austin-murphy-the-triumph-of-evil

104 THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL
tisches Bundesamt, 1997), which comes to almost 100 hours per year.
This figure approximately equals the average number of hours that was
spent per capita waiting in line in the communist Soviet Union (Freeze,
1997). It should also be mentioned that the highly centralized and regulated
German capitalist system has less competitive pricing practices
than more decentralized capitalist systems like in the USA (and so
shopping probably takes less time in capitalist Germany than in other
capitalist countries), while the Soviet Union probably had longer waiting
lines than more efficient and more prosperous communist systems
like in East Germany (and so shopping in the communist Soviet Union
probably took more time than in other communist countries like East
Germany). Thus, it is far from clear that shopping takes more time
under the average capitalist system than under the average communist
system (without even considering the advantages of communist market·
ing systems in avoiding the manipulation and fraud that exists in capi·
talist systems).
Some evidence on this issue directly comparing communist East Germany
with capitalist West Germany is provided by Meyer and Schulze
( 1998). These researchers found that East German families spent less
time on housework (including normal shopping but excluding child care
upon which East Germans spent substantially less time) than West Ger·
mans, despite the fact that East Germans tended to have less access to
some household automation (like microwave ovens) and personal trans·
portation (although they did have greater access to inexpensive meals at
work which reduced household tasks related to preparing meals). One
of the primary time-consuming activities avoided in East Germany was
the need to "bunt fo r bargains and compare prices, quality, and quan·
tity."
A much more important difference existed with respect to the short·
age of specific goods and services in East Germany. In particular, there
was at least a l 0-year waiting time between ordering and receiving a
new car (Filmer and Schwan, 1985), and there was a similar wait with
respect to a telephone connection in East Germany (Schwarzer, 1999).
The system was not actually as incredibly inconvenient as it seems, as
it was always possible to buy a used car in East Germany, and there
were also ways to obtain a new car in a timely fashion by ordering it 10
years before one had the money available (or having relatives or friends
CHAPTER 2
105
do so 10 years before a child was of driving age). Given that a 25%
subsidy from the state significantly reduced the cost of new cars (ADN,
1990), and given that East Germans had about half as many cars as We st
Germans (Mueller, 1996), the shortage of cars was not nearly as terrible
as it may have seemed, especially since East Germany had an extremely
cheap but effective mass transportation system (Welfens, 1 992). Although
the telephone shortage created a more difficult problem, East Germans
were able to use inexpensive public pay telephones somewhat effectively,
and the cost of telephone service (when finally obtained) was
reasonably cheap in comparison to the capital costs of supplying it
(Schwarzer, 1999).
It should also be mentioned that many services like repairs had to
be reques�ed weeks in advance in East Germany (Filmer and Schwan,
1985). The latter situation motivated many to learn to perform their own
services and repairs Gust as the high cost of services and repairs in West
Germany motivated many to do their own work in those areas).
3. Lower levels of pollution. Because of its relative poverty, East
Germany spent less on pollution control than in the richer West Ger­
many (Gregory and Leptin, 1977), as is typical of poorer countries
(such as Mexico and Hong Kong) whose people normally value higher
consumption of goods over a cleaner environment (Robitaille, 2000).
Just for example, one study indicated that the workers of the most pol­
luted city of eastern Germany (Bitterfeld) were ready "to accept envi­
ronmental pollution" as a price for maintaining their jobs, and the uni­
fied capitalist German government itself placed very low priority on
pollution problems in eastern Germany, as illustrated by it budgeting
only 67 1 million Marks on pollution control in eastern Germany in the
�t year after unification, compared to East Germany spending over 2
billion Marks on pollution control in its final year (Welfens, 1992).1 In
fact, despite the closing of so much of East German industry shortly
after unification in 1990, the pollutant most dangerous to local human
health (sulfur oxide) actually rose in eastern Germany in 1991 from the
! evel in 1989 even though some higher spending by East Germany in
Its final year had significantly reduced the emissions in 1990 from the
19�91evel (Buck, 1996). 9 It should also be mentioned that there is little
evtdence that the pollution in East Germany had a deadly impact, given
that the death rates in the most polluted areas of the country were lower