austin-murphy-the-triumph-of-evil

1 76 THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL
cated only a third of the population in eastern Germany felt better off
economically than before (Junge Welt, 1991 ). 1 3 Even after western Germany
had poured over $100 billion annually into eastern Germany from
1990-96 (equal to about half East Germany's pre- 1989 Gross National
Product), the economy of eastern Germany remains a disaster zone that
requires similar continued high welfare payments from the west just to
maintain a minimum standard of living (Rohwedder, 1996).
Despite the ending of the large special subsidies paid to eastern Ger­
mans for fleeing to western Germany and despite the heavy economic
aid now being given to eastern Germany, the number of Germans fleeing
from the eastern part to the western part continued to run over
10,000 per month into the early 1990s (which matches pre- 1960 levels),
and this figure did not include the nearly one million eastern Gennans
who commuted to jobs in western Germany daily in the early 1990s
(Wochenpost, 1992b). However, noneconomic factors as well as the
dismal economic conditions contributed to the dissatisfaction and desire
to leave the eastern part of Germany. For instance, Garrettson (1991)
compared the situation in eastern Germany in the early 1990s to the
southern United States after the American Civil War: the area was
flooded with opportunistic West German "carpetbaggers" (like consultant
and financial swindlers) seeking "shameless exploitation" of the
eastern Germans, who had limited knowledge of the New Order and
who were persecuted for any part they may have played in the old
system.14
Nonfinancial Considerations
The analysis in this chapter so far has focused totally on financial
efficiency. However, a complete comparison of two systems and living
standards should include not only monetary and consumption figures
but also qualitative factors like political freedom, environment, and
other factors not incorporated into economic output (Lippe and Heese,
1983).
For instance, the higher level of pollution in East Germany (Buck,
1996) should be accounted for. One possible methodology is to take
into consideration the fact that West Germany typically spent about 1%
more of National Income on the environment than East Germany (Welf­
ens, 1992), assume this 1% differential could be eliminated by reducing
CHAPTER 4 177
productive East German investment by that 1%, and then reduce real
East Gennan economic growth by the 1% times the typical 17% return
on East German investment. The implication is that real East German
growth may have been overstated by about 1 %x. 17=().17% per year
(although it would remain almost 2% higher than in West Germany).
The social disutility of consumption good shortages and black mar­
kets in East Germany should also be considered. Although some of this
disutility could be avoided through the use ofExquisit shops where high
quality goods in short supply were sold for high prices denominated in
East Gennan Marks (Der Spiegel, 1962, 1987), some negative utility
may have remained as a result of deviations between price and value
(Feiwel, 1980). However, as explained in Chapter 2, these qualitative
disadvantages of communism were probably more than offset by vari­
ous odious capitalist factors such as general consumption uncertainty
related to marketing manipulation. For instance, price bickering, price
shopping, and waiting for the next "special" or coupon may create the
same (or even a higher) level of disutility as product shortages in East
Gennany. Although there was less time wasted on price negotiation in
�est Gennany than in other countries like the USA for big ticket items
h�e car sales (Sedgwick, 1993), capitalist marketing still created sigfll�cant
annoyances to consumers. In particular, the negative utility of
nusleading marketing tactics that can create undesirable disinformation,
uncertainty, and discrepancies between price and value in capitalism
(F � lo � g h and Stirkwerda, 1999) is so great that many people expend
a Significant amount of effort and money to avoid it (Kaufman, 2000).
�l � hough some West Germans may enjoy price shopping and adver­
hsm · ·
g, It IS also true that some East Germans enjoyed searching fo r
(and finding) scarce items, playing the black markets, and innovating in
cases of shortages.
s· .
fr unlla rly, the freedom from high rates of crime and drug usage, the
��om from unemployment anxiety, and the freedom from life sus­
:mmg money anxieties {through low stable prices for essentials, free
ealth c
are , and a secure social security system) in East Germany should
be
n
t �uary 1990, I conducted a limited survey of emigrants from East
1 measured against the limited political freedom there (Burant, 1987).
e quarta ·
1 hve factors. However, harassment and threats from the West
tho est Germany in an attempt to compute values for the some of