This week the powers that be announced unrelentingly that we are, after all, deep in the 'thing-that-must-not-be-named'. The 'thing' that until now has had the euphemism, 'credit crunch' applied to it from the Ministry of For The Public's Own Good. But we weren’t fooled. We knew all along what they were trying to cover up, didn't we? Well, it's now been made official. We are in a recession. Hoorah! Whoop, whoop! Get those party poppers out. Please excuse me while I take this opportunity to congratulate all our wonderful economists, analysts and bankers for doing such a great job. Yeah, how about a great big fat bonus on us?
It was greed and selfishness that caused this latest recession. And we shouldn't be surprised at that, ay? Because greed and selfishness are what caused the material wealth in the first place. In fact, in our capitalist system, they're virtues. After all, it's all dog eat dog in the rat race. And whoever got rewarded for being nice in business? But what about that nice Richard Branson, you say? Oh dear. You really have been brain washed and are quite delusional.
So what great timing it was to hear about a far less reported story from a bygone era that's a world away from recessions. Because just as the words 'worst recession for 30 years' were echoing through offices across the globe, an architect who renovates buildings in eastern Germany unlocked a door and found himself instantly transported back to the Socialist state of the GDR. The flat had been apparently untouched since 1989, before the Berlin wall came down. They found documents that indicated that the guy who lived there had left in a hurry as he was in trouble with the East German authorities.
They found East German goods such as a bottle of Vita Cola, Juwel cigarettes and a bottle of Kristall vodka. No US junk, like Coca-cola, McDonald's or Marlboro. Anyone who's seen the 2003 film Goodbye Lenin!, directed by Wolfgang Becker, will understand the feelings of nostalgia and affection that these products can create in former East Germans. And what the Germans call 'Ostalgia' doesn't stop at consumer goods they can't get anymore. You see, not all of them thought that the socialist system was bad. Just like not everyone today thinks our capitalist system is good. Of course, they don't want the Stasi police back or their dictators who pocket a lot of the wealth for themselves, just like we don't want a return to the disproportional fat bonuses for the city boys or their directors. But they have this Ostalgia for their more secure past, the welfare state that existed under the GDR. Everyone had work, housing and a good health service free of charge. So although freedom, efficiency and the thrill of success were sacrificed, at least they didn’t have money pressures, which would seem like a relief to us all now.
The GDR might have been a bureaucratic workers' state, but it was more egalitarian than our capitalist system. It wasn't based on competition or the dog eat dog mentality, which meant people didn't see each other as competition or the enemy, and the collective lifestyle enforced by the socialist system created a sense of solidarity and a focus on the family, which the capitalist system is sadly lacking.
We all know that the rosy future promised for the East Germans before the vote for reunification under the capitalist system never happened, and that they ended up being far worse off than before. And it's ironic that today we're moving away from capitalist ideals and towards the much maligned socialist system, as governments have had to resort to bailing out the financial industries in an attempt to control the economy – albeit temporarily.
So it's becoming clearer and clearer that the capitalist system that the west has tried its hardest to replicate around the world at the expense of any other country's ideals, doesn't work as well as we all once thought. The trouble is, it is still the best system that we’ve thought up so far, but as this latest recession and world poverty suggests, it's time for an alternative. And in finding that, economists and academics have to take into account the positives of other systems, such as the GDR's socialist one, and not dismiss it entirely as a failure. We need to recognise not only the mistakes, but the successes too, without prejudice, so we can learn from it all and move on. That seems to be what humans always need to do, move on. It's kind of what gives us hope. And a reason to get those party poppers out.
As the GDR's poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote in a 1953 poem, Der Radwechsel:
"I am sitting beside the road
The driver is changing a wheel
I don't like where I am
I don't like where I am going
Why do I watch the changing of the wheel
With impatience?"
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