THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF EVERYDAY LIFE 297
mid-1960s and the beginning of the 1980s, consumption and consumer
culture clearly became more individualized and pluralized. During this
period, consumer choice became an individualized form of socially rel-
evant action that included the most diff erent distinctive consumption
options. This made it possible to identify diff erent social groups of con-
sumers with fi rm preferences.^11 The basis for this process had been laid
in the second half of the 1950s and the early 1960s when West Germany
and other Western European countries transitioned into mass consumer
societies.^12 The 1960s brought a quantitative and qualitative expansion of
consumption and diversifi cation, feeding into a clear market penetration
at the end of the decade.^13 Mass consumer goods could be found every-
where, even in lower-income households.^14
The transformations that took place in the West can only be compared
partially to what happened in the COMECON states. A wave of consump-
tion did follow after the end of the Stalinist phase of industrialization that
had focused on the expansion of heavy industry, but it occurred later
than in the FRG and other Western European industrial countries such
as Great Britain and France. Around 1960, consumption had just gotten
a start in Eastern Europe. With the exception of the earlier spread of
radios, there was a considerable consumption gradient within the COM-
ECON.^15 The GDR at the time was very much a “society that met basic
needs” (Bedarfsdeckungsgesellschaft).^16 Essentially, social policy in the
GDR aimed to secure basic provisions. In 1958, as rationing fi nally came
to an end and fi xed prices were introduced, a gradual catch-up modus in
terms of the “satisfaction of needs” set in, and mass consumption spread
during the 1960s.^17 Consumer policy, as did design policy, followed a
concept of egalitarian mass production in accentuated opposition to West
Germany and in keeping with the idea of postwar “Socialist Modernity”;^18
a distinctive kind of consumption only began to form at the beginning
of the 1970s. From this point on, the GDR developed its own kind of
consumerism, which was only partially comparable to what emerged in
West Germany. As the core element of Honecker’s political turn after the
Eighth Party Congress of the SED in 1971, the “elevation of the mate-
rial and cultural standard of life” stood at the heart of political decision-
making.^19 This was only partly related to the availability of consumer
goods because it placed a great emphasis on the improvement of “social
consumption,” which referred to family-related social services and the
push to build more housing.^20 Referred to as the “departure from Utopia,”
this trend in consumption introduced in the GDR was seen as the inten-
tional political abandonment of formerly existing paradigms that revolved
around the satisfaction of needs, utility, and rational consumption. It led
to an increase in distinct consumption choices, which will be discussed