In the Shadow of the Wall

It was a great idea to hold the 1982 September meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society at the Hotel Inter-Continental in a glittering part of free Berlin. The symbolism was apt: one can walk west from the hotel toward a spacious, privately owned zoo stocked with exotic animals that are gifts of local benefactors, or one can go east through the placid Tiergarten to a platform at the Brandenburg gate and look over the ugly Berlin Wall to the deserted streets and grey vistas of the Soviet zone. Broadly speaking, the Mont Pelerin program exploring the possibility of maintaining a free society in the coming decade was thoroughly justified by the dismal trans-Wall spectacle of what might follow if the West were ever to let down its guard.

There were, of course, certain ironies in the flaunting of Mont Pelerin principles before East Berliners just a hop, a skip, and a jump away. West Berlin is not to be confused with Hong Kong as a free-trade area. It is deep inside the Soviet-dominated Eastern Zone. The tensions of airlift days have long since disappeared, and, thanks to the fourpower Berlin agreement of 1972 between the French, British, Americans, and Russians, transit through East Germany is relatively smooth. Even so, there are marketing difficulties. To draw in companies from West Germany, the Berlin Economic Development Corporation, run by former Ford executive Robert Layton, has had to offer a variety of tax-exempt subsidies, turnover tax advantages, and low-interest leases and financing. They speak of the “Berlin preferences.” Ford has invested 130 million Deutsche marks in a West Berlin plant to make plastic components for cars, creating some seven hundred new jobs. But Ford would hardly have returned to West Berlin if there had not been those special advantages. Similarly, Siemens stays because the city government of West Berlin, now run by Christian Democrats, plans to offer special electronics training to the students attending the local Technical University. AEG, Siemens’s competitor, has had a tougher time with its West Berlin ventures.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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It was a great idea to hold the 1982 September meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society at the Hotel Inter-Continental in a glittering part of free Berlin. The symbolism was apt: one can walk west from the hotel toward a spacious, privately owned zoo stocked with exotic animals that are gifts of local benefactors, or one can go east through the placid Tiergarten to a platform at the Brandenburg gate and look over the ugly Berlin Wall to the deserted streets and grey vistas of the Soviet zone. Broadly speaking, the Mont Pelerin program exploring the possibility of maintaining a free society in the coming decade was thoroughly justified by the dismal trans-Wall spectacle of what might follow if the West were ever to let down its guard.

There were, of course, certain ironies in the flaunting of Mont Pelerin principles before East Berliners just a hop, a skip, and a jump away. West Berlin is not to be confused with Hong Kong as a free-trade area. It is deep inside the Soviet-dominated Eastern Zone. The tensions of airlift days have long since disappeared, and, thanks to the fourpower Berlin agreement of 1972 between the French, British, Americans, and Russians, transit through East Germany is relatively smooth. Even so, there are marketing difficulties. To draw in companies from West Germany, the Berlin Economic Development Corporation, run by former Ford executive Robert Layton, has had to offer a variety of tax-exempt subsidies, turnover tax advantages, and low-interest leases and financing. They speak of the “Berlin preferences.” Ford has invested 130 million Deutsche marks in a West Berlin plant to make plastic components for cars, creating some seven hundred new jobs. But Ford would hardly have returned to West Berlin if there had not been those special advantages. Similarly, Siemens stays because the city government of West Berlin, now run by Christian Democrats, plans to offer special electronics training to the students attending the local Technical University. AEG, Siemens’s competitor, has had a tougher time with its West Berlin ventures.