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TIL about East Germany’s extremely durable drinking glass (ceramics.org)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/til@lemmy.ca
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Superfest, chemically strengthened glass

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[–] 34 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Except if you read the article this was under East Berlin, which:

During this time, East Germany lived under a command economy, in which the Socialist Unity Party made all decisions regarding production goals and raw material allotment.

Since the company only existed alongside east Berlin, it seems like this was an issue with the command economy.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Except if you understand what the command economy is then you must understand this:

    A state-capitalist country is one where the government controls the economy and essentially acts as a single huge corporation, extracting surplus value from the workforce in order to invest it in further production.[3] This designation applies regardless of the political aims of the state, even if the state is nominally socialist.[4] Some scholars argue that the economy of the Soviet Union and of the Eastern Bloc countries modeled after it, including Maoist China, were state capitalist systems, and Eastern and Western commentators alike assert that the current economies of China and Singapore also constitute a mixture of state-capitalism with private capitalism.[5][6][7][8][9]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I mean, I guess if you're using a very loose definition of capitalism. Most people assume competition as a core element of capitalism and in a command economy that doesn't really exist.

    But based on the article the issue was the state taking a defensive measure for the glassworks industry, which would be more the state control side than the capitalist side.

    Overall though, it does get messy. Every economic system is both many things and evolving. I just wanted to point out this wasn't an economic system commonly referred to as "capitalism" and highlights that any economic system will have problems.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago*

    Well then by that definition capitalism isn't capitalism because the steady-state of capitalism without massive government interference (state planning) has always been monopoly or coordinating oligopoly, repeatedly shown through history.

    But yes, the "idealistic" system of pretty much any economic system won't ever exist.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago

    They wanted to export it to the west where they did not distributors. There was no demand economy in the west.

    I see in your other comment that:

    based on the article the issue was the state taking a defensive measure for the glassworks industry

    That is very much not in the article. Nowhere does it mention the state taking any measures.
    What the article fails to point out that the glassware industry who's profits were jeopardized was the western one. The profit oriented one.

    Also please note that East Germany was more than just East Berlin.

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