Private Suffering, #Public Benefit #Market Rhetoric in #Poland, #1989–1993 Jacek Kochanowicz #Warsaw University/Central European University In the current issue of EEPS Abstract This article analyzes the pro-market #rhetoric of the early phase of the #post-communist transformation in Poland. It looks at one case of such rhetoric, that of the Warsaw daily Gazeta Wyborcza, a leading Polish paper medium. Gazeta was an unequivocal supporter of the market transition and perhaps the country’s most important pro-market opinion-forming platform. In order to convince its readership, it argued, in a vein similar to that of the early nineteenth-century classical #economists, that this was the only way to achieve an efficient economy but that, in the short run, social costs and suffering were unavoidable. In its rhetoric, it stressed logic and rationality as characteristics of the reform projects, while often using irony in reporting differing views. Critical voices it treated as either naïve or representing the vested interests of those opposing the reforms. The Gazeta editors and authors were in favor of rapid reforms, afraid that pain and suffering would mobilize resistance. They believed that the sooner the economic rebuilding process succeeded, the greater support there would be for the reforms. The danger they were most afraid of was right-wing, nationalist populism. Ironically, the type of policies they advocated, while economically successful, actually contributed to marginalization and social exclusion. Thus, as an overview of East-Central Europe politics shows, in the longer term they led exactly to what Gazeta was most afraid of. #market rhetoric #neoliberalism market transformation #Gazeta #Wyborcza #Poland ow.ly/sSiUN
Posted on: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 15:30:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015