Richard Wolff: The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Failures of Actually Existing Economic Systems

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The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Failures of Actually Existing Economic Systems

Wednesday, 12 November 2014 10:21
By Richard D Wolff, Truthout | News Analysis


Hype went wild coming into last week's 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. "Freedom" had been achieved. The German Democratic Republic (GDR), or what Western media preferred to call communist East Germany, had been rejected. Its hated official spying on its people - the massive "Stasi" apparatus - could not continue. Liberty and prosperity would and did arrive as the country rejoined the "free world." The people had peacefully overthrown actually existing socialism and returned to capitalism. No one could miss that (officially hyped) interpretation of the fall of the Wall. Yet it is hardly the only one, although that was rarely admitted.

True enough, a repressive regime collapsed amid promises of liberty and prosperity. That happened across much of Eastern Europe. Yet liberty and prosperity mostly proved elusive to achieve or keep. Where freedom ushered capitalism back in, capitalism quickly took over and imposed its heavy burdens. Euphoria, like springtime, never lasted.

Reintegrating into European capitalism via German reunification has not been the blessing so many Germans imagined back in 1989. They gave up secure jobs, incomes and generous social services. Retrieving freedom cost them heavily. The capitalism they rejoined has serious economic problems that keep constricting job opportunities and security, social services and future prospects. Gains in some freedoms keep costing losses of others.

Official and other pro-capitalist enthusiasts marked the 25th anniversary with rather suspicious exaggerations. Perhaps they celebrated so loudly to drown out - like drunks with alcohol - their rising anxiety about what capitalist freedom keeps delivering.

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One lesson to draw from the GDR's history is that if socialist societies are to be run by, of and for the people, then the people have to be in charge and that includes within the economy. Democracies (both capitalist and socialist) will remain merely formal when the economy continues to be run by small self-selecting minorities (in capitalism, major shareholders and the boards of directors they select, and in socialism, state officials). Those minorities will dominate until they are overthrown. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/27383-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-and-the-failures-of-actually-existing-economic-systems