Market Dreams: Gender, Class, and Capitalism in the Czech Republic (review)

The literature of post-communist transformations has been trying to explain an apparent paradox: despite rising social inequality, working classes maintained a passive stance on capitalism. In her insightful book, Elaine Weiner offers an explanation. She persuasively argues that in the Czech case, post-communist elites succeeded in elevating pro-market discourses to the level of a metanarrative, forcing workers – all women in this study – to either deny that inequality existed or to attribute any resulting problems to themselves.

In Chapter 1, Weiner formulates a theory of post-communist identity grounded in the intersection of dominant governance discourses and lived experiences of women. Chapter 2 provides the general background of the case and lays out the methodological approach for the study. Here, we find a general description of the Czech working woman’s situation during communism and post-communism.

In Chapter 3 Weiner turns her attention to her case study. After a short period during which gradualist and shock-therapy strategies were considered, a more radical neoliberal solution prevailed. Czech politicians, most notably Vaclav Klaus, instituted an efficient mechanism for inculcating neoliberal ideas to the general public. Weiner does an excellent job of integrating and interpreting quotes from various speeches, articles and interviews, which vividly portray the intensity of the ideological barrage to which the Czech population was subjected.

After registering the ubiquitous nature of Czech neoliberal discourses, the author then goes on to analyze the effects of the neoliberal metanarrative on working women. Chapters 4 and 5, which constitute the core of Weiner’s data, incorporate analyses of individual and focus-group interviews with 75 women from two distinct groups: managers and blue-collar workers. She finds that the dominating metanarrative was present the way in which these groups defined themselves. Managers were typically middle-aged women who had benefited from the post-communist economic opening by transforming their human capital – college degrees and foreign language proficiency – into well-paid management jobs with multi-national corporations. Managers espoused some of the principles associated with the market fundamentalist discourse, including the importance of freedom, self-reliance and independence. Because the market metanarrative was devoid of references to gender, however, gender played no role in the way the managers defined themselves. In other words, the managers’ decision to embrace the market metanarrative muted their gender identity, thus eliminating one important possibility for contestation and critical renewal.

For blue collar workers, the post-communist transition was much more difficult. Initially, workers were ensured that after a period of temporary sacrifices, their situation was going to improve. By the end of the 1990s, however, workers’ real earnings were below their communist levels, many welfare programs were eliminated, and women faced increased discrimination at work. Although they were resentful, Weiner’s workers still did not direct their anger at the market. Instead, they turned it inward. Blue-collar women used the potent market discourse to convince themselves that their situation was the result of their flawed, passive and dependent selves. Future generations would surely benefit from post-communist transformation, but not they.

Weiner’s book is a significant achievement. Whereas most of the literature on post-communist transformation focuses on macro-level factors, this book fills a void by illuminating the lived experiences of post-communist workers. The theoretical payoff for doing this is important: Weiner is able to offer an elegant explanation to the puzzling “quietness” of Czech workers by carefully showing the effects of the market discourse down to the individual level. Another positive attribute is the author’s willingness to discuss seriously the work of East European scholars – a habit not routinely embraced by Western scholars of post-communism.

This is not to say, however, that the book is without its problems. For an account that concentrates on workers’ identities, the role of the workplace in creating and maintaining these identities is largely neglected. Not considering the possibility that some of workers’ identity is created...