The local discussion around the transformation

The debate around the transformation in Poland abounds in contradictory interpretations and evaluations, which is to some degree understandable (Reference KołodkoKołodko, 1992: 11–15). In the simplest terms, there are two groups that stand out: apologists for the process and its critics.

Reference BalcerowiczLeszek Balcerowicz (1992, Reference Balcerowicz1995), the local architect of Poland’s shock therapy, remains as he always was: an uncritical advocate. His work, dedicated to the transformation three decades ago, is essentially a dogmatic application of Friedmanite economic policies, with an emphasis on monetary tools. Interestingly, as indicated by certain elaborations (Reference KowalikKowalik, 2012), during initial stages of the Sachs–Lipton plan’s implementation, several transformation options were prepared, with various degrees of radicalism. It was thanks to Balcerowicz’s decision that the gradualism that was initially considered and even accepted by Sachs was abandoned in favour of a radical solution. It is also necessary to mention Reference PoznanskiKazimierz Z Poznanski (1996) as an advocate of the transformation, though his sentiments were often ambiguous – on the one hand, he was openly anti-socialist, but on the other, from his liberal position he engaged in criticism of privatisation.

One of the key critics of the transformation was Reference KowalikTadeusz Kowalik (2011, Reference Kowalik2012). His meticulous analysis consists primarily of two aspects. First, Kowalik identifies the strictly ideological and non-scientific or rational character of Balcerowicz’s decisions. Then, he highlights the enormous costs of the socio-economic transformations, especially unrestrained unemployment, irrelevant to the monetarists. Kowalik was also a firm proponent of gradualism, as expressed in his analyses. The open work that the recently deceased economist left behind was the unfulfilled modernisation of Poland in the spirit of the mixed economy (Reference KowalikKowalik, 2012). Also critical of the transformation, though to a lesser degree, was Reference KołodkoGrzegorz Kołodko (1992).

It is also worth mentioning the approach taken by Reference KieżunWitold Kieżun (2012), an author whose outlook was close to that of economic patriotism, whose theses were warmly received in right-wing circles. Paradoxically, Kieżun applied the traditional leftist themes of dependency theory and the neocolonial perspective while identifying the decades-long process of constructing economic dependencies between formally socialist Poland and international capital.

Reference KrasnodębskiZdzisław Krasnodębski (2005) adopted an openly nationalist optic in his Democracy at the Periphery. Elements of dependency theory can also be found here, enhanced by an analysis that is post-Weberian in spirit – a ‘deficit of sense’ that accompanies modernisation. It is in the above-mentioned work that the author formulated the need for a radical political cull and devised the programme of the so-called Fourth Polish Republic; the ideological fuel of the Law and Justice party currently in power in Poland.

Other sociologists were also active participants in the debate (Reference Pluciński and ŻukPluciński, 2010). Some of them openly engaged either in the transformation itself or in its legitimisation (Reference Kolasa-NowakKolasa-Nowak, 2010). Reference DomańskiHenryk Domański (2002), the influential sociologist, openly wrote, for example, ‘Our goal is the West’ (p. 8). His vision of modernisation was based primarily on the belief in the ‘new Messiah’ that was the middle class (Reference DomańskiDomański, 2002; Reference Pluciński and ŻukPluciński, 2010).

Relevant discussions also concerned the imitative nature of the transformation (Reference ShieldsShields, 2003; Reference SztompkaSztompka, 1999). The American anthropologist Reference DunnElizabeth Dunn (2004) drew attention to this imitativeness in organisational and ownership transformation. David Ost, on the other hand, in his Defeat of Solidarity (Reference OstOst, 2005) identified the dangers associated with social inequality: denial of the working-class subjectivity (Reference GardawskiGardawski, 1996; Reference MrozowickiMrozowicki, 2016; Reference ŻukŻuk, 2017a, Reference Żuk2017b) and political representation as well as elimination of the right to anger in the public sphere (Reference OstOst, 2004), thus anticipating right-wing populism. The Polish researchers Reference Woźniak and ŻukWojciech Woźniak, (2010, Reference Woźniak2012), Magdalena Rek-Woźniak (Reference Rek-Woźniak and WoźniakRek-Woźniak and Woźniak, 2017), Reference MrozowickiAdam Mrozowicki (2011), Lucyna Błażejczyk-Majka and Przemysław Pluciński (Reference Błażejczyk-Majka, Pluciński and Podemski2011) and Reference ŻukPiotr Żuk (2017c) conducted their studies in a similar spirit.

Debt – Capitalism’s little secret

Jacek Tittenbrun’s approach supplements the body of interpretation thus far, and is articulated in two of his works: the earlier The Collapse of ‘Real Socialism’ in Poland (Pol. ed. 1992, Eng. ed. 1993) as well as the monumental, four-volume Z deszczu pod rynnę (2007). Tittenbrun’s proposal was to place the problem of Poland’s foreign debt at the forefront, which hitherto had not been done in such a meticulous and theoretically profound manner by anyone else. For the purpose of studying the transformation, Tittenbrun uses an original way of understanding the phenomena of ownership, albeit greatly inspired by Marx and Weber as well as the work of the Polish sociologist Reference Kozyr-Kowalski and Kozyr-KowalskiStanisław Kozyr-Kowalski (1977, Reference Kozyr-Kowalski1985, Reference Kozyr-Kowalski1999). Presented below are the foundations of this concept, initially referred to as ‘socio-economic’, then later as ‘the rent theory of economic ownership’ (Reference Baranowski and PlucińskiBaranowski and Pluciński, 2018; Reference TittenbrunTittenbrun, 2011).

Since the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, Tittenbrun had already focused his attention on what was troubling Nouriel Roubini and Stephhen Mihm (Reference Roubini and Mihm2010) as well as Reference GraeberDavid Graeber (2011) after the 2008 global crisis. Tittenbrun’s and Graeber’s interpretations appear to be complementary, as they problematise the same issues and seek connections between debt and crisis and the dominant use thereof.

Let us look back for a moment to the 1970s, commonly associated with the oil crisis and stagflation, laying the groundwork for the conservative–liberal counter-revolution of the 1980s. It was a time of both ‘recycling petrodollars’ and an influx of unprecedented capital into Western banks and financial institutions, resulting in the expansion of so-called syndicated loans (Reference ChesnaisChesnais, 2016), which is to say, loans provided by groups of lenders, referred to as a syndicate, to specific borrowers, including the governments of developing countries. The practice was also referred to as ‘go-go banking’ (Reference GraeberGraeber, 2011: 2) or unrestrained and weakly controlled lending (Reference SchumerSchumer, 1984). These loans ultimately served two purposes. First, they relocated the global crisis, shifting it from the core countries towards those less developed. They opened up new spaces for expansion for corporations from the capitalist core, which was mired in recession. Second, they established a permanent creditor–debtor foundation; a return to the old cutthroat nature of credit capital. In Poland’s case, the average interest on debt between 1981 and 1989 was approximately 10% annually. These themes will be explored in depth later in the article.

It was credit and debt, as well as the pitfalls of indebtedness that became the generative rules of contemporary capitalism, its expansion strategies and the conditions of accumulation. Unpaid debts became a key bargaining chip at the moment of transformational transition (Reference OręziakOręziak, 2014: 193–194). The dominant aspect of this relation was then exploited, since the debtor is not able to reject the request of the creditor, even if they are euphemistically presented as ‘restructuring proposals’.

A theoretical approach: The socio-economic and rent theory of ownership

Although Reference TittenbrunTittenbrun (1992, Reference Tittenbrun1993, Reference Tittenbrun2007) presented his theoretical position and analysis some time ago they did not penetrate into mainstream analysis, for several reasons. One reason is surely attachment to the perspective of historical materialism and its methodology. The adoption of Marxian optics in a post-socialist country, where the ‘strategies of communisation’ of opponents and anti-communism as such (Reference LipińskiLipiński, 2016) became one of the main ‘political technologies’, does not foster scientific debate nor an active presence in the public sphere. Perhaps Tittenbrun’s analysis, scientifically objectified but with a bitter undertone, also did not conform to the optimism of the elites at the time, who were engaged in the construction of a real-capitalist order – though this is of course speculative.

The modern sociological understanding of ownership owes an intellectual debt to Marx, particularly in the demystification of various mental shortcuts, such as identifying ownership per se with private ownership. As Reference MarxMarx (1904 [1859]) noted, ‘… it becomes ridiculous, when from that one jumps at once to a definite form of property, e.g. private property (which implies, besides, as a prerequisite existence of an opposite form, viz. absence of property’ (p. 273).

Marx’s observation in Critique of the Gotha Programme is also a crucial reference point in the construction of an alternative against both legal dogmatism as well as liberal reductionism (Reference Alchian and DemsetzAlchian and Demsetz, 1973) regarding the phenomena of ownership. In it, Marx states (Reference Marx2009 [1875]) that ‘labour is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labour’ (p. 1). What does this mean, and what are its consequences for the theory of ownership? What it means is that just as work cannot be treated as the sole source of worth, neither can it be the sole origin of ownership, since the origins of ownership can be absolutely or relatively independent of work. For example, we become owners in the socio-economic sense when we derive real-economic profits from free resources, such as sunlight or water. Natural resources are similarly independent of work. In the nominal, legal sense, we cannot be their owners, and often, in fact, are not, but the fact remains that what occurs in such cases, Weber would term appropriation (Reference WeberWeber, 2019).

Marxian and Weberian theoretical frameworks allowed Polish Marxists to construct their own particular theoretical approach. Their point of departure is the critique of a legalistic understanding of ownership and a methodological distancing from legal doctrine. As Reference Kozyr-Kowalski and Kozyr-KowalskiKozyr-Kowalski (1977) stated, ownership is ‘more primal than law, existing independently of nominal regulation of law’ (p. 123). Ultimately, the Polish sociologist, referring to the Marxian argument from Critique of the Gotha Programme proposed the following definition:

Who, then – in light of these assumptions – is the owner? The owner is an entity deriving real-economic benefits from the object of ownership in question. In this case, any legal title is of secondary importance. It can, perhaps, formally protect the rights of the owner, though this protection can just as well not exist. One can, for example, be the formal owner of a derelict or vacant property, yet not derive any benefits from its rental. If, however, even without our knowledge, someone moves into the building and takes up residence, then in drawing real-economic benefits, it is that person and not the formal owner that becomes the owner of the premises in a socio-economic sense. Many socio-economic types of ownership exist that are not regulated by law – an example could be the so-called ‘grey market’, or underground economy.

After many years, still inspired by the work of Kozyr-Kowalski, Reference TittenbrunTittenbrun (2011) proposed the ‘rent theory of economic ownership’ (pp. 429–435). He summarised it as follows:

With regard to the rift which exists in the theory of ownership between authors who emphasise deriving benefits and those theorists who consider the aspect of control to be fundamental, the rent theory of ownership assumes the first criterion to be crucial (Reference TittenbrunTittenbrun, 2007: 12, 2011: 424–426). What is important to note here is that in terms of the rent theory of ownership, this division is not absolute. Emphasising the deriving of benefits as an essential aspect of ownership, control or disposition can facilitate or enable said obtaining of benefits. It is, however, the drawing of real-economic benefits that is the essence of ownership. In summary, benefits thus understood can be derived from properties, of which one is a formal owner, as well as from objects whose formal owner is another entity, or from free goods which do not have an established owner.

Speculations on creditor–debtor relations have become the consequence of understanding ownership in this manner. They were initiated by Reference Kozyr-KowalskiStanisław Kozyr-Kowalski (1985), though it was Reference TittenbrunTittenbrun (1992, Reference Tittenbrun1993) who made them the departure point for the analysis of the crisis and downturn of real socialism and the consequent political transformation.

Debt, crisis and classes, or the collapse of ‘real socialism’

In analysing the circumstances of the progressing economic crisis of the final decade of real socialism in Poland, Tittenbrun – in opposition to liberal economists that focus on the ineffectiveness of a centrally planned economy – asked a different set of questions. He was interested in the increasing dependency of Poland due to loans taken out by Edward Gierek’s administration in the early 1970s.

Initially, the loans were to fulfil two functions: to act as an impulse for development through technical and technological modernisation and to meet the growing consumer aspirations of Polish society. These tasks were only partially realised. First, resources were poorly allocated – only a part of credit resources were dedicated to investment in industry, leading to overinvestment in the heavy industry, mining and electro-mechanical sectors at the expense of industries producing consumer goods. Furthermore, numerous institutional and organisation pathologies should be pointed out. The appropriation of the means of production by the nomenklatura or by lower tiers of management dependent on it became the norm.

Sub-optimal decisions that were being made at the time ultimately led to a debt trap, of which Poland at the time was a textbook example. The internal consequence of the debt was the progressing economic crisis. Reference TittenbrunTittenbrun (1992) wrote,

Inefficiently allocated loan capital precipitated a debt trap and intensified the crisis. Creditors were wholly uninterested in initiating effective debt relief programmes; quite the opposite – they were keenly interested in the debt spiral itself. Referring to the estimates of the Polish economist Reference Rydygier and MüllerW Rydygier (1985: 253), Tittenbrun stressed that in the 1970s, Poland’s debt to its Western creditors in the Paris Club increased by a multiple of almost 25. The debt only kept growing (Reference TittenbrunTittenbrun, 1993:13). The nominal value of Poland’s foreign debt in 1980 was US$24.1 billion and US$46.1 billion in 1990 (Reference Antowska-Bartosiewicz and MałeckiAntowska-Bartosiewicz and Małecki, 1991; Reference JachowiczJachowicz, 2011).

Did the creditors, described by Tittenbrun as ‘the sleeping owners’ of the Polish means of production, lose the money they lent? Of course not; they, in fact, profited. In what manner, then, did the sleeping owners, concentrated primarily in the Paris Club fulfil their rent? At least three issues become apparent. First, they gained the ability to exert effective control over the exploitation of national means of production, without being its formal owners. Second, after years, primarily thanks to compound interest, they recouped their investment several fold (it was not until 2009 that the Polish government paid off its debt towards the Paris Club). Finally, they realised the latent function of the loans by setting the tone of future reforms in Poland, such as the reform of the pension system. The first and third issue are further explored in the article.

Due to growing economic dependence on creditors, political dependence also increased. Its consequence was the real control of the agents of loan capital over decision-making; for instance, allocational decisions concerning the management of national production capital. Thus, thanks to the growing debt, they became real co-owners of the national means of production – this is Tittenbrun’s central argument.

The Polish sociologist argued as follows:

How exactly did this mechanism function?

Attaching export clauses to loans, requiring repayment through products or raw materials, led to paradoxes: goods produced domestically were exported abroad, then these same goods were purchased back at inflated prices, sometimes several times higher than their initial value. The Polish government was forced to operate like this, in order to be able to continue with domestic production, and to meet domestic demand. The rent theory of ownership put a strong emphasis on the significance of this mechanism as an explanation for the problem of ‘empty shop shelves’ and shortages. He interpreted it as an effect of the rising dependence on the core countries.

It is also necessary to consider the fact that the ‘sleeping owners’ were not content merely with financial benefits. On numerous occasions, they took steps aimed towards the realisation of not only material or economic (interest as a specific form of rent) but also dominant (decision-making) ownership rights. This dominant aspect was seldom highlighted in analyses of the Polish transformation, yet is a model example of exploitation and deepening of the debt crisis for the purpose of social and economic engineering. As noted by Tittenbrun, the creditors controlled the methods of management of national production assets and governmental decisions. For example, ‘they hammered hard at the Polish pricing system, particularly for food, under which the prices for goods like sugar and meat were kept far below market levels’ (Reference TittenbrunTittenbrun, 1993: 15). By interfering with the Polish government’s internal economic policy, they protected their property through pressure exerted towards the diversion of budgetary resources favourable to their interests, thus protecting their right to rent. It should be noted that the food subsidy system, which served to keep food prices low, was one of the primary tools that granted access to food to broad segments of society. Consequently, it was a condition of the reproduction of their labour power.

The two above-mentioned examples, export clauses that generated (or at least exacerbated) the ‘empty shelves’ problem, as well as the pressure towards marketisation of food prices, might be interpreted as class conflict. The conflict’s axis lay between two contradictory interests: rent seeking and the right to the reproduction of labour power. On one side stood the international financial bourgeoisie, on the other, the local working class. The latter – forced to contend with supply shortages and poor living conditions on a daily basis, forced to increase their working hours in response to pay increases, often beyond their physical capabilities, only to be able to satisfy their most basic needs on the most elementary level – were not able to reproduce their labour power sufficiently. Traditional Marxism would classify this as exploitation. The rent theory of ownership makes use of a somewhat differing notion: it speaks of the ownership of labour power and its expropriation as a result of the lack of means to satisfy basic needs and the difficulty inherent in its reproduction (Reference TittenbrunTittenbrun 1993, Reference Tittenbrun2018).

The issue of the undertakers of ‘real socialism’ emerges once more. The answer derived from socio-economic analysis is unpopular, or at least inconsistent with the official ‘round table’ narrative. Reference TittenbrunTittenbrun (1993) asked rhetorically,

The mass working-class protests that led to the ultimate political crisis – aimed, on one hand, at the global financial bourgeoisie, which gave it an anti-imperialist character, and, on the other, at the nomenklatura, already slowly playing the role of the midwife to the coming changes – were strictly of a class nature.

In light of this, it is worth further exploring issues related to the nomenklatura. Its ‘enterprising’ members, by controlling access to formally socialised means of production, after a time became, as Reference DjilasMilovan Djilas (1957) once called them, ‘the new class’ of exploiters. They acted not in the name of the working class, but in accordance with their own private interests. With time, they became more and more compradorial, becoming a proto-bourgeoisie; this reflects the concept of the ‘red bourgeoisie’. Some of them had already converted control over the means of production into formal private ownership during the transformation. Tittenbrun called this ‘the enfranchisement of the nomenklatura’:

The enfranchisement of the nomenklatura that was to de facto take place soon thereafter was greatly facilitated by Wilczek’s Law – a 1988 law enacted by the then-minister of industry that lifted the 40-year state monopoly on economic activity. It was the effect of two opposing tendencies: from one side, the creditors’ expectations of liberalisation, and from the other, it was an expression of the desire of those in power to retain influence and extend their political rule through the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR). But, was this objectively possible? Since Western creditors and not Polish workers were the real-economic owners of the national means of production, was Poland still a socialist country? Tittenbrun argued that Poland entered the sphere of capitalism decidedly earlier than 1989. He stated that

In the face of these assumptions, it was neither Wilczek’s Law from 1988, nor the Sachs–Lipton plan, nor the reforms of Leszek Balcerowicz, but the debt crisis – which shifted control of the means of production – that started the process of capitalist modernisation of Poland, under peripheral conditions.

The conclusions of the rent theory of ownership concerning the role of the nomenklatura in the process of Poland’s transformation, however, cannot be easily universalised. Alternative analyses – though it must be noted that they employed other tools than the rent theory of ownership – were also conducted in other post-socialist countries. These analyses indicated that the direct or widespread enfranchisement of the nomenklatura did not take place everywhere (Reference Eyal, Szelenyi and TownsleyEyal et al., 2001).

Debt after debt, or the pension system privatisation

The process of rent seeking by sleeping owners also made its mark on one of the most important institutional reforms of Poland’s transformation, which was the 1999 reform of the pension system (Reference HiroseHirose, 2011; Reference MüllerMüller, 2008; Reference Naczyk and DomonkosNaczyk and Domonkos, 2016; Reference OręziakOręziak, 2012, Reference Oręziak2014; Reference Żuk and ŻukŻuk and Żuk, 2018). This reform constitutes an implementation of the global processes of dismantling the achievements of the post-war welfare state on a local scale (Reference OrensteinOrenstein, 2008: 180; Reference RaeRae, 2015).

The shape taken by the reform of pension system was clearly a deliberate effort by global financial institutions (Reference OręziakOręziak, 2014; Reference ShieldsShields, 2003). The factor that enabled the reform to be enacted in its final form – one that first and foremost served these institutions’ interests – was Poland’s foreign debt (Reference RaeRae, 2016), including its obligation towards the Paris Club, settled a decade after the reform entered into force. The creditors’ bargaining cards, then, were in this case decidedly stronger than those of the debtor. The World Bank repeatedly stressed the urgency of the need for pension reform, ultimately receiving a guarantee in the matter from the Polish administration. This same institution did not shy away from direct influence over the preparation and implementation of the reforms, be it through appointing its officers to key administrative positions, or through directly deciding on ministerial portfolios (Reference MüllerMüller, 2008). Concurrently, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was quite active in disseminating propaganda. The Polish government passed the pension reforms in a rush, primarily to mitigate any potential social discontent. This resulted in the weakness of adopted legislation and its clear tendency towards serving the interests of global financial institutions and not those of future retirees. The sum of these factors called into question the democratic nature of the process.

As early as 1997, the World Bank assumed that the privatisation of the pension system meant a steady budget expenditure of roughly 2% of gross domestic product (GDP). Furthermore, in the event of a lack of funds – which were not allocated for such expenditures in the existing budget – the shortfall would be covered partially through the privatisation of, among others, the banking sector, as well as further loans taken out by the administration (Reference OręziakOręziak, 2014: 197–198). In reality, at the time of implementation of the reforms, there were few public enterprises whose privatisation could finance the OFE (Otwarty Fundusz Emerytalny or Polish Pension Fund). Thus, the enactment of the reform, in practice, resulted in a policy of increasing the public debt, which the implementers of the reform were, in fact, aware of. Analysis of the public debt from 1999 to 2012 clearly indicates that the privatised pensions were responsible for half of its growth. In 1999, the debt equalled 273 billion PLN, and in 2012, 840.5 billion.

What does this mean in terms of the rent theory of ownership? First, it allows international capital to maintain control over national wealth and redistribution. It signifies an injection of public capital directed at private entities, investing said funds in financial markets beyond any real control over the rationality of the decisions taken by public bodies or future retirees. It allows, then, for real benefits – rent – to be derived from capital one does not formally own. Furthermore, there is an obvious gap between the moment when the investment capital is received (short-run perspective) and the necessity of paying out benefits to the insured (long-run perspective), making these real-economic gains even more explicitly without precedent. As Timothy Clapham succinctly put it, ‘investing in funds does not pay off … private pension funds have been created to ensure that their owners and managers, rather than future pensioners, will receive profits’ (Reference ClaphamClapham, 2013).

The social consequence of the privatisation of the pension system is the real expropriation of future retirees. The sociologists Żuk and Żuk write in their analysis about future ‘retirees without pensions and welfare’ (Reference Żuk and ŻukŻuk and Żuk, 2018). Economic analyses clearly show that the adoption of any new solutions will result in a drastic reduction of future benefits. Analysts indicate a replacement rate (or the percentage of an average income that is replaced by an average pension) of 44% for 60-year-olds and 62% for 65-year-olds (Reference OręziakOręziak, 2014: 241). The estimated future pensions of some retirees may be as low as 700 PLN (Reference OręziakOręziak, 2014: 249), which at today’s rates is equivalent to US$180 a month. Polish economist, Grażyna Ancyparowicz, also anticipates problems in the future. She believes that the amounts of pensions to be paid out in the future is equivalent to poverty or even misery, but also ‘the inability to maintain a dwelling, mass expropriation’, concluding that ‘even social assistance will be unable to deal with it’ Ancyparowicz G (2013) Polska gospodarka jest jak lokomotywa opanowana przez zbieraczy złomu. Wywiad z prof. Grażyną Ancyparowicz [The Polish Economy is like a locomotive controlled by scrap collectors. Interview with Prof. Grażyna Ancyparowicz]. Sieci 18-24.03.2013.

Debt after debt, or a situation in which one debt trap is replaced with another mechanism of financial and economic dependence, allows for the identification of the extreme ideological character of political transformation, and provides a glimpse behind the scenes of neoliberal practices. In spite of the orthodox neoliberal view that public debt as a source of financing redistributive economic policies is unacceptable, it is seen as a desirable and functional mechanism for the transfer of social funds into the pockets of private investors. Transformed into a tool of expropriation – as analysed in the article – public debt becomes an obstacle to development. This, in turn, gives birth to cultural-political consequences. Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes (Reference Krastev and Holmes2018) define them as ‘counterrevolution against liberalism’ (pp. 119–120).

The consequences of neoliberal shift: Replacing class with nation

The ability to relocate or convert crises is essential for the reproduction of capitalism: the transformation of conflicts of a strictly economic origin into extra-economic ones (Reference DesaiDesai, 2008). At present, the effective displacement of the class perspective, therefore also awareness of the capitalist sources of systemic crises and its replacement with a nation-oriented perspective in its populist right-wing form is an example of such a conversion. In other words, the abuses of neoliberalism resulted in a backlash (Reference FriedenFrieden, 2017). Reference Bohle and GreskovitsBohle and Greskovits (2019) state that

These same authors study the relationship between economic relations and the progressive authoritarisation of politics in the case of Hungary, drawing also on Poland’s experiences. They have identified explicit tensions between, as they metaphorically put it, ‘the noisy politics of fighting austerity and the quiet politics of social disinvestment’. Through analysis of socio-economic policies, they conclude that in Hungary’s case, a ‘half-turn in development policy’ has taken place, with a simultaneous ‘u-turn in development rhetoric’ (Reference Bohle and GreskovitsBohle and Greskovits, 2019: 12–14, 16–20).

Poland’s case is similar: the excessively loud rhetoric is not accompanied by any radical change of course in economic policy. Keeping in mind Reference Bohle and GreskovitsBohle and Greskovits’ (2019) analysis, it is important to pay attention to issues which they do not touch upon in their narration. It would therefore be appropriate at this point to revisit the distinction made at the beginning of the article between class-, democracy- and nation-oriented approaches to the transformation (Reference MeardiMeardi, 2005). One aspect of neoliberalisation was a departure from pro-working-class narratives. The very notion of class was at first seen as ‘outdated’, though it did not interfere with enacting openly classist policy aimed at the working class, designed primarily to divide and individualise it. To this end, every possible type of instrument was put into use: political (anti-worker legal regulations), discursive (media misrepresentation) and economic (decrease of real wages, unemployment). One of the primary effects of these classist policies was precarisation (Reference MrozowickiMrozowicki, 2016; Urbański, 2014). The middle class became the new Messiah (Reference DomańskiDomański, 2002). Of course, in an objective sense, its position was most likely not meant to be – and de facto isn’t – a strong one. The myth of middle-class societies was, nevertheless, an aspirational simulacrum: an ideology that maintained order (Reference Pluciński and ŻukPluciński, 2010; Reference Sowa and ŻukSowa, 2010).

The vacuum that remained after these ‘outdated’ class narratives was to be filled with political narratives, which is not to say that the latter were false, but rather that they were to function in an ambivalent manner. They moved in at last two directions. One was the elevation of the democratic opposition to heroic status, and the musealisation of their memory. Another was the emphasis on the task of building the structures of a civil society. Without undermining the spirit thereof, in its third-sector variant, it became a systemic band-aid solution. In the face of a weak state, too many organisations began to focus their activities on solving problems generated by neoliberal capitalism.

It was a dangerous marriage; the rejection of a class perspective, along with a progressive depoliticisation of civil society, had its consequences (Reference Nowak and NowosielskiNowak and Nowosielski, 2006). What Reference OstDavid Ost (2004, Reference Ost2005) warned about a decade and a half prior had come to pass. In the face of over 20 years of désintéressement on the part of the parliamentary left and the anti-social stance and market orthodoxy of the liberals (Reference Kowalik and MorawskiKowalik, 2010), post-transformation fears, unsatisfied needs and general frustrations were exploited by the populist right, which was openly courting nationalism and growing in strength.

Capitalising on social discontent with neoliberalism, the populist right, alleging a lack of alternatives, deftly exploited the traditional tools of the left, which had not been utilised in Poland for many years. It was essentially a simple recipe: ‘a combination of nationalism with social welfarism’ (Reference BugaričBugarič, 2018: 8). It effectively neutralised leftist class narratives and used them to its own ends, utilising as political fuel the arguments of the ‘enfranchisement of the nomenklatura’ and ‘betrayal by the elites’ as well as the language of dependency theory and post-colonialism (Reference KieżunKieżun, 2012; Reference KrasnodębskiKrasnodębski, 2005), which the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary left were completely unable to make use of (Reference Kowalik and MorawskiKowalik, 2010; Reference ŻukŻuk, 2017c). Symbolically replacing the class-oriented narrative with a nation-oriented narrative, the populist right ‘aims not only to transform certain external conditions, but also to accomplish a comprehensive re-invention of mentality and radically re-direct the trajectory of social thinking’ (Reference KoczanowiczKoczanowicz, 2016: 94).

This change in trajectory relies, above all, on a revalorisation of tradition, conservative models and a return to traditional frameworks. In order to realise this, the neo-authoritarian reaction to neoliberal excess – like any authoritarism, in fact – requires symbolic or real enemies. A right-wing populist reaction needs to reduce a complex world to binary codes. These are the simplest and most effective techniques of mobilisation and the building of community as ‘us’ against the outsiders or enemies, who are not exclusively, nor even primarily, the often randomly defined beneficiaries of the transformation. In recent years, the categories and communities that have found themselves at the centre of cultural wars waged by the populist right have been primarily gauchistes (Reference DrozdaDrozda, 2015), the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) community along with the category of gender as a socio-cultural construct, characterised as ‘ebola from Brussels’ (Reference Korolczuk and GraffKorolczuk and Graff, 2018), as well as feminist activists and organisations (Reference MajewskaMajewska, 2018). All these categories are placed outside the boundary of the national community and portrayed as a menace, or traitors (Reference Żuk and ŻukŻuk and Żuk, 2019, Reference Żuk and Żuk2020).