Does the Concept of Patchwork Capitalism Fit the Polish Case?

Abstract

The text constitutes a certain polemic with the idea of “patchwork capitalism”, which has been developed by researchers from Warsaw School of Economics for some time, and which – as an original concept - would explain the different situation of post-socialist economies after the transformation. The considerations refer to the Polish case. It is argued, contrary to the opinion of the authors of the idea, that Poland is not an incoherent system of institutions (“patchwork”) without a clear core of interests around which the system’s reproduction occurs. Rather, it is a case of semi-peripheral dependent capitalism, with a large role of foreign capital and a weak state. The processes of capital reproduction thus mainly occur in the interest of foreign capital deeply penetrating the Polish economy. This means that the driving forces of our economy and the sources of successes are largely external. The problem of inconsistency in the institutional system or the weakness of the state does not lie in the choice of transformation path, the mediocrity of the elites, or the intellectual mistakes of decision-makers. The sources of this inconsistency should be sought in the conflict between the shape of imported, formal institutions supporting capitalism and the deeply rooted, culturally conditioned mechanisms of citizen behaviour. Informal institutions, the prevailing set of social norms, and the value systems shared by Poles have proven to be partially dysfunctional and thus revealed themselves as developmental constraints. A key weakness, it seems, is the low level of social capital in Polish society.