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Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]
How was Poland to build anything in 1989
In 1989 Poland had major industrial assets -- KGHM (copper mining/metallurgy), shipyards, collieries, oil refineries, Cegielski Marine Engineering, car, lorry, bus,tractor and aircraft factories, major chemical works, etc. which were surely worth something. Those could have formed the nucleus round which a Polish National Capital Consortium was built. With the proper incentives such a project could have attracted Polish private capital and turned the project into a state and private sector capital fund.
Admittedly many of the PRL-era works were antiquated, but that doesn't mean there was nothing of value in the country's industrial holdings. Foreign investors would have seen the money-making potential of this project and snapped up the bonds and shares it issued, thus providing capital for modernisation and development.
Balcerowicz did not go that route but staked on destroying or transferring Polish industry into foreign hands, usually for a song. You don't know Polish and probably weren't around at the turn of 1989/1990, but there was something called a "wydmuszka". In Polish folk culture a wydmuszka is a blown-out egg, which is only an empty shell and is decorated and suspend from a Christmas tree. In the industrial realm, that was a metaphor for a state factory whose machinery was clandestinely removed under the cover of night and the remaining shell was condemned and razed. Obviously this was a backroom, under-the-counter procedure.
One example close to my heart: When Daewoo went under, such a Polish Capital Consortium could have bought out their Polish holdings and continued building and developing what was then a modern, motorcar factory with a full range of products. Instead, the Ukrainians bought out Daewoo's Polish operation and eventually GM took it over. Daewoo produced the Tico and Matiz minicars, the Lanos and Espero mid-sized saloons and estates, the luxury Leganza and Lublin marque vans, light lorries, minibuses, etc. That took place before the EU tender strait-jacket was imposed, so they could have cornered the Polish market for police, fire, ambulance, forester and other public-service vehicles, not to mention hearses, minibuses, delivery vans and the like for the private sector as well. Poland could have become the major suppliers of such vehicles to the newly liberated ex-Soviet bloc countries and perhaps Third World nations as well.
Believe it or not, my stomach often actually knots ap at the sight of all those VW, Ford, Mercedes, Citroën, Peugeots and other utility vehicles in place of what might have been were it not for Balcerowicz!
