PATHS TO DIGITAL MODERNITY 365
The dynamics of a networked society, moreover, presented them with
greater technical, cultural, and, above all, political problems than the
early phase of computerization. Therefore, without a doubt, the failure
to live up to the challenge of modern communication and information
technologies must be put at the top of the list of factors that contributed
to the demise of state socialism.
The Computerization of Work in Both German States
The computerization of work began as early as the 1950s in West Ger-
many, spreading to more and more areas in industry and administration
as time went on. In the GDR, on the other hand, the smallest technolog-
ical measures of rationalized work were celebrated by the media. There
was no shortage of propaganda images depicting the desired automation
of production, but there was a major dissonance between propaganda
and reality.^49 Over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, the main goal in
many fi elds of production was to establish the basis for the automation of
production and, in many places, just to mechanize production workfl ows
in the fi rst place. The SED leadership, however, still reckoned that at least
the Soviet Union would achieve the full computerization of its national
economy by the turn of the century.
Whereas the discourse in the West had been preoccupied with the
question of whether microelectronics were a blessing or a curse for the
workplace since the early 1970s, the rhetoric of progress espoused by the
SED continued unabated. Of course, it must be kept in mind that there
were not very many noticeable consequences of technological innovation
that were felt in the GDR in the fi rst place.
Since the mid-1970s, industrial production, many administrative
branches, and the service sector in the Western industrialized countries
had been revolutionized by the large-scale use of increasingly powerful
microchips for all kinds of applications. Contemporary observers were
quick to speak of a “third industrial revolution,” while singing the praises
of this “colossal tiny device.”^50 Indeed, the microchip unleashed a dom-
ino eff ect that changed the world of work. One of the fi rst branches to
feel the repercussions of rationalization and restructuring was the watch
industry, which had a long tradition in Southern Germany and Switzer-
land: it was hit particularly hard by the import of digital quartz watches
from East Asia. The manufacturers of cash registers and offi ce equip-
ment met a similar fate, especially because many of them had failed to
keep up with technological innovations.^51 The entire printing industry
was subject to a particularly rapid technological transformation in which