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There is perhaps nothing so commonplace and yet so mystifying as money. But to European communists, money was clearly an instrument of economic exploitation and spiritual alienation. In this groundbreaking study, Jonathan R. Zatlin explores the East German attempt to create a perfect society by eliminating money and explains the reasons for its failure. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including unpublished communist reports, secret police files, literature, jokes, letters written by ordinary people, and conversations with key German politicians, this book shows how the communist regime undermined the political authority of socialism and created the material conditions for its demise. By exploring both the economic and the cultural function of money, Zatlin challenges traditional approaches to economic planning by offering a novel explanation for the collapse of communism in East Germany and a highly original interpretation of German unification. Written in an engaging and lucid style, The Currency of Socialism brings to life the scurrilous competition for power among communist officials and the everyday burdens experienced by ordinary East Germans.
- Sales Rank: #779985 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Cambridge University Press
- Published on: 2008-10-06
- Released on: 2008-12-18
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.21" h x .83" w x 6.14" l, 1.23 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 398 pages
Features
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
"a meticulously researched, well-written account of the economic ills of the former German Democratic Repulic.... Highly recommended."
-Choice
"Jonathan Zatlin, an assistant professor at Boston University, has assembled many remarkable insights into the history and collapse of the German Democratic Republic. Based on archives, interviews, and an extensive secondary literature, this book is excellently researched and illustrated, and is highly readable."
-Mark Harrison, Journal of Economic History
"This is a terrific book, scholarly but at the same time elegantly written and entertaining." -Economic History Review, Jeremy Leaman
"...an indispensable contribution to the economic, political, and historical study of the state-socialist enterprise." -Patrick Hyder Patterson University of California, San Diego
"Zatlin's book is exciting and wide-reaching because it skilfully illustrates the interactions between the political, ideological and economic calculations taking place in GDR socialism and vividly illustrates the increasing discord between ideological aims, political strategies and economic practice." Andrew Evans, H-Net
"Jonathan Zatlin convincingly argues that the Marxist-Leninist experiement was bankrupted because its doctrine offered no viable alternative to money." -Michael Allen, Business History Review
"As both economic and cultural history, the book is a great success." -Peter C. Caldwell, Rice University
"...Zatlin provides a fresh take on GDR history, a welcome book." -Ray Stokes, Journal of Modern History
"...Jonathan Zatlin offers a refreshingly different approach to analyzing the failures of the East German economic experiment by replacing the prices explanation with on focusing on the leadership's attitude toward money." -Kristie Macrakis, The Historian
"His analysis is multifaceted and elegantly presented." -Peter Monteath, American Historical Review
About the Author
Jonathan R. Zatlin is Assistant Professor of History at Boston University. He previously taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley. He has published articles in German History, German Politics and Society, Theory and Society, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, and H-German, among other journals. Zatlin was a co-winner of the Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize awarded by the Friends of the German Historical Institute in 2001.
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent "Economic" History of the GDR
By H. Campbell
The author is to be commended for his engaging description of the hypocritical, contradictory and self-defeating economic policies of the unlamented German Democratic Republic. His book does a better job than some others out there, such as "Dissolution," in minimizing the economic jargon but giving pithy, telling anecdotes about the average East German citizens' gripes about the glaring inequities of "real, existing socialism." The ironies are not lost, either. The author makes the excellent point that, had the Federal Republic not bailed the GDR out in the early 80s from impending collapse, Honecker probably would have been sacked. That outcome would probably have staved off the GDR's demise, since some kind of rational recognition of that country's economic liabilities and limitations would have been called for. Instead, Honecker's retention of his position as General secretary of the ruling SED virtually guaranteed the catastrophic continuation of his unrealistic policy of providing consumer goods and social services while paying off huge debts to the West. In the end, he failed at both, and for that, at least, we have to backhandedly thank the late Honecker for hastening communism's death.
The book makes the case that the effort of the socialist state to make money a medium of social equality rather than an expression of heirarchy or social position was doomed from the start. Contempt for money as an instrument of capitalist exploitation was confused by the recognition that money had to be provided to workers for compensation. Caught between this scylla and charybdis the SED wound up minimizing the value of its currency while expecting its citizens to hbe loyal to it. Naturally, such a Janus-faced approach gave the GDR's money no chance at competing with the West German Mark, which became the de facto currency of meaningful exchange, both in the government run Intershops and the thriving black market. As thr author points out, having to compete with its wealthier German brother to the west put the GDR behind the eight ball from Day One. When the rhetoric of resisting fascism for a utopian future began to get stale with the younger East Germans, the only option was to borrow money from the West to import consumer goods. Thus began the cycle of spiralling indebtedness, an export driven industry at the expense of the local consumer and cannibalizing local capital stock to pay off more debt.
This is an excellent addition to the library of any fan of GDR studies or the social economic dynamics of the Cold War.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
East German economic culture is explained
By marco a orozco
This book would be for those wish for a more realist insight of the DDR, or the GDR. The author introduced to me a more sensible, realist, and matter of fact version of the GDR than what the popular media outlets created. The book is well written, with a realistic view of history.
Though the Marxist, Socialist, and Communist theory is the elimination of money in order to usher in full social equality and stability among all members of the population, the GDR was unable to account for all capital and economic variables, such as investment in infrastructure and unforeseen obstacles. In order for the GDR to continue economically, the author presents the GDR population as rational economic players, within the government's irrational economic policy. Also, the author demonstrated the GDR's ruling party and leaders did what they could to avoid bankruptcy by allowing the West German Mark to circulate in several legal and illegal schemes. This allowed, over time, the population to notice a new class of haves (those who have access to the D-Mark, therefore more economic choices) and have nots (those without access to the D-Mark, therefore less economic choices), which is counter intuitive to the country's socialist model of social and economic equality. Overall, Honecker, the central committee, and the SPD leaders were stealing from Paul (the people), to pay Peter (west Germany) in order to save Paul from bankruptcy.
One running hopeful theme I have found throughout the book, is that the human condition to strive for a better and secure political, employment, and home life was evident, regardless of social potion. The author does justice to balance the government's economic policy within Marxist/socialist theory versus the population's economic reality within legal and illegal markets. At the end of the day, many GDR citizens wanted to keep a socialist GDR of economic justice, while allowing a free market from which to fulfill their economic desires.
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