Flows

Abstract

The socialist systems relied on particular flows of information, goods, and connections that not only enabled them to function, at least for a few decades, but also became intrinsic to the ways people living in these societies envisioned and experienced life and community. Drawing on long-term ethnography and original theoretical insight, Katherine Verdery revealed how such flows—of information, resources, and people—were mechanisms that transformed real existing socialism from an ideology into a complex social system.