Synthetic Socialism: Plastics and Dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic

by Eli Rubin

Eli Rubin takes an innovative approach to consumer culture to explore questions of political consensus and consent and the impact of ideology on everyday life in the former East Germany. Synthetic Socialism explores the history of East Germany through the production and use of a deceptively simple plastic. Rubin investigates the connections between the communist government, its Bauhaus-influenced designers, its retooled postwar chemical industry, and its general consumer population. He argues that East Germany was neither a totalitarian state nor a niche society but rather a society shaped by the confluence of unique economic and political circumstances interacting with the concerns of ordinary citizens.To East Germans, Rubin says, plastic was a high-technology material, a symbol of socialism's scientific and economic superiority over capitalism. Most of all, the state and its designers argued, plastic goods were of a particularly special quality, not to be thrown a

Genres: History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[endrju]

There aren't many studies focusing exclusively on plastics beyond what came to be known as the waste studies except a few texts here and there and a couple of books, notably American Plastic: A Cultural History, Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic, Plastic Capitalism: Contemporary Art and the Drive to Waste, Peak Plastic: The Rise or Fall of Our Synthetic World, Plastic Matter and, finally, Plastics, Environment, Culture, and the Politics of Waste. There is an even smaller number of works about plastics in what used to be East Bloc so this is a very inspiring and useful starting point for further research into former communist and socialist countries of Europe.

[Andrew]

An exciting and inventive approach to the history of the German Democratic Republic. This book remained an inspiration to me during my own doctoral research and writing.

[Alexandra]

"Life in plastic, it's fantastic" - Aqua, and the GDR