202 WINFRIED SÜß
tions according to Communist theories of society. In 1970, for instance,
approximately 83 percent of the workforce fi t into this category. By and
large, white-collar employees lost their income advantages over work-
ers. Outside of the party sector, they earned less than skilled workers if
they did not have a specialized diploma or university degree. To a certain
extent, therefore, the contours of a uniform “employee society” (Arbeit-
nehmergesellschaft) appeared earlier in East Germany than in the Federal
Republic. The meaning attached to the term “worker” thus changed ac-
cordingly, shifting from a category of employment and position in terms
of social law to a quite fl exible description of social background.
In general, diff erences in income were less pronounced in the GDR
than in the FRG. This was tied to the fact that the mercantile middle class
was pushed out of the uppermost income segment and also to the com-
paratively high wages that were paid for mundane jobs and the acceler-
ated reduction of qualifi cation-related income diff erences that had set
in once the Wall had gone up. Furthermore, income levels were less of
a factor in social inequality in the GDR than in the Federal Republic.
The high state subsidies for rents, basic necessities, and select consumer
goods put a damper on the eff ects of income-related diff erences. At the
same time, this above-average buying power was often off set by the lack
of goods available. This “doubled equality” of security and scarcity was a
strong thread in the social fabric of the GDR.
How did this infl uence social inequality in the GDR around 1970 on the
whole? The varying signifi cance of income and professional qualifi cations
for social inequality in the GDR underscores the fact that it makes little
sense to map categories of social inequality that were developed with
market economies in mind onto a society in which markets were noth-
ing more than subordinate variables of social inequality because of the
monopoly of politics over the production of goods. Heike Solga’s model
of a “socialist class society” addresses this problem by diff erentiating
between a small party elite with unlimited authority over the provision of
social goods, a service class with limited rights of access, and a working
class without any corresponding rights.^29
However, the SED leadership could by no means mold such social dif-
ferences at will. Rather, the party’s desire to control as much as possible
clashed with its often contradictory and inconsistent regulatory practices,
as well as the limited reach of its steering eff orts. This was particularly
true in cases in which plans for equality confl icted with the demands of
rationality in a state-controlled socialist economy that could not mobilize
suffi cient social resources for the economic rivalry between the systems
without a material incentive system. GDR sociologists intensively dis-
cussed this problem over the course of the “debate over driving forces”