Why empowr (Part 5)
Hello everyone,
Together, we've been reading the Why empowr book, written by one of the empowr founders. If you're just joining us, if you like you can first read the earlier parts here: Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4 As always, many thanks for your thoughtful comments that you left in the earlier parts. Each and every comment, each and every word that you leave is being carefully, read and digested by empowr's team and management, the founders and myself. Thank you! I'll try and post a new part every day when there's not another announcement. And for the benefit of readers, I promise to do a better job at removing all garbage and unrelated comments, such as "Why does PayPal not support Pakistan" and "Where's my cash out?" and "More money for me!", which have nothing to do with the topic of this blog post.
A Tale of Two Countries
World War II was the most destructive conflict the planet had ever seen, killing about sixty million people and gutting entire continents. Some of the damage done by the war is still visible to this day, more than half a century after it ended. When the war finally did end, after the development and deployment of the world’s first nuclear weapon by the United States, countries that had once allied with one another out of convenience, in order to fight Germany, quickly dissolved their alliances and squared off against one another, developing a conflict that became known as the Cold War. The two most powerful countries involved in the Cold War conflict, the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R) and the United States, created two huge alliances. The U.S. banded together with many other western nations to create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Soviet Union founded the Warsaw Pact with a number of other eastern European nations. Caught in the middle of this giant international conflict were the people of Germany. This was because, after the Allies defeated Germany in WWII, Germany was divided into two separate countries. The western half of Germany would, years later, align with NATO, and the eastern half joined the Warsaw Pact nations. While each half of Germany had its own preferred official title, the two countries became known simply as West Germany and East Germany. Less than five years after the end of World War II, West Germany began to embrace fully various aspects of western governance. The government became refocused on transparent democratic elections and capitalist economic policies, while also forcefully rejecting the communist ideology of its East German neighbor. In 1949, Konrad Adenauer became the first post-war, democratically-elected chancellor of the German Bundestag (Germany’s top legislative body). Despite having been at odds with the British in his role as mayor of British-occupied Cologne, when he became chancellor, Adenauer made a point of developing close ties with NATO. Additionally, Adenauer pursued a policy of broad economic reforms that focused on free-market ideals and recognition of individual liberties. His policies led West Germany to become one of the most inspiring comeback stories of the twentieth century. During the Wirtschaftswunder (German for “economic miracle”), West Germany became a phoenix that rose from the ashes of the most destructive war in human history and grew into an economic powerhouse, as well as a highly influential international force for good. Adenauer’s governmental and economic reforms were so comprehensive and successful that West Germany even went on to join NATO in 1955, allying with world powers that only a decade before had been at war with Germany. During this time, East Germany evolved in a very different way. Under the yoke of what amounted to Soviet occupation, the country’s economy made only a sluggish recovery. Marxist Communism was established, and it led to a great deal of dissatisfaction among East Germans because many of the policies made little economic sense. While the East German government was, in theory, supposed to operate with a great deal of autonomy from the Soviet government, many historians agree that it functioned mostly as a proxy regime for the U.S.S.R. Private industry was heavily regulated or taken over by the government entirely, which stifled entrepreneurialism. Nearly every other aspect of the economy was directly controlled by the government, as well. On top of this, the Soviet Union extracted billions of dollars’ worth of industrial equipment from East Germany as part of war reparations. Worse, even as they looted East Germany’s industry, the Soviets also imposed heavy quotas on all East German production, forcing many workers to put in incredibly long hours. Additionally, the Soviet Union regularly paid a ridiculously small percentage of market value for the goods it bought from East Germany. Aggravating these predatory economic conditions in East Germany were the restrictions on individual liberties and religious freedoms imposed on citizens by the government. The East German secret police force, known as the Stasi, became renowned for its repressive, ham-fisted tactics. Often, Stasi officers would detain suspected dissidents and subject them to incredibly harsh interrogation techniques or even outright torture. Over the course of the Cold War, many Stasi detainees disappeared, never to be heard from again. As the Cold War ramped up and the shadowy conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact grew uglier each year, East German liberties were even further restricted. Due to the heavy quotas and restrictions on individual liberties imposed on East Germans, many people (unsurprisingly) fled to West Germany or other countries before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. While the Berlin Wall deserves a book of its own, as it represented perhaps one of the most striking and enduring symbols of the differences between democratic and totalitarian-communist government, I’ll just quickly summarize its story. The city of Berlin was located in East Germany but was in the unique position of being controlled by four different world powers. Divided into quarters, the city was controlled by the U.S., Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.  Since the city was located in East Germany, the East German government and the Soviet Union had a great deal of control over how easily the western powers could supply their people within the city. This created a number of difficulties for the allies. At one point during the Cold War, the Soviet Union even cut off all supply routes to the Berlin’s western half, forcing the U.S. and its allies to airlift supplies to West Berlin in an operation that would become known as the Berlin Airlift. During the Cold War, so many East Berliners tried to escape to the West that the Soviet Union built a huge wall, complete with heavily armed guards, razor wire, and minefields to prevent the exodus. Despite this, the population of East Germany declined from 19 million people in 1948 to only 16 million in 1990. Over time, thousands of East Germans tried to escape over the wall, and hundreds were killed or captured. The unsuccessful socioeconomic policies and restrictions of individual freedoms imposed on East Germany by the Soviet Union eventually drove a large wedge between the Soviets and the East German people. As a result, after decades of being dominated by Soviet influence, an increasingly independent East German government began to seek a closer relationship with both West Germany and other members of NATO. Finally, after years of conflict and despite the efforts of the Soviet Union and its proxy, the East German Socialist Unity Party, the Cold War did not turn out in their favor. The flawed economic policies and iron-fisted rule of the Soviet Union combined with the huge costs of the Cold War to bring about the collapse of both its own communist government and many of the puppet regimes it had maintained over the course of the Cold War. In 1989, the Berlin Wall was opened up, and people began to cross freely between East and West Germany. The wall was soon torn down entirely. In 1990, the two Germanys reunited into one country. This reunification led to a dismantling of communist economic policies and the reinstatement of personal freedoms. The result was a huge increase in per capita GDP in the former East Germany.  Despite an exponential growth in GDP, there were some downsides to the reunification. Many East Germans lost their jobs, and the homeless count increased as a result. Further, many East German women who had benefitted under socialist rule from great strides toward gender equality found themselves at odds with the male-dominated western economy. Though some things made reunification less than ideal for a number of East Germans, after a relatively short period of time, the country regained its reputation as one of the most economically important countries in the world. An East German woman, Angela Merkel, even became chancellor of Germany. Now the most powerful economy in the European Union, Germany’s highly efficient democracy, world-class educational system, and thriving technology-driven economy are the envy of many countries across the globe. The story of the two Germanys is just one of a number of examples of how countries with democratically elected governments have consistently outperformed countries with every other type of government. The truth is that I could write an entire book on how democracy has saved the world, but, as I said earlier, I’d rather be brief than make you read through pages of evidence. So, since pictures tell a thousand words, here are just a few graphs that demonstrate the huge difference democratic governance can make:  The Koreas The Germanys In the following graph, follow the line to see how fast East Germany’s GDP rose as a percentage of West Germany’s GDP after the fall of the Berlin wall: 
In the following graph, even though the U.S. clearly has the higher per capita GDP… 
Catching Up Overtaking: USSR v.US GDP, 1946-1992 …upon closer investigation, you can see that the main economic activity of the old USSR was oil production—so their true economic capabilities were even worse than they appear: 
Much has been written about why democracy works better to improve the lives of its citizens. I won’t use buzz words like transparency, accountability, and efficiency. Those concepts also happen to be totally possible under non-democratic systems. While there are a number of factors in play, it is my opinion that one simple concept is responsible for the majority of why democracy works better than other systems. I believe that, if we all understand this simple concept, we’ll see why many democracies like our own here in the United States are currently experiencing great difficulty. You’ll also gain a deeper insight into why we made certain decisions and utilized specific approaches, as we worked to build our own democratic framework within empowr.com. In the next part, we'll discuss that one simple concept. | 
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