It would have forced society to help
I doubt it, as those pensioners who would need it usually also have poor relatives who would be unable to help.
many of those people also managed to obtain properties at a great price, or managed to get municipal housing with far lower rents than would be expected in the private sector.
So what? How does low-rent housing translate to food, clothing, medicine? My father worked extremely hard all his life, the only property he has is a flat in Warsaw, and he still has to work today because otherwise he would pretty much starve. Thankfully, he is a specialist in a very obscure, frivolous area of research and so his expertise is still sought by some.
The whole thing is a rotten circle - the laws protect employees, so employes don't want to give them the rights for fear of being abused by employees, and so it continues.
That's exactly why I said you would need to rewrite the Labour Code. It's a typically communist piece of legislation which aims to protect everyone but the employer (as the employer used to be the State back then).
At least in my humble opinion, Poles quite like that strangling.
IMHO, they don't really. The overwhelming taxation and restrictions being put in place have nothing whatsoever to do with what people can remember of PRL. There was no visible taxation back then, for example. AFAIK, people are well miffed about stuff like the new garbage removal legislation, the expanding powers of the revenue offices, the growing bureaucracy...
Simple : look at what the economy needs and fund it. Anything that isn't needed (such as all those things mentioned) can be paid for via tuition fees. Voila.
You don't need universities for most vocational education. On the other hand, the economy does not "need" teachers, artists, linguists, historians, geographers, anthropologists, biologists... I could go on. But society does. Personally, I am against tuition fees in state universities. They are funded by my grandparents', parents', and my own taxes (yes, I did pay a fair bit of tax in Poland).
(I was stunned recently to discover that the university here has a Polish expert in the Scots language. Why?)
And why not? Somebody found it fascinating and specialised in it, and others must have found it equally interesting. The human mind is a wondrous thing. Education is about much more than finding a good job.
Can you explain more?
What is there to explain? There are specific requirements in place to become a sworn translator. I hear tell that these requirements are to be reduced soon - with higher education becoming unnecessary. Then you need to pass an exam. That's all. If linguists are not interested, this means that being a sworn translator is probably not worth the effort. I can't really say, as I left PL a few years ago. But the facts seem to point to this conclusion. I've been one now for ages, so it seems normal to me, but obviously if I were entering the profession today I might see things differently.