On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I explored Eugen Richter’s prescient dystopian novel, Pictures of the Socialistic Future. Eventually I even wrote a new introduction to a re-release of this classic book.
For the 30th anniversary, let me share what is perhaps the most inspirational page Zach Weinersmith drew for Open Borders. And if you object to the comparison between their walls and ours, think again.
READER COMMENTS
Mark
Nov 9 2019 at 3:25pm
This was a happy day for the Germans, but let’s recognize that the fall of the USSR also led to many walls going up (among economic decline and authoritarian governments taking over) in the Asian parts of the USSR: https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/10/31/convoluted-borders-are-hampering-central-asian-integration
The end of the USSR was a triumphal event only if you focus solely on Eastern Europe. This Eurocentric view of things is what led people to falsely think of 1989 as the “end of history.” Our cheers should be more nuanced.
Mark Z
Nov 9 2019 at 10:42pm
Just the newfound ease with which people from Soviet/former Soviet countries could now leave their countries makes the collapse ‘worth it’ in my opinion. Many of these countries saw significant population losses immediately after the dissolution apparently because people could now leave, whether to Europe or to better former Soviet countries, which surely caused ‘declines’ in the countries losing people, but not necessarily a decline we should see as a tragedy.
Thaomas
Nov 10 2019 at 10:59am
How much of German unification as an open borders success story depends on massive investments by the West in the East? How well would it have worked with no restrictions but E. Germany remaining a separate ill governed state?
Kurt Schuler
Nov 10 2019 at 12:08pm
For an answer, one can look at nearby former communist countries that did not reunify with anybody: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Baltic states. Their economies have all done fine on the whole despite problems in many individual areas, which were mostly resolved satisfactorily over time. There is no reason to think that, especially with the example of West Germany next door, an East German state that remained independent would have had governance any worse than the countries just mentioned. In postcommunist times all of them have all been above the world average in terms of respect for human rights, economic freedom, and efficiency of the government bureaucracy.
Nathan Smith
Nov 10 2019 at 3:09pm
The Russian version of communism wasn’t the problem, it was the American version. But since the victors write the history…
Pierre Lemieux
Nov 11 2019 at 11:54am
On the other hand, consider the following. Two-thirds of east Germans apparently consider that reunification has not been a success. The east is where the far-right Alternative for Germany gets most of its support. Some claim that the east is now the center of neo-Nazism. (See “Germans Still Don’t Agree on What Reunification Meant,” The Economist, October 31, 2019.) Moreover, aren’t the EU least liberal countries former East-European countries?
Mark Brady
Nov 11 2019 at 6:39pm
“Onlookers said, ‘At last, the East Germans will be free,’ not ‘the West Germans are about to lose their freedom to a horde of communist immigrants.'”
This isn’t comparable to most (all?) current immigration issues. Both West and East Germans regarded themselves as one people. They shared the same language and historic culture and many Germans had family and friends on both sides of the border.
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