austin-murphy-the-triumph-of-evil

110 THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL
Germany or its leaders (Henke and Engelmann, 1995).
Some East Germans actually felt they had more freedom of speech
under communism because, unlike in capitalist West Germany, they felt
they could say whatever they wanted without fear of losing their job
(Eckart, 1984). However, a majority of East Germans believe they have
greater freedom of speech in the unified Germany than they did in com·
munist East Germany (Kramm, 1999). The latter survey results were
probably at least partially related to the deliberate transparency of the
East German secret police methods which made more people aware of
the restrictions on freedom of speech (and possibly also related to the
fact that many people in eastern Germany don't have a job and don't
realize the job-related penalties which can occur when one says the
"wrong" thing).
7. Higher Income and wealth (i.e., escaped reparations). As pre·
viously mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, West Gem_tan�
was richer than East Germany. This advantage (like the others mdJ·
rectly) derived directly from the relative post-war treatment of the two
Germanies and not from the type of economic system. In particular,
West Germany escaped from having to pay reparations for the crim . es
committed by capitalist Nazi Germany as a whole against the Sov1et
Union.
The dominating importance of this factor can be seen from the fact
that the flow of people from eastern to western Germany continued
unabated even after West Germany annexed East Germany in 1 �
(Statistisches Bundesamt, 19%), even after the two areas became vu·
tually identical except in terms of relative income, and even after the
massive welfare payments made to the eastern Germans narrowed the
income differential. Because capitalist unification in 1990 had destroy ed
the East German economy, reducing gross national product (GNP) by
over 40% (Osmond, 1992), and putting over half the population there
out of work, western Germany had to make enormous transfer pay­
ments to the eastern part to keep incomes above the levels under co�munism
(Rohwedder, 1996). As mentioned in the introduction to thiS
chapter, the communist system could have grown to being vastly richer
than the West German capitalist one if it had not had to make the enormous
reparations payments to the Soviet Union, and it certainly could
have created far more wealth and income with the large transfer pay-
CHAPTER 2
ments of the 1990s than has been the case under capitalist transforma­
tion of East Germany (as will be documented in Chapters 4 and 5).
CoNCLUSION
Given that virtually all the advantages of West Germany stem from
the external postwar treatment of Germany (and given that some of
the West German advantages are mere fa�ades ), communism dominates
capitalism in virtually all respects. This hypothesis . is c�n�iste . nt with
a survey finding 10 years after the Berlin Wall opemng mdtcatmg that
only 45% of eastern Germans in 1999 feel that capitalist "democracy"
is better than the old communist system (Associated Press, 1999c),
despite the massive transfer payments (or bribes) to eastern Germans
and despite the fact that the capitalist German propaganda machine has
continuously blamed communism for East Germany's relative poverty
while largely ignoring the true cause (i.e., the massive post-war repara­
tions forced on East Germany alone). 14
Nevertheless, it is possible that the average East German is at least
intuitively aware of the long-term superiority of their system. For
instance, a 1999 survey indicated that 67% of East Germans feel the
future perspective for the corning generations was better under commu­
nism than it was under the unified capitalist Germany (Kramm, 1999),
even though 70% of East Germans believe the advantages of unification
currently outweigh the disadvantages, mostly because of the improved
living standards brought on by the merger with (and welfare payments
from) the richer western Germany (Associated Press, 1999c).
Further evidence on this issue is provided by the unbiased survey con­
ducted in mid-December 1989 after the East Germans had been well
exposed to the riches of the West without having the reparations reason
�or their relative poverty explained to them. At that time, the �ast . �ajor­
lty (over 70%) of the East Germans were in favor of mamtammg a
socialist system and of m aintaining a separate East German country
(Bahrmann and Links, 1994). Only after the East German economy and
morale were destroyed by a 3: 1 exchange rate (that was artificially cre­
ated on January I, 1990 and that was ridiculous in comparison to the
&rester purchasing power of the East German currency) and only after
the West German currency and riches were promised immed�at�ly to
the East Germans in return for a unification vote, did the maJonty of