German reunification delivered a vast low-cost labor pool to employers

Evidence

Thirty years earlier, he had presided over the dismantling of GDR infrastructure after the fall of the Berlin Wall and began the incorporation of Eastern German labor markets into the West, giving West German employers access to an enormous labor pool stretching all the way to the Baltics and the Russian border—the inclusion of “six Liverpools,” as an advisor to Margaret Thatcher put it. The fate of the GDR was but a miniature of a global process of capitalist consolidation. From Russia to India to Indonesia, great stretches of the planet suddenly found themselves roped into a global community of the market, subject to changing labor scales and welfare standards. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 125

Categorization

• SHARE: The ‘six Liverpools’ framing of East German accession is a striking Thatcher-era advisor line that a specific person with strong EU/economic-history interest would appreciate.
• ADDENDUM: East Germany’s incorporation into the West as cheap labor extending a capitalist labor market parallels themes already explored around systemic consolidation.
• XREF: connects to: Germany weaponized foreigner status to depress wages and split the labor market — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3854; Base spending turned Germany’s poorest region into a boom economy — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 126; Deindustrialized regions supply surplus labor at lower wages to late capitalism — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory: A Marxist…, 286 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Germany weaponized foreigner status to depress wages and split the labor market #corroborates (0.82) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3854
• Deindustrialized regions supply surplus labor at lower wages to late capitalism #expands (0.78) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 286
• Nazi forced-labor exploitation rested on a legal national-foreigner division found in other migration systems #qualifies (0.73)
• Base spending turned Germany’s poorest region into a boom economy #complicates (0.72) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 126
• Post-unification immigration of two million late resettlers reignited the German identity debate #expands (0.72) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 206