Dumitru Trifan,UW, April 2, 2011.

POLAND AFTER COMMUNISM

The collapse of Soviet Union had a strong impact on welfare of all former countries, also in Poland. The
old institutions did not have further power to work efficiently. Transition period was accompanied with
costs of transformation. It is important to mention that Poland was one of the most advanced countries in
the transition period. The process itself was very complicated, emphasizing the fact that after communism
appear challenges associated with social security, economic problems, welfare sector, education,
institutional and political problems. According to the article, in Poland was a “gradual and incomplete,
nature of change of welfare arrangements”, accompanied with “low ability of the political and intellectual
elite to articulate programs” and a “ balance of political economy forces” 1. Before the transition, in the
communist state of Poland was no clear difference between the private and public, or economic and
political. Institutions were politicized and did not support the critique from the people. The structure of
the system was very complex, but did not include programs for help of the unemployed people or people
who suffer from poverty. May be that system design did not need such programs, because in ideal
working case, was assured “full employment, price controls combined with rationing and universal
accessibility of services”2. The facts that private sphere did not exist as such and full employment was
provided in state sphere, give permission to the authorities, by controlling the prices and wages to control
the economy and to assure the access of the population to services (education, health care, social
insurance, etc.) and basic commodities. In the 1970s as a result to the fact that “waiting lines were
growing longer, bribes became universal, and whoever could afford it, exited the system, preferring
services offered by the parallel economy” 3, however, the expenditure part in the budget remained stable.
The start of the disintegration process was noted by management inefficiency that have the effect on
services delivered to population. Transition was sustained by several processes including privatization
and reforming of the old social and economic systems. The share of expenditure in the GDP and budget
deficit was rising fast, and the government allowed the privatization of enterprises, to apply indexation of
pensions, “protective tariffs, lax tax policies, and subsidies disguised in the form of cheap credits” 4 for
farmers, (almost a one quarter of the population working in this sector), subsidization of food prices, the
public services suffered semi-legal privatization, but not pensions, where, even that the system was
reformed and meet a lot of problems linked with old retirement schemes, the significant structural change
was the separation of farmers’ pension fund. Once the old social vision was gone, the intellectual sphere
start to search a new ones, the main focus was shifted to the West. Different parties have its own visions,
liberals tend to propose ideas linked to economic rationalism, Christian Democratic orientation put the
accent on religious values, ‘the former communists turned social democrats” 5 that put the accent on state
intervention in various sectors, also can be noticed the external advice influence and support (World
Bank). With time start to appear the groups that are against the communist visions and the groups who
support, once with the social democrat party, these visions as Labor Union, that argue the need of state
implication and redistribution. The economic intelligentsia also have its own visions, resulting in analysis
of the old and new systems and searching solutions in neoclassic trends like Keynesian, that have a big
success in the West, Anti- Keynesian, monetarist trend, etc. In economic sector appear more and more
agents (companies), NGO, that compete with old monopoly system components that remain in the hands
1
Source: ” INCOMPLETE DEMISE: REFLECTIONS ON THE WELFARE STATE IN POLAND AFTER COMMUNISM”. J. Kochanowicz,
Social Research, vol. 64, no. 4 (Winter 1997), s. 1477-1501, page 2.
2
Source: ” INCOMPLETE DEMISE: REFLECTIONS ON THE WELFARE STATE IN POLAND AFTER COMMUNISM”. J. Kochanowicz,
Social Research, vol. 64, no. 4 (Winter 1997), s. 1477-1501, page 2.
3
Source: ” INCOMPLETE DEMISE: REFLECTIONS ON THE WELFARE STATE IN POLAND AFTER COMMUNISM”. J. Kochanowicz,
Social Research, vol. 64, no. 4 (Winter 1997), s. 1477-1501, page 3.
4
Source: ” INCOMPLETE DEMISE: REFLECTIONS ON THE WELFARE STATE IN POLAND AFTER COMMUNISM”. J. Kochanowicz,
Social Research, vol. 64, no. 4 (Winter 1997), s. 1477-1501, page 4.
5
Source: ” INCOMPLETE DEMISE: REFLECTIONS ON THE WELFARE STATE IN POLAND AFTER COMMUNISM”. J. Kochanowicz,
Social Research, vol. 64, no. 4 (Winter 1997), s. 1477-1501, page 5.
of the state. Higher requirements for specialists in different sphere improve the quality of the services.
Private sector increase, stimulating rate of economic and social growth.

In my opinion, the transition process and market transformation in Poland bring changes that are very
useful for the society. We can see that the way was not easy and there were different choices, different
challenges not only for the central authorities, but also for the polish people. The author developed his
hypotheses by strong arguments from polish history. The article was very actual and related to the
changes in the time of writing and it still is, due to the tendency of people to analyse and debate the past
in order to assure a better future.

Reference:

Article: ”INCOMPLETE DEMISE: REFLECTIONS ON THE WELFARE STATE IN POLAND AFTER

COMMUNISM”. Jacek Kochanowicz, Social Research, vol. 64, no. 4 (Winter 1997), s. 1477-1501