There were “market forces” in play, but they were hidden, so to speak. Thing is the Soviets and people East of the Wall also had limited resources, like most e

There were “market forces” in play, but they were hidden, so to speak. Thing is the Soviets and people East of the Wall also had limited resources, like most everyone else when it comes to economics, and as such they had to come with a solution that would work at scale, while using the least amount of resources, while providing a decent amount of service, so to speak (fulfilling people’s desire to live under a roof with their family, for example). The more rational use of building materials, the more was left for using part of those materials for war-related stuff (one can use iron to both build a block of apartments made of reinforced concrete or to make tanks and artillery shells). There’s this perspective in the West that us here in the East were guessing our way through the entire economic process, which, in many cases of course we were (like it also happens in capitalism), but the system couldn’t have resisted for as long as it did if it had all been left to make-believe or simple educated guesses. If it matters I live in one of those commie blocks and I quite like it, including the whole ideological concept behind it.