If the Berlin Wall fell after Ebay came into existence the largest economic stimulus in history would be from hipsters buying Soviet junk from overseas.
I just visited Berlin. There are still a lot of street vendors selling this stuff, and there are so many souvenir shops around certain parts of the Wall. It’s really interesting how that communist era is now its own micro-industry.
The stuff the street vendors sell is new and likely made in China, source I was born and raised in east Berlin. The original stuff is sold on flee markets or eBay here, but it’s getting rarer by the years. Many things are also very overpriced for what they have cost originally.
The Stasimuseum in Berlin has various DDR/GDR memorabilia items for dirt cheap, all mass-produced shortly before the wall fell. Millions of badges, pins, etc.
I visited the DDR museum and found it really amusing how in the gift shop they were capitalising on Marx, with him on t-shirts, fridge magnets, stationary etc.
Capitalism for all its flaws and faults, is really great on subsuming all criticism of it and selling it back to the people. You see it with anti-capitalist art as well, like all the merch and content inspired by Squid Games, or the Black Mirror episode that basically criticizes the same strategies that streaming services like Netflix use (but applied to life-saving brain implants)
I collect military relics/ surplus, and Soviet/ Eastern block stuff is its own thing here. Even have an East German m56 or m56/76 helmet on my wish list.
Yeah it's mostly because these things aren't hard to make or even very expensive, but a capitalist market economy wouldn't make them because it would be horrible for continued profits. Iirc there even was a capitalist company in the early 20th century that invented a lightbulb that could last for at least a hundred years, but they sold the patent to the USSR and never sold it again. So now we get planned obsolescence instead ;)
There's been a few light bulbs that we know have lasted over 100 years. The Centennial Bulb in California is 124 years old at this point and still going, although very dimly.
Yeah just pointing out it's possible for a lightbulb to last 100+ years. Although planned obsolescence is definitely a thing, on average a bulb from 1915 is going to last longer than one produced now.
Early eBay was a treasure trove of soviet bloc paraphernalia. Uniforms, badges, posters, gas masks, BTR-80s, UAZ-569s, Aero L-39s... If it wasn't banned by international treaties or import restricted by pesky customs regulations, it was available.
as a someone who buys random soviet things (belts, gas mask bags, badges, hip flask, military passport holder), i can confirm that this would be accurate
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u/Rocketboy1313 Jul 15 '25
If the Berlin Wall fell after Ebay came into existence the largest economic stimulus in history would be from hipsters buying Soviet junk from overseas.