Experiment Shows People Exposed To East German Socialism Cheat More 619
An anonymous reader writes The Economist reports, "'UNDER capitalism', ran the old Soviet-era joke, 'man exploits man. Under communism it is just the opposite.' In fact new research suggests that the Soviet system inspired not just sarcasm but cheating too: in East Germany, at least, communism appears to have inculcated moral laxity. Lars Hornuf of the University of Munich and Dan Ariely, Ximena García-Rada and Heather Mann of Duke University ran an experiment last year to test Germans' willingness to lie for personal gain. Some 250 Berliners were randomly selected to take part in a game where they could win up to €6 ($8). ... The authors found that, on average, those who had East German roots cheated twice as much as those who had grown up in West Germany under capitalism. They also looked at how much time people had spent in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The longer the participants had been exposed to socialism, the greater the likelihood that they would claim improbable numbers ... when it comes to ethics, a capitalist upbringing appears to trump a socialist one."
let me correct that for you. (Score:4, Insightful)
"socialism"
Money (Score:5, Insightful)
How much money did the people in each group have, on average, during their youth?
Otherwise they might be just testing whether richer people give a lesser value to a small amount of money than poorer people.
I'm pretty sure the average 20yo european would cheat less to get 8$ than the average south american and more than the average japanese.
Breaking news (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is this is more an effect caused by Stasi, and not the communism/capitalism divide.
Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Researcher ask two groups, that they know to be different beforehand, a question, and then are surprised to get different answers? Really? If it had gone the other way around, they would have had simply reversed the explanation. And this study has so many potential confounds, like poverty, or even geological distribution, that it's hard to describe the level of ignorance of researchers that contribute this effect in their abstract to "exposure to socialism". Last week there was something about children from religious groups vs. children from non-religious groups, and the message that gets picked up is: religious children are more superstitious, and this week it is: socialism makes people dishonest, etc., while in reality no such conclusion can be drawn. Seriously? F* this kind of research.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:3, Insightful)
there was no socialism in east-germany. there was none in east-europe. that was fascism with a tiny bit of communism-appearence thrown in. socialism is found in scandinavia, belgium, netherlands, france, and the former western-germany.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Refusing to acknowledge the icky parts doesn't make them go away.
Re:Breaking news (Score:5, Insightful)
.. there's a reason paranoia is a typical stereotype associated with eastern bloc societies. ...and the united states these days. Corporates cannot dominate without a powerful state willing to back them.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
there was no socialism in east-germany. there was none in east-europe. that was fascism with a tiny bit of communism-appearence thrown in. socialism is found in scandinavia, belgium, netherlands, france, and the former western-germany.
Most Western European countries are mixed economies, mostly capitalist, with some socialism, and a welfare state.
East Germany and the Soviet Union really bought into the idea of Socialism: the state owned everything. Private property was outlawed. You could go to jail for making a profit.
The East Germans were so committed to the idea that the state owned everything that they believed they had a right to build an enormous wall to keep the governments property (people) from escaping to the West.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:2, Insightful)
communism != socialism. you're an American, aren't you ?
It's democracy, stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh. We've known for a long time that in autocratic regimes of any type, levels of interpersonal trust are lowered. After all, your neighbor might be an informer, and the state itself is a liar and propagandist. Similarly, low levels of social trust correlate with all sorts of antisocial behavior, from cheating and intolerance to distrust of democracy itself. So all this experiment really proves is something we already know: living a long time under an oppressive regime generates distrust which legitimizes cheating and so forth. Capitalism and "socialism" have little to do with it.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Communism is State Socialism. It should be wrong to say that it is the only socialism out there, but it is definitely socialism.
I admit that I don't know why they said it was "socialism" vs. "capitalism". Granted, the West had capitalism involved, but there was definitely some form of socialism in Western Europe too.
Perhaps the real difference was an authoritarian vs. a democratic upbringing. In authoritarian states of all stripe, people might be inclined to try and fight or deal with the system the only way they could.... by cheating it.
To tell the truth, I think Communism itself was a flawed system, specifically because it set up the groundwork for revolutionary tyranny based on wishful thinking, followed by Leninism which set the groundwork for state tyranny enshrined in a Party that ruled a state that never quite got around to withering away. The fact that an authoritarian system developed from that is no surprise, but I don't know that such a state is the only possible result of the other forms of socialism.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Refusing to acknowledge the icky parts of American fascism doesn't make it go away.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:4, Insightful)
That is not fully true. At least in East Germany you owned things. You could own a car and the furniture in your house. You may have hat to wait long to get them, but you bought them from the money you own. In cretin circumstances you could also own a house, but that was rather rare.
Nevertheless the the notion you point out is sort of correct. If you all get the same pay and there is an allocation system based on "need", it is clear that you try to game the system, like work less or "needing" more.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Communism is State Socialism. It should be wrong to say that it is the only socialism out there, but it is definitely socialism.
Soviet communism was (corrupted) state capitalism disguised as state socialism.
Russia was truly communist for a few years after the Russian revolution, until the Bolsheviks took over and turned everything on its head and forever corrupted the word "communism". Now, instead of thinking "oh, communal ownership of the means of production so all may be equal", most people think "oh, corrupted state owns everything and represses its people so that a select few can have it unimaginably better than others" - which is so far from (any of) the communistic ideals that it's almost impossible to go any further.
Soviet communism was communistic in name only.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem has been that once a relatively few people got all that authority, under a socialist or fascist regime, they then never wanted to give it up. So societies never "evolved" beyond that to true communism. Nor is it likely to ever happen. Marx was a loon.
Pure communism is an interesting idea that is unlikely to work with humans in the long run.
It does not follow that "Marx was a loon". Given a society or species that is much more altruistic, willing to contribute to the entire society rather than focusing on personal benefit, the result would be elevation of everybody.
The idea by itself has merit, where all of society is doing all it can to contribute to everyone. But humans are greedy, selfish, lying, power hungry, egoistic creatures. Good idea, just not for humanity.
Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't matter what the study says - give it two days to pass through the blogosphere and some right-wing news sites, and you'll see this presented as the proof that all liberals are lying scum.
Wrong Control Variable? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not socialism, that's just corelated (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a simple case of living in system where you need to cheat (be creative, "organize", ...) to fulfill basic requirements.
That means that people who have lived through this deprivation, act funny to people in more normal econimies:
1.) So you need to sacks of cement. Typical response of a Western guy, "okay, let's go buy 2 sacks of cement, and what exact kind do we need?". Somebody tha has lived in the Eastern block might start plotting a "plan" to get his hands at two sacks of cement. That might involve all kinds of criminal or semi-criminal behaviour, be it stealing, defrauding, ... => one of the reason why many building efforts of the communist were not as well built as planned, quite a bit of material disappeared.
2.) Values and perceptions are also shifted. Happened to our family. Our car was stolen in a former eastern country. Very irritating experience, one has to organize how to get home, fill out a ton of irritating insurance forms, and one might wait a couple of weeks for a new car. Our local acquaintances took it as if the theft was "the end of the world" => cars at that time were viewed quite different there.
In my experience, it took at least a decade of "freedom" before the worst of there effects were gone (e.g. I need X => let's see what shops sell X), and multiple decades before it all faded kind of in the background.
Germany is a special case too, because it was a split country (so many things that are not commonly visible are more visible), plus Eastern Germany was one of the economic powerhouses of the Eastern block, so normal people could avoid the deprivation economy quite a bit longer/had to endure it way shorter.
But still, the point stays, if the only way to feed your kids is stealing, most people will start stealing. And if the situation where this is necessary keeps on going for decades, certain habits and values form that cannot be undone quickly.
Re:It's called the "Sovok" or old soviet mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe our greatest strength in the West has been the relative lack of corruption. I know that claim is like nails on a chalkboard to the common malcontent millennial armed with dozens of mod points around here, trained from birth to rail at every iniquity, but they are naive; the level of corruption that had to exist to reconcile the delta between the state and reality in Soviet bloc nations is several times greater than anything that has existed in the West.
Whole sciences had to be practiced in secret while the practitioners professed absolute allegiance to anti-science dogma such as Lysenkoism. A completely corrupt labor `bonus' system evolved to compensate valuable (not to be confused with `honest') employees despite government policy; something we see emerging today in our own corrupt government workforce. Occasionally the corruption would grow large enough to bubble to the surface and become embarrassing news even in a place that had absolute control over the news; the `Ryazan Miracle' was a case of this. Chernobyl was a direct result of corruption that provided bonuses and awards to officials throughout the system.
When you have to commit a crime by shopping the `black' market just to put staples in the fridge you are engendering a mentality. Sovok, as you say. An indifference to the value of laws.
Between the `drug war,' our welfare state, piratic corporate governance and ever greater abuse of power by our government, we are rapidly catching up.
Quite True (Score:3, Insightful)
One thing is that the folk is quite cunning in a bad way.
We had a joke in socialism which was called 7 wonders of socialism. I apologize for a quick translation which is inaccurate and probably misses the pun, but:
*1. Everyone has a job.
*2. Although everyone has a job, no one does anything (works).
*3. Altough no one works, the production plan is fullfilled by 100 %.
*4. Although the plan is fullfilled by 100%, there is nothing (nothing done).
*5. Although there is nothing, everyone has everything.
*6. Although everyone has everything, everyone steals.
*7. Although everyone steals, nothing is missing.
We invented company tunelling, go figure.
Re:Breaking news (Score:5, Insightful)
Communism causes Stasi.
So does capitalism cause House Committee on Un-American Activities?
And what's the difference between the two anyway?
But was it really unethical ? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the realm of ethics, three main schools are contesting : virtue ethics, deontology and consequentialism.
Virtue ethics say that being ethical is showing a certain number of virtues, and lacking a certain number of vices. Honesty is a virtue, dishonesty a vice.
Deontology ethics say that being ethical is following a certain number of rules (self-imposed or not), and usually deontology ethics contain rules against lying, too.
Consequentialism ethics say they being ethical is judging acts for the consequences it has on people. For consequentialist, lying (or stealing, or killing) aren't bad in thesmselves, but only because they have bad consequences (ie, they hurt people). For a consequentialist, stealing something that would be wasted. For example, after a natural disaster, a supermarket is wrecked and has no staff anymore, and food products are getting rotten, there is no harm done in taking them, so it's ethical to do so.
If you look at that setup, well, what harm is done by lying? Not much, so while virtue ethics and deontology would still prevent people from lying, consequentialism doesn't. Maybe the answer is just that people growing in DDR, less exposed to religion, are more consequentialist ? Which doesn't make them less ethical, none of the three system is clearly the "best", it's a highly contested topic (I tend to lean towards consequentialism myself, but don't completly reject the other two).
And on this, I'm definitely a consequentialist. Being a role-player, "lying about a die roll" has no strict ethical value to me: if I'm a player, it's unethical, but if I'm the DM, it's just part of the job ! ;) I never lied about die roll as a player, and would never do it, so you can consider me to be "very ethical"... but on the other hand, in a setup like that experiment (when the harm of lying is not clear at all) or as a DM, I don't have any issue with lying.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Communism works incredibly well but only in very small groups where pooled resources are necessary for survival.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm. A corrupted state where a handful of powerful elites dominate politics and the economy and use a captive government to repress the people so a select few can have it unimaginably better than others... where else have I seen that...
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you looked at libertarian socialist societies them you'd likely find they are less likely to cheat thanks to a high degree of social trust. Also, in a capitalist society, you'll find that the rich are more likely to cheat.
[citation needed]
I'd more easily believe that the libertarians would cheat more, because they assume the rules don't prevent it, and that rich capitalists would actually cheat less, but they'd exploit every nuance of the rules to their advantage.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
From experience; I would be willing to bet that ANYONE living with scarcity threatening day to day living is willing to cheat, lie, con, finagle and it can get so bad that you steal, mug, burgle,injure and could possibly kill, dependent on circumstances.
No real research in this story, just a reminder of mans state.
Re:Breaking news (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually one of the most important points and can't be stated enough.
Look at what's happening in the West now. Bankers run amok, ripping off trillions and causing widespread economic damage. Instead of being punished for their crimes (which aren't even acknowledged by those in power), they are allowed to continue. Inflation, taxation, offshoring, dubious immigration policies, and (in the USA particularly) a corrupted healthcare system resulting in enormous costs has ruined the middle class. The poor are just as fucked as ever and the only government response to that is to build more prisons for the crimes that are the result of poverty.
How do the people react? Take a look around. More and more people are resorting to get-rich-quick schemes and outright scams. Frivolous litigation in attempt to score a big windfall so they'll never have to work again.
Nobody wants to put in a hard day's work any more because they're realized that it's a sucker's game. Like a parent, government must lead by example. And the example they are setting is a dire one.
It's BIAS, stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
But thanks for showing it.
Study was done on 259 Germans.
Out of which "90 subjects reported having an East German family background and 98 subjects having a West German family background."
Too small a sample size to be of any use? Indeed. [wikipedia.org]
They are way out in the "our numbers mean diddly-squat" territory, as their margins of error are 7.82% (WGFB) and 8.36% (EGFB).
http://www.raosoft.com/samples... [raosoft.com]
I.e. when they report 9% and 19% average cheating that's actually 9 +/- 7.82% and 19 +/- 8.36%.
It could just as well be that WGFB are cheating 16% of the time while EGFB are cheating only 11% of the time.
Oh damn! Now it means that "because democracy, stupid", levels of interpersonal trust are lowered in the west.
Also...
They all rolled the dice only 40 times. A fair dice should give an average mean of 3.5.
They report average mean for "East German family background" (90 people) to be 3.83.
For "West German family background" (98 people) they report an average mean of 3.68.
But when you sample those same Germans whether they CONSIDER THEMSELVES East, West or just Germans - simply Germans (141 people) have an average mean of 3.70 while East/West Germans (73 people) have an average of 3.83.
Note how, smaller the sample the more extreme the result gets? That's because the overall sample size is too small.
A couple of people misreporting the results could be throwing the whole thing off.
AND they have a really strange sample of "German family heritage" (37 people), whatever that should mean as East-West was set as a 0-1 choice, who are practically not cheating at all, giving the average of 3.57.
While "others" (i.e. immigrants) cheat the most. 3.85. And yes, they are the smallest sample of only 30 people.
On the other hand... the incentive to cheat was simply not there.
At best, rolling a 6 all the time (i.e. cheating 100%), they'd get 6 Euros in the end. A cup of coffee costs about 4.2 Euros. [ekathimerini.com]
So people were supposedly cheating in order to get between 0.07 and 0.35 Euros?
But there was plenty room for false positives as they used physical dice they ASSUMED were fair.
When IRL a dice shorter by 3% on one side gives 6% more results on that side.
And low quality, toy store bought, dice are even worse. [dicephysics.info]
Also, East-West bias can be noted in the stats measured and stats assumed.
No regression calculation was reported for West German family, while t-test values were always fixed (i.e. assumed) for East Germans and always calculated for West Germans.
And there's that thing of "East German family background" being marked with a 0 and "West German family background" being marked with a 1.
Someone seems to like West Germans better.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not the GP. The CEO at my work gets $100+k a year, and he rips off government funding, rips off his employees (steals directly from our pay), and he's been known to steal software licences, pirate software and video. I'd bet that he uses the IT budget to buy his home computer equipment, too.
So there's your citation.
Wow, a solid citation. You do realize you're only hurting your argument by singling out a single person out of a world of 6B people as proof that rich people cheat. Don't make yourself look blatantly ignorant, back up your opinions man. Besides, I don't think most people would consider a CEO that makes money in the $100+K/year a CEO of much of anything. Many regular white collar jobs make more money than that. That's probably upper-middle class at best, which in fact works against your conclusions.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
And, really, the same thing happens on Wall Street.
Capitalism leads to cheating and malfeasance just as well.
The difference is the rich feel entitled to it, and some people think it's the natural order of things.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Enron. Bernie Madoff. Asset Backed Paper Commodities. High Frequency Theft.
Meh. I read the paper as for this specific group of people, coming from a system which was pretty much flawed and unfair, people have decided that "fuck it, why play by the rules" is a perfectly good strategy.
I don't believe that socialism (or capitalism) inherently create more cheating.
I simply believe that once people believe the system is unfair, or the penalty of being a dick is sufficiently small, why bother playing by the rules?
Humans are greedy, self absorbed, and selfish. And any system which favors one set of people over another will lead to people deciding if the system isn't fair, why play by the rules?
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:4, Insightful)
By 1800s standards, we are post-scarcity. There is ample food for everybody in the world, plenty of clothing, lots of housing. The things a person from the 1800s would be working hard to get are not scarce, although political and economic factors do interfere with feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.
Let's look at the US specifically. Poor people very often have color TVs and computers and/or gaming consoles, since those are cheap entertainment. Many of them have motor vehicles. These are things nobody had 150 years ago. Modern manufacturing has made stuff really cheap. (This includes stuff from way back, that is niche market now. You can get a very good sword for a few hundred dollars if you like, cheap if you have an actual use for it.)
Now, figure what's scarce in US society now. Imagine a society where all that is freely available, or at least cheap and easily available to everybody. I guarantee that the society will find new scarce things for everybody to covet.
We're never going to have a post-scarcity society. Never.
Re:let me correct that for you. (Score:3, Insightful)