> In East Germany, toddlers and grade schoolers were required to go to the bathroom together, with no partitions between the toilets. Privacy was irrelevant because individualism was irrelevant. Even extending into bathroom habits the communist goal was to make people cogs.
Oh please, what a ridiculous example to bring up in the context of the rest of your post. The GDR did not fail because of a different approach to bathroom privacy for small children. It might seem weird to us, but our comfort zone is a completely arbitrary area along a scale. Note that western urinals work in basically the same way; I'm sure there's a huge political significance to that.
Why are you being so unpleasant? Viewing a desire for bathroom privacy as reactionary is characteristic of the whole set of ideals related to the new soviet man.
EDIT: And yes, the unrealistic dream of building a society of new soviet men is central to the failure of communism. Hayek's criticism of a planned economy is valid but a hypothetical society of very altruistic people could make it work much, much better than it ever did in practice.
Oh please, what a ridiculous example to bring up in the context of the rest of your post. The GDR did not fail because of a different approach to bathroom privacy for small children. It might seem weird to us, but our comfort zone is a completely arbitrary area along a scale. Note that western urinals work in basically the same way; I'm sure there's a huge political significance to that.