The Reasons for the Polish Crisis of 1980-81

Abstract

The main reason for the Polish crisis is systemic or structural in nature. Where discussions about the origins of this crisis go wrong is that they concern themselves one-sidedly with the sphere of the political superstructure and reduce the main reason for the crisis to distortions of the form of government. The author classes the present economic system in Poland as a state-controlled economy; it is true that there have been various organizational changes and changes in the running of the economy, but the essence of the system has remained the same. Although for a time this system promoted the expansion of productive capacity, after a while it began to exert a negative influence on economic development: disproportions in the economy became sharply intensified, quantitative growth slackened, followed by a slump in production, and the costs of production, productivity of labour and, above all, innovation of production took an unfavourable turn. The main goal achieved in the economy was one-sided economic growth founded on the spurious economic law whereby growth of production of the means of production is faster than growth of production of goods for consumption. The main reason for the crisis was the consolidation of state control over the economy, combined with its bureaucratization, the failure to bring about further socialist changes, and the absence of social and political democracy. Apart from the main systemic reason for the Polish crisis, there are also specific reasons. These include, notably, the backwardness of the economy and the associated preoccupation with excessive acceleration of economic growth, the specific agrarian structure, national traditions, and a political structure encompassing, among other things, the considerable influence of the Church and the intelligentsia, which retained its separate identity. A direct reason for the crisis lay in the changes, to a large extent retrograde, which took place during the period 1971-80 both in the economy and its system of management and in politics.