But mostly it seems like a dream...like any other dream I've been having in the past week that I can't explain, but that are vivid and detailed, and usually nightmarish. I would attribute them to my World War One readings, but I had put them aside for nearly a week until yesterday evening, and so I'm not sure they are to blame.

It's time for bed, so I'll leave it at that: that I plan to come back soon to write more on Old Faithful and the Grand Tetons.



Currently my thoughts are absorbed in trench warfare and the insane battle tactics of WWI that didn't work at all. It is horrific and terrible in a way that those words don't have enough power to express anymore. And I guess I have this morbid fascination that keeps me reading. like I can't believe it's really true (that, and i'm taking a class). But there are a few amazing things I want to share: and then I really will go sleep.

There were (an estimated) 25,000 miles of trenches from Belgium to Switz. They could have encircled the planet. One writer imagined a telephone chain going north to south, down the line. And there is a story (though maybe not true) that at one point the Germans started making a ruckus, banging tins, starting up in Belgium, and it went all the way, 400 miles to Switzerland.


They thought it would never end. the war, i mean. They joked: "How long is your stint?" "Oh, seven years." "You're lucky: I'm duration."


I'm crammin' my head full of this stuff...sure hope I can pick it up later.

Winston Churchill said

on words:
Eating words has never given me indigestion.

I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks.

In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.

Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.


with poinancy to wwii:
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

golly he said a lot of famous things-
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.


wise:
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.


and witty:
He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

If I was your wife Sir, I'd poison you!
-Madam, if you were my wife, I'd let you!

Mr. Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought served him right.

The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.

I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
???


I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.

I should have liked to have known him.

installment 2

As far as the fighting of World War I goes, there are probably 2 basic key concepts to take away: trench warfare & new technology. Because of new technology, soldiers built trenches, and because soldiers were hiding in trenches, new technology was developed for new tactics of fighting.

The fighting in WWI was in trenches. When the fighting began, Germany expected to be able to knock France out in a jiffy. But new technology made war more devastating and advances harder and more costly. Basically the lines of the Western Front (in eastern France) were formed in the first year of the war and they didn't move for the next 3 years. So, the armies built intricate trench systems. They used balloons and then, increasingly, airplanes to scout out enemy lines and take photos. They developed mortars which are like canons that are aimed at a high angle so they fall down into trenches. And, they developed gas, which came in different forms, some were odorless and invisible, that had terrible effects on skin, on lungs.

A very important thing to know about WWI was that it saw drastic technological advancements. Now, the American Civil War also saw great technological advancements that made it so bloody, but the leaders of Europe did not know much about it. And when they let tensions escalate so, they had no idea that it would produce such a horrific war. And when they preached national pride and honor in battle to their young men, they did not know that World War One would claim the lives of 9 million men, and leave many others physically and emotionally and mentally scarred.

But battles of World War One were horrific. A battle would take months, and claim the lives of a million men. In the Battle of Verdun, the battle tactic was attrition: to wear down the opponent, to kill as many as possible. One side would fire mortars and shells on the other side for days at a time - 7 days, 8 days. Meanwhile soldiers are dying, digging deeper, going crazy from the noise, from the vibration. Then, the offensive side would fire one huge mortar and there would be silence. Then troops would rise up out of their trenches and march across No Man's Land. They thought they'd find empty trenches, but instead they were hit by intense machine gun fire, and they fell fast. Those that reached the enemy trench faced men in gruesome hand-to-hand combat, killing men whom they had no argument with, who perhaps were peasant farmers just like them. And maybe the offensive side would gain 5 miles.


Fighting of World War One does have some fascinating stories. Dogfights are fights between two aircraft. They flew around in dizzying circles, firing at each other. It was all so unadvanced and the machine guns positioned on them (at least in earlier years) were immobile, so a pilot had to be aimed straight at his enemy to fire, in which case he was a likely target. Men in the trenches would watch dogfights overhead for entertainment. The famous Red Baron was a German fighter pilot who became known throughout Europe and even in America. He was not an ally, but British kids were still fascinated by him. He won some 20 or 30 battles, which is a record, before he was shot down in 1917. (And this is who Snoopy dreams of being...and you have perhaps heard of Red Baron pizza.)

geography and history

don't look down

My idea of a summer driving trip is beginning to take a little bit more shape...as I learn American geography. I don't know how I thought I could 'stop by Kansas City' en route to Dallas. Fortunately, maps.google is completing my education in geography.

But seriously, I have a few friends to join me on various legs of the trip, and as I continue to study the map and process what a trip it will be - I'm getting more excited! There are, naturally, several details that need to come into place before this will really be a wise decision. But we shall see, we shall see.

Meanwhile, World War One pervades most of my thoughts. I am discovering, far more so this year than last, that WWI is a fascinating topic of study, and that so many of the events of the twentieth century can be traced back to what happened there. Unprecedented human brutality, genocide, disintegration of huge empires - lumping of people groups into Yugoslavia & Palestine, cutting up of the Middle East, famine and economic disasters that led the way to fascism and the rise of Communism. All of this comes out of World War One.

And the thing that strikes me is that the more I learn, the more I want to talk about it, and the more I do talk about it, and the more I realize that most people don't know anything about it. The magnitude of what I'm learning is overwhelming, and I want to share what I learned. A crash course - what everybody should know about WWI. I think it will help me to process my thoughts and pull out the most significant meaningful things, and have an outlet for sharing because sometimes people are tired of me talking about it...

So, if the years of 1914-1918 were so pivotal in the course of history, how is it that we got to this point? Well, most can pinpoint the assassination of the Archduke's Ferdinand as the catalyst. He was shot by a Serbian in Sarajevo, Bosnia which was a province (of sorts) of Austria-Hungary. But to understand why that happened, and why that would set off a fire, we must go back further.

The 19th Century was a century of imperialism, nationalism and rising and falling empires. Germany, France, Britain among others were fighting for lands in Africa, Mid East, and Southeast Asia. The Ottoman Empire was falling apart. People groups inside of it were getting restless and Russia was trying to lap it up/help them get their independence. Austria-Hungary was trying to help itself to remaining portions - areas in the Balkans. It took Bosnia and had tense relations with Serbia. Meanwhile, both Italy and Germany have just become unified. Italy doesn't gain a whole lot of power, but Germany, led by the war-Hungary Prussian Bismarck, is eager to match Britain in colonies and a navy. In its pursuit of land and power, Germany fights France for a region on their border, Alsace-Lorraine, and wins (1871).

In summary: France doesn't like Germany for fighting them and taking their land. Britain doesn't care for Russia being imperialistic and she's always had issues with France. Britain is very wary of Germany's militarism. Russia and Austria-Hungary are at odds over land in the Balkans (present day Bulgaria, Greece, Bosnia, Croatia, etc.) and the Ottoman Empire weakening still. Germany has made enemies with nearly everyone.

So, in all this tension over land (Imperialism) and a rise of Nationalism (pride and feelings of superiority) and building of army/navy (Militarism) you add forming of Alliances to make a pretty acronym of MAIN, and the causes of World War I. France and Russia form an alliance for protection from Germany (smack between them). Germany forms an alliance with Austria-Hungary because that's the only friend she's managed to keep. (Italy was in with that too, and it was called the Triple Alliance, but Italy will back out.) Russia forms an alliance with little Serbia because she helped lands in the Balkans get freedom from the Turks and would not like Austria-Hungary to eat it up. Naturally Austria-Hungary does not care for Russia. Eventually, by 1907, Britain decides to join the side of Russia and France, making the Triple Entente. Meanwhile, things are so bad that some countries are mobilizing troops and Germany had a major war plan: the Shifflein Plan.

When the ol' archduke's assassinated on June 28, 1914 (because Serbs don't like the rule of Austria-Hungary over Bosnia where some Serbs live, simply put) it creates a chain of events. Austria-Hungary sends an ultimatum to Serbia with terms that mean war. Germany is eager to back Austria-Hungary to prove loyalty. When they declare war on Serbia, Russia joins to support her ally. France joins to support her ally. Germany declares war on France and Russia and sets her Schifflein plan in motion, which involves a surprise attack on France through Belgium. Britain rushes in to rescue her ally, Belgium (from those terrible baby-eating Germans). The war has become a world war. Eventually the Ottoman Turks will join the Central Powers I think because the Germans helped to build her army up. Italy will remain neutral until 1915 when Allied Powers promise her lands in Austria-Hungary where Italians are living. Japan joins the Allied Powers hoping it might gain some land in the Southeast. I think that's it. Switzerland, naturally, remains neutral.

...a map would be good here...

And, of course, America joins in 1917 'to make the world safe for democracy.' They join because those Germans kept shelling passenger ships from their U-boats (submarines) and in the famous sinking of the Lusitania, 128 Americans were killed. In January of 1917 Germany sent a coded telegram to her ambassador in Mexico saying basically: "We're about to again begin unrestricted submarine warfare. This might pull US into the war. In that case, would you join our side, and we will promise you lands of the Mexican Cession in return (ie Texas, Arizona, etc.)." The Zimmerman Note. This was decoded in Britain, and the British waited until the time was just right to present this to the American Public when it would be the 'tipping point' for American sentiment against those Germans. Propaganda was also working its charms.


that's all for now folks. i'll try to dose it out in edible quantities.

world war i

For your perusing pleasure, I would like to direct you to this site: http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/index.htm#12. You will learn so much about WWI and there are so many pictures - you could spend an hour looking a photos, drawings and postcards alone, not to mention the text. Elizabeth Stewart found it and showed it to me, and we'll be looking at it this week.

Actually you could probably spend 10 hours looking at this site, so let me show you something cool - go to the artists and find Hansi. Hansi has some artwork in the menu from Cafe Alsace in downtown Decatur. He drew cartoons from that period depicting the contrast between German occupation preWWI and when the Germans left it. It's kind of comical: http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Hansi/Hansi_02.htm. I'm also really hooked on all the postcards that they have too. So amazing.