The Communist New Man Versus the Bourgeois Individual: Family Enterprise in Poland and East Germany

The operation in the Polish People’s Republic and the German Democratic Republic of the non-socialized sector of the economy (the individual sector), in particular the limited number of family firms, was a remarkable phenomenon in the centrally planned economic system that prioritized socialized (‘nationalized’) ownership. The stability of legal rights to own and freely use property is of key importance for the everyday operation of small family firms. Sometimes referred to as ‘business marathon runners’, family firms are organizations of long duration. They draw on past experience and form their individual ritual of cooperation with those around them, based on tradition, ethics, and the so-called ‘principles of the founder’. This chapter aims to explain the mechanisms that allowed the foundation of family businesses in an economic system that was based mainly on nationalized ownership of the means of production accompanied by central planning and administratively determined prices.