Why is so much about the Pole determined by competition?
Welcome to the real world, normally people and other species have always been forced to compete. First the competition was for food and then land now the goal is money. This is natural; it was scientifically identified by Darwin. Competition that is balanced is healthy and desirable. If there would be no competition or nothing to compete for, then one would return to the stereotype of the Communist state employee and economic extinction. Why do anything if one only gains nothing from it?
Progress has been created by competition from primeval times and where progress has been most marked it has been built on balanced competition. This is the human variant of the balance of predator and prey. When unemployment is high employers tend to exploit employees, it happens the world over. Conversely during an economic upturn employers often have to compete for employees and give much more attractive remuneration. When taken to either extreme such competition becomes very destructive, yet if the competition did not exist the situation would be just as damaging in another way.
This is something of a shock to older Poles, who worked in the old Communist system. The pay was pitiful, there was little that could be bought, but there was always time. The stupidest and the laziest had as much as the intelligent and industrious, it meant that nobody had to beg, but then nobody had anything to give. Now history has moved on and we are all forced to compete. We must compete with Americans for scarce energy resources. If we wish to build a house we must compete to buy the land. The exodus to Britain is an example of competition; when the grass dies the grazing animals seek new pasture.
Poles must compete among themselves and with other nations for real material well being. A home and a family need real money. The old substitutes for status, the grades of respectable academic poverty and the increasing holiday allocation, which accompanied length of service were inadequate and are now irrelevant. Poland is now part of the western market economy. Real commodities cost the same: petrol, electricity, wheat and steel have western prices. The Pole must compete to earn real money, and he must do it where it is worth competing in London, Dublin and elsewhere. His character and abilities determine his ability to compete, the results of his competition determine where and how he lives.
The principal problem in Poland is that succeeding regimes and now elected governments did and do not know anything about economic management or effective use of resources. The Pole is learning, but the politicians and the officials in national government and local government have still learned nothing. But they do not need to adapt or compete. Why? Because such departments such as the social services and health provision department, among others, do not compete, so the conspiracy of collective incompetence is perpetuated.
Achilles Węgorz
