Andreas Glaeser                                          

What I have said about East Germany before, is true for Soviet socialisms more generally: they provide an intriguing arena to investigate the creation and dissolution of institutions. More, since the once actually existing socialisms constitute arguably the most profound effort ever undertaken by human beings to consciously change an entire society, it also tells us a lot about the politics more generally, which is always an effort to either maintain or alter an institutional status quo.

 

The Dissolution of Socialism in the GDR:

 

The literature on socialism’s decline emphasizes economic and political reasons for its disintegration. On the one hand the rigidities of centrally planned economies are held responsible, on the other the administrative and political rigidities of a dictatorial regime. Both of these accounts of socialism’s failure have merit, and yet, as I argue in Political Epistemics: The Secret Police, the Opposition and the End of East German Socialism (for reference and sample chapters see HERE) they are falling short. The reason is simple. People living in socialism–-party functionaries included– were well aware of these shortcomings. The question is then more: “Why could they not do anything about it?” I argue in the book that we get a much better understanding of what is often called a “reform stalemate” if we consider how socialist institutions produced knowledge about themselves in the context of a wider world, that is to say if we would understand its political epistemics.

 

Learning from Socialism:

 

Comparative systems accounts of socialism are riddled with yet another problem. The liberal market economies of western Europe and north America serve as the default comparison point. Socialism’s failure is then often diagnosed as a failure to be like “the West”. The effect is a self-congratulatory smugness, which ironically smacks of socialism’s own smug fetishization of a particular understanding of what social, economic and political life is about. Indeed the rhetoric of comparative systems analysis precludes any systematic learning from socialism. By contrast, a form of inquiry which moves away from a juxtaposition of entire social systems does not have to engage in such a move. Instead a focus on process dynamics makes visible that many of these are shared across different institutional arrangements. This is of course not a surprise, given that many social arrangements share a common historical starting point, while also answering to similar kinds of challenges . Therefore some process dynamics may be merely more obviously visible in socialism while they are equally in force elsewhere. In Political Epistemics I have in this spirit identified process dynamics which people outside of socialism can easily recognize as familiar. The ones I have paid particular attention to are those leading to the circular validation of knowledge. What may happen if these dynamics prevail is that knowledge can all of a sudden become entirely useless as an orientational device for action while it feels at the same time well validated.

 

Ironically, the epistemic process dynamics that eventually led to socialism’s demise appear not so different from the ones that lead to the emergence of bubble economies. But this is for a new book to explore.

Socialism