The year 1990 was a key moment in the Polish transformation. It even 25 years ago, our leap into capitalism has become a reality. For many Poles very painful. In the first episode of our series showed the transformation and the collapse of large industrial plants. And its consequences: the deindustrialization of the economy and the emergence of the phenomenon of structural unemployment. The second section described the rise and fall of the “swarm Polish protokapitalistów”. So thousands of workers who were to be our driving force of capitalism, but in the end it did not steel. Finally, we looked at the changes of the Polish countryside, trying to understand why this is where the first group of mature transformation of anger. Now it’s time to take stock.
Let’s start from the beginning. So the terminology. What is hekatomba? In ancient Greece it was an offering made to Zeus of a hundred oxen. Because the Greek “hekaton” it was “one hundred”. That’s why hekatomba entered the dictionary as a synonym for modern large number of victims devoted to a cause. If so understand hecatomb, the year 1990 was actually far from it. Because after 1989. This time the forging of a “case”: we then finish the Round Table, the elections on June 4, the first non-government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki and finally adoption by the Parliament of the Balcerowicz Plan. These were all fundamental decisions on the shape of the new Polish. Which of the socialist autocracy had become a capitalist democracy. And that was the “thing”. For which Poland and the Poles began in 1990 to pay a rational price. And it’s a very high price.
There is always before
At this point, the reader is probably more than one snort. I will say that it was rather Hekatombe real socialism prevailed in Poland before 1989. With its zamordyzm political, economic absurdities or deepening of the stagnation of the mid-70s (as happened in the early decades of PRL economic growth rate was a record).
No reasonable person does not dispute this. So none of the texts of our series there was a special apology era of real socialism. And vice versa. None of them contained a ritual condemnation of age and compulsory mention that Poland was in the 1989. In ruins. We have adopted a rather common-sense assumption that there is always a “before”. Each chapter of economic history has its prehistory, which influenced him. The authors have therefore shock therapy to deal with the legacy of the economic depression which Jaruzelski effect of acute political dispute autocratic power with Solidarity. Jaruzelski, in turn, got in the fall after Gierku economy falling into a spiral of sovereign debt. But the Communists in 1945. Not seized power in the country of milk and honey. Only primitive economy, very poorly industrialized (COP and Gdynia were exceptions) and damaged the tragedy of war. And what it was in 1918. Second Republic, if not economically incompatible patchwork scraps three major economic organisms? Who does not believe, let’s study the statistics. There will, inter alia, confirmation that the entire interwar Polish trade with Germany were barely a fraction of that, as before 1914. Reich itself traded in Poznan. Similar economic stump was The Congress (especially Warsaw and Łódź) separated by the outbreak of the war from the huge Russian market. And in fact, in this way we could go back to the beginnings of farming on Polish soil. In view of this argument, however, you need to keep a healthy distance. I believe that this historical determinism does not become a convenient excuse for today. Which will be the standard response to any criticism of current policies.
And so, unfortunately, the Polish transformation happen. Any attempt to criticize its course was immediately captures with a wide (but predictable) range of allegations about the willingness of the past regime, restaurants, demagogic populism or narrow-minded not allow to understand the complex conditions in which the contemporary reformers came to work. This compromise, “not to move Transformation”, over the years has been very strong in Poland. I had my profound reasons. His firmest supporters usually recruited from among those who most benefited transformation.
Defense “inevitability” of logic transformation was therefore some form of legitimacy of these achievements. There is nothing unusual or particularly ominous. Oh, one of the most fundamental phenomena of social psychology known since the 60s as a “just world hypothesis”. So the tendency to assume that the world is “somehow just” and everyone gets it all in all what he deserved. Such pragmatic impulse of our brain to somehow catch the full reality of conflicting signals.
dragged dramatic 1990 and contemporary social victims into the picture really does not fit. But what to do with the facts? And with that in 1990. Society really has made in the economically powerful blow since World War II. Unemployment increased from almost zero to approx. 6 percent. (In 1993. It was already 16 per cent.). Only in 1990 the real income fell by 24 percent. And in agriculture up to twice as harder. The next two years do not bring a special relief. So acute (and tougher than anticipated architects shock therapy) could not be a recession without notice. And if so, what was it … rationalized. In this way, the dominant interpretation, until recently, the first years of transition. It read: reforms were hard, but necessary. But in the end the economy rebounded, inequality stopped growing, and before many groups opened up new opportunities and today we can enjoy the fruits.
We live here and now
This is exactly the type of reasoning that in a series of texts on hecatomb consistently tried to contest. As I will try to show in a moment, not only out of pure malice. “In the long run we are all dead” – wrote in his “Treatise on monetary reform” John Maynard Keynes. But contrary to what is suggested his adversaries, this sentence is by no means proof of the cynicism of the Crown or mental limitation Englishman. It was a statement perverse and deeply meaningful.
Saying that “in the long run we are all dead”, Keynes argued with the Liberals under the sign of Hayek and Mises. Who believed that as a crisis, you have to bite the bullet. And do not worry so much about what will happen in the next five to six years. Instead, focus on the long-term benefits of treatment. Liberals say, therefore, that there is nothing wring hands over budget cuts, because thanks to them that the economy will become more efficient and save budget. But Keynes asked them, in the name of which because of the long-term consequences will be so much more important than a short period of time. In keeping with the example of cuts. Liberals do not hide that they will bring the inevitable rise in unemployment, but they think after a few years after these people find work elsewhere. In addition, the healthier and more stable economy. But here is what – according to Keynes – a fundamental error. – Because it’s like saying someone who is 30 years old and is located in the most beautiful time in their lives, looking for an apartment, find a life partner or just his children were born: I’m taking you a job, but wait ten years! How do you get to forty, I guarantee you that you will get a better job than the one you had. After all, is nonsense. This is what Keynes had in mind, mocking those who repeat that, only the long perspective – explained to me once Robert Skidelsky, one of the most important scholars and biographers of the English economist. But Keynes said something else. Not only claimed that there is nothing wrong with focusing on the short term. He believed that the improvement of the position of millions of workers here and now automatically translate into their better tomorrow. Conversely, because if we make on the altar of a whole generation of reforms, not cook better future neither he nor his children. Let us for a moment again Skidelsky’emu voice. – Imagine that you are 20 years old and you dream about being lawyers, journalists or economists. I come to you liberal and says: “Unfortunately, times are tough, there is a crisis and we are in the great savings. Come back in 10 years, and then they will definitely be better. And in the meantime, we have for you a great street sweeper job. ” Is 10 years such a person will be able to continue to pursue a dream and it will be well-paid professional? Of course not! Working for 10 years below their expectations and possibilities, probably abandon the way most of the ambitions and aspirations.
Today’s against such challenges is a whole generation of young Europeans from the South, among whom unemployment is 50 percent . A great saving (austerity policy), which takes in Europe for several years, but their position worse. But Keynesian arguments at least penetrate into the heart of public debate in countries such as the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. Americans in general from the beginning they said that they too would like to thank austerity policies.
Now that has happened, become a must
Poland – which was in a similar situation in 1990 – was not so lucky. And the voices raising such arguments were then treated as a complete aberration. To this day, moreover, it is not particularly well-researched topic. Fortunately, the resulting analytical work on countries that in the late 80s and early 90s have experienced similar to us (though not identical) events. And so, in November 2014. – Evenly on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – economists Arnaud Chevalier and Olivier Marie published a paper entitled “Children of the Berlin Wall.”
They showed it on the black white, that the depth of the crisis is absolutely a direct impact on the results achieved in later life by that crisis victims. In Chevalier and Mari are compared two generations Ossich. So yearbooks transformation and some of them elderly – were born in times siermiężnego but stable GDR. The result leaves no doubt. Statistical “child of the Berlin Wall,” 40 percent. often entered into conflict with the law and had as much as 33 percent. more chances to repeat the class. Just in this case, economists explained these differences different composition of the two study cohorts class. What is a simple consequence of the fact that the better-off in an uncertain transition have reduced fertility decisions. And this had an impact on the shape of a cohort of “children of the wall.” But never mind those reasons. It is rather to illustrate the main idea. Consisting in the fact that the depth of the economic crisis affects the public here and now more than we think.
In Poland, such studies will be lacking. It remains at the level of leadership journalistic description that it is very likely that too many pathologies (Precariat, violations of workers’ rights, the weakness of trade unions), the Polish labor market, which today we doskwierają, its roots lies precisely in the excessive shock first years of transition. Or – to put it more simply – the point is that when classified as a blow to the back of the head of a Polish worker has not fully regained consciousness.
The same phenomenon can be shown on the example of income inequality. Even defenders of transformation do not deny now that in the first years experienced a sharp increase. At the beginning of the last decade of communist Poland was a country of very egalitarian. Gini coefficient with at approx. 24, which is within the ranges listed today by the Swedes and Slovenes. The transformation has changed everything here. About 1988. Polish gini began to grow noticeably. In 1994. Reached 30. In 2005,. Was already at 36. In short, in less than 20 years Poland from the country poor, but very egalitarian economy has become a bit richer, but with a medium-high level of income inequality . And it was a much more rapid increase than in many “fraternal economies,” the former Eastern bloc (Czech Republic, Hungary). Defenders of the Polish transformation are ready to prove that it must have happened. Because first you need to earn some extra money, and then you can pursue a policy of redistribution.
Slow to have doubts
Only if you believe that’s present above the Keynesian Toka reasoning, in the economy, there is no “now” and “then”. One of the most persuasive advocates of this thesis is an economist at the Warsaw School of Economics and researcher Mark Garbicz economic development. He believes that the presentation of the required inequality led astray many a country which is already at the stage of rapid development. And it explains, pointing to the three basic mental errors that accompany it. The first problem lies in the fact that the production of well-being can not be separated from the process of division, since the allocation rules affect the size of the produced cakes. If you know from the beginning that consume the majority of the wealthy minority, why poorer majority is at all involved in this process? – Asks rhetorically Garbicz.
The second stereotype is thought – according to economist – in the belief that income inequality and wealth are the actual lever of economic growth. A little on the basis that the harder you press the knife to the throat of economic actors, the more they will have the motivation to act. Only a Darwinian approach can and it looks good in journalism, but there is no confirmation of empirical facts. So often the exact opposite. I mean, just too much income inequality can inhibit the development process, for example by limiting access to good education – making it difficult for social advancement. A similar barrier becomes societies nieegalitarnych closing credit market. Poorer social groups or are cut off from him, or their companies remain chronically underfunded. Mainly due to the risk and demand additional collateral by banks. And if you get a capital company, is so afraid of losing liquidity that avoiding highly profitable but risky business ventures.
This is the end and the third, which pointed out already at the beginning of the last decade, economists Edward Glaeser and Andrei Shleifer in the text of “The injustice of inequality”. They write that the admission at some point to large differences in income and wealth reminds release the genie out of the bottle. This can be done quite easily. However, it is difficult to return to the corral. And inequality in the back (peacefully) offset. This is because the rich part of the population has a lot of material resources and tools for effective subordination of political and legal institutions of their will and interests. And in this way to defend themselves favorable to the status quo.
Or another example, with yet another barrel. That is, the plot Polish privatization. This particular section of the Polish transformation did not start (despite appearances) in 1990. Because of the adjustment of the Polish economy to private ownership socialized already moved in 1987-1988 after the adoption of laws allowing the development of companies with state-owned enterprises (only from January to September 1989. created their 12.6 thous.), topped became generally represented PRL managerial class, or directors, CEOs, chief accountants or party officials. And often substituted by one person. The postulate of a rapid and widest possible privatization prevailed but also the first Solidarity governments. A result of these efforts was the relevant law of July 1990. Definitely missing then someone like Joseph S. Berliner. This American academician and expert on the Soviet central planning system from Brandeis University, argued then: “the very fact that it would be better to have a private company, it does not follow that you need to make quick privatization or do not do. These keywords are all things that happen along the way. “
Berlinerowi was about caution in pressures on too hasty privatization of the Soviet economy, which can have negative economic and social consequences. That’s what he said, but can be applied to the Polish example. In Poland, 1990. Such arguments, however, were completely ignored. And to a large extent, such thinking is ignored even today.
The purpose of this whole argument was to convince the state that in the opinion of shock therapy usually go to the sitter. Any doubts and criticisms are disposed of rhetorical questions: “What could be done differently like?”, “And to whom did it better?” Or “Who could have known then?”. As it happens rhetorical questions, the authors do not expect an answer. A pity. Because such responses can be given. Or at least make the attempt. And this was just a series of texts serve hekatomba 1990.
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