ABSTRACT
Norman Birnbaum is University professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He is author, most recently, of The Radical Renewal: The Politics of Ideas in Modern America. This article is reprinted from The Nation, 5 February 1990. As for socialism, forty years of Stalinist and neo-Stalinist oppression have done their work. One slogan heard frequently in the Democratic Republic is, No More Experiments. Since none of those advocating democratic socialism can explain how a small socialist state could prosper in the midst of capitalist Europe, the West German model seems compelling to the East Germans. It is also true, however, that millions of citizens of the Democratic Republic are wary of the harsh, competitive aspects of the other German society. That society, though, is very unlike the United States. It provides a dense network of social benefits, and there is a large public investment in social infrastructure, especially education.
