Establishing the Socialist Workplace: Labour, Norms and the Introduction of Piecework

Abstract

This chapter looks at the formative years of the GDR. It begins by outlining the conditions of the immediate post-war period, identifying the challenges the new regime encountered. Chief among these was the task of returning the economy back to a stable, peacetime footing. Beyond that, the regime sought, in steps, to socialise the workplace, notably through the introduction of practices employed in the Soviet Union. This attempt at the Sovietisation of the workplace met with considerable resistance. Utilising concepts from behavioural economics, the chapter focuses its attention on the introduction of piece rates, work norms and performance pay—pivotal parts of the attempted transformation—to understand better why this process played out in the way it did.