When commenting on shopping in super- and hypermarkets on web pages concerned with consumption1, urban Slovak shoppers frequently use comparisons between socialism and the present economic system.
Like shoppers in rural Estonia (Rausing 1998, 2002), the users of these pages conceptualize present-day “Westernlike” retail practices as “normal,” opposing them to those remembered from socialism. This concept of normality usually operates as an aspiration, since the commentators mostly express frustration with the commerce that should be, but still is not, normal. For instance, one comment was that a supermarket “Kaufland stinks like a socialist shop”; the author advises us to use the chain Carefour instead since it is “more normal.” Frequently impolite or unwilling behavior of shop assistants also is commented on as “socialist-like.” Many discussants are annoyed by the continuation of practices perceived as socialist: they mention a particular branch of hypermarket selling spoiled groceries or food with inaccurate expiration dates, another store charging customers full prices instead of those advertised or labeled as bargains, or other practices deceiving customers.
Appeals for consumers’ responsibility and their active and critical approach also appear, such as one warning that, if people do not start to complain and act publicly, “everything will be like during communists.
