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This seems like a good time to mention Adolf Hennecke. People who don't know much history don't know about the campaign that made him famous in the country where he lived.

Put briefly, Adolf Hennecke was the poster boy for a productivity campaign like what management tried to effectuate in the story, and that the author thinks has anything to do with neoliberalism. The thing is that Adolf Hennecke didn't live in a neoliberalist country or work for a neoliberalist company, he lived in East Germany and worked for a VEB, which you may translate as "public corporation". He worked for a state-owned company with a duty to general society rather than any shareholders.

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What does a coal miner's story have to do with this narrative?

Hennecke seems to be just one of many "udarniks" [1], common in countries east of the iron curtain.

There isn't really a lineage between that and contemporary capitalist culture IMO.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udarnik


It sounds like you’re trying to argue that because one of these “efficiency” campaigns originated in East Germany that they are really a socialist plot. How do you explain the use of these things in corporations in the US?

No. I think these things are basically something some managers do, and that "management did this because neoliberalism" is as meaningless as "… because communism".



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