PATHS TO DIGITAL MODERNITY 369
At the end of the 1970s, approximately 130 industrial robots had been
put to use in GDR factories, twenty-fi ve of which had been imported from
the West. The microelectronics program that was adopted in 1977 gave
high priority to the production and use of industrial robots. The goal was
to launch a robot initiative to produce seven thousand robots by 1980.
Offi cial statistics in 1980, however, listed only 2,189 industrial robots.^64
In contrast to the skeptical and fearful way in which the West Ger-
man public reacted to the use of this new technology, the offi cial rhetoric
in the GDR was accompanied only by positive expectations. In practice,
however, the introduction of computers did bring with it problems that
led to more than just minor social confl icts. Many of the workers aff ected
by it reacted with subtle forms of resistance.^65
As a result of the forced large-scale introduction of automation in
West Germany, companies were already facing entirely diff erent prob-
lems than their East German counterparts. The basic tenets of factory
organization became more streamlined as a result of the strong fi xation
on technology and automation over the course of the 1970s and early
1980s. Other sources of productivity and effi ciency were increasingly ig-
nored. Production processes that were organized along these lines not
only downgraded the importance of the expertise of employees to next to
nothing, but also chipped away at fl exibility, responsibility, and initiative
within the workplace. The qualifi cations and experience of skilled work-
ers diminished in value, which ultimately resulted in a loss of innovation
potential. On the other hand, the generally high level of production tech-
nology had led to a certain renaissance in skilled work since the 1970s
because there was a shortage of well-trained and experienced experts.
Many workers saw an increase in the value of their jobs using complex
machinery as opposed to that of hard manual labor.
Yet the peak phase of computerization took place within the context
of a growing global economic crisis. Surprisingly, this situation did not
at all hinder the advancement of computers and related communication
technologies, but rather fostered it. Indeed, computerization had not only
made inroads in industrial production, administration, and banking, but
also had made its way, either simultaneously or a bit later, into many
other areas of society. The individual eff ects of this technology and the
way in which it was received diff ered from case to case. In the West,
computerization soon brought new economic sectors that created more
jobs, such as the software industry.^66 More detailed research is needed in
order to determine the extent to which there were similar eff ects in the
Communist bloc states and how state institutions steered career special-
ization and job placement accordingly.