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Candidate for Poland's National Bank NBP chief Glapiński wants repolonisation of banks [60]
Yes, but where you here at the time?
The middle half of 1991 and the second half of 1992 and first half of 1993. I was also dealing with members of a sub-population that was hit especially hard by the transformations, but despite the grumbling a lot of them were hustling their asces off rather than simply whining about how unfair it all was.
It is precisely that element -- indigenous Polish industrialism -- that remains missing from the equation.
Sorry, but blame the PRL for that. Transforming bloated, unproductive and drowning-in-debt factories into something that could compete in open markets is not something that can be done in the wink of an eye, especially when the house is on fire (as it was).
It takes generations to build the infrastructure for indigenous industrialization*, it can't be a top-down orchestrated affair (like the PRL). It has to be from the grass roots up and trying to rush that just creates more problems than it solves. Strong indigenous industrialization is the product of generations of economic development, not the starting point.
*much of it was in place before WWII but the war and communism squashed that flatter than a pancake so that effectively the country was starting from scratch after 1989. There were lots of competent talented people scattered around but they were hampered by too much PRL deadweight and there was no real time to regroup and get them together (especially since many or most of them had party connections and lamebrains like Olszewski wanted to purge public life of anyone with party connections).
