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The story is longer: Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. The shock therapy, pl

The story is longer: Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. The shock therapy, plus NATO and EU aspirations, paved the way. It is a story of a country that made a lot of the right decisions along the way. Managed to keep consistent high growth, not a pony trick or boom/bust mode. Poland should be a role model for many other countries. Recommend a book: https://www.amazon.com/Europes-Growth-Champion-Insights-Economic/dp/0198789343 https://www.amazon.com/Europes-Growth-Champion-Insights-Econ... And Noah's blog post: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-polandmalaysia-model https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-polandmalaysia-model

anikan_vader 4mo ago
>> Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. In what sense? Czechia is richer per capita. Almost all of the former Soviet satellite states in eastern Europe have had largely peaceful (since 1991) sustained economic growth. The exceptions are exactly those countries which continue to have Russian troops occupying portions, namely Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova.
- deleted 4mo ago
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- jakozaur 4mo ago
  Poland's first partly free election was on 4 June 1989, preceded by the roundtable negotiations. The protests in Czechoslovakia came later, called the Velvet Revolution, from 17 to 28 November 1989. In June 1990, Czechoslovakia held its first democratic elections, a year after Poland. Poland paved the way for the whole of central and eastern Europe. The Round Table produced the negotiated-exit template that Hungary built on in its own talks that summer, and that Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and the Baltics drew on as their regimes fell within months. And it did so from the deepest macroeconomic crisis of any of the satellite states: hyperinflation running into the hundreds of percent by late 1989, an unresolved sovereign default from 1981, and chronic shortages. Since then Poland has converged fastest of any of them. From a low base it has climbed to the upper-middle of central and eastern Europe by GDP per capita PPP, overtaken Hungary, and is now closing on Czechia and Slovenia.
  - somenameforme 4mo ago
    I'm curious what this means in real terms from the perspective of a Pole. GDP/capita is often a relatively useless metric in modern times. For instance Ireland has one of the highest GDP/capitas in the world -- around 50% higher than the US. But that's because of economic games with their working as a tax haven to enable corporations to avoid paying taxes to their home countries. It doesn't translate to anything for the average Irishman.
    - rayiner 4mo ago
      > GDP/capita is often a relatively useless metric in modern times. "Often" is the wrong modifier. GDP/capita aligns very closely with material standard of living for the median person. If you look at the GDP/capita growth in India and China since 1990, or South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, since 1950, that reflects very real increases in material standards for ordinary people. There's two, relatively well-understood situations where GDP/capita isn't reflective: 1) Countries where the economy is dominated by resource extraction or tourism 2) Tax havens But it's pretty easy to tell whether one of these exceptions applies. It doesn't in the case of Poland, which has a broad, diversified economy with a high level of industrial production.
      - standeven 4mo ago
        Isn’t GDP pretty easy to boost with deregulation and government overspending, at least in the short term? Neither of which benefits the people.
        bobthepanda 4mo ago
        You can’t really keep that up over 35 years though, which is what Poland has achieved.
        philwelch 4mo ago
        Deregulation does benefit the people, at least if it's done in ways that lead to sustained economic growth.
- alkyon 4mo ago
  In chronological sense. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989 Round Table agreement, which paved the way to the partially free elections in 1989 won by the opposition, preceded similar events in other countries by several months including Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and the Fall of Berlin Wall.
- BeetleB 4mo ago
  Romania?
  - xdennis 4mo ago
    Romania is still occupied by Russia. Unlike with Germany, where the East and West reunited, Romania failed to reunite with Eastern Moldova (Western Moldova is in Romania) because of Russian interference in the 1990s. The Russians invaded Transnistria (which was never Romanian) and expanded a bit west. So the Russians still occupy part of the land that is by right Romanian and still have political influence in R. Moldova. That is slowly being eroded.
    - arewethereyeta 4mo ago
      > Romania is still occupied by Russia? I'm a Romanian and never heard such nonsense. We have nothing to do with what's going on in Eastern Moldova nor with people from that region. We do not consider them Romanians at all. While a lot of them come here and integrate well, as a general feeling in these areas, they are more russians than romanians and I assure you, should it be to a vote, we wouldn't join. And btw, Romania is not occupied by Russia stop spreading such nonsense.
    - jgtrosh 4mo ago
      To those who do not know about this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Moldova_and_Romania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Moldova_and_Rom... (My external barely informed understanding is that proponents of unification are largely right wing nationalist, pro-Russians call for a unification with Bessarabia while ceding Transsinistria to Russia; Moldovans are largely against union in polls.)
- mmooss 4mo ago
  The OP shows the per capita GDP growth of the former Soviet bloc states since 1990. Poland is #1 at 252%, Romania #2 at 148%; Czechia is last at 72%.
- vkou 4mo ago
  Ukraine didn't have Russian troops occupying anything but the leased Crimean bases before the war started (and I do count the start of the war as being immediately after Euromaidan)... Yet in 2013, it was the second poorest country in Europe. (Ahead of Moldova, which has been occupied for decades, but significantly behind Belarus and Bulgaria)
  - brnt 4mo ago
    They didn't need troops till Maidan. They had the government already.
    - drysine 4mo ago
      Orange revolution in 2004 changed the Ukrainian government.
      - Eldt 4mo ago
        And how long does weeding out corruption take?
        drysine 4mo ago
        [flagged]
        distances 4mo ago
        De-russification didn't really start until the Orange Revolution, though. It's a long and painful process for Ukraine as reducing corruption requires shedding all the Russian influence. Before that, a lot of the problems genuinely are because of Russia. All states escaping the Russian curse improve speedily once they join the EU, and I expect the same to happen in Ukraine.
        drysine 4mo ago
        >De-russification Oh, please, please elaborate on that. How do you link corruption to ethnicity and language?
- aussiegreenie 4mo ago
  >Czechia is richer per capita This is a very bad measure of anything, especially wealth.
- tasuki 4mo ago
  > Czechia is richer per capita. Are you sure about that? I'm Czech but have lived in Poland for 8 years and visit regularly. Poland used to be way poorer than Czechia, but these days it looks the other way around. I think the stats are either lagging behind or computed wrong. Note I regularly visit both the cities and the countryside in both Czechia and Poland. Btw, the article has a "GDP per capita growth in post-communist countries" table, with Poland at the top and Czechia at the bottom.
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CodeNest 4mo ago
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mmooss 4mo ago
> The story is longer: Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. The shock therapy, plus NATO and EU aspirations, paved the way. The story is told in much more detail in the OP. What do you feel is missing from it?
exitb 4mo ago
Notably, only five years have passed between last Russian solders leaving Poland and the country joining NATO. Quite a speedrun.
- cromka 4mo ago
  And it was about the only period when Russia was so week it did not meddle internationally. Putin ascended to power in 1999.
haddr 4mo ago
[dead]
nixon_why69 4mo ago
Why wouldn't the story be that they succeeded despite the shock therapy? Honestly asking, I am not an expert on Polish economy, but I heard bad things. Maybe all of those hardworking people could have done even better with a different macro strategy?
- mrkaluzny 4mo ago
  The rapid and successful conversion to market economy was the main reason we are where we are. Human cost was extremely high, crime went up quickly and lots of money was lost. I'd argue this was corrected by joining EU and by adjusting the plan to polish reality. What made it a success was also the social capital in Poland, a lot of people worked extremely hard to pull it off, but still high unemployment was alleviated only by joining EU and people leaving to find employment elsewhere
  - goobatrooba 4mo ago
    Not to forget tens of billions in EU subsidies. Not trying to diminish the polish efforts, but not every country gets this opportunity of massive, predictable transfers without much conditionality. I wonder how far Poland would be without the years of PiS corruption.
    - wrzuteczka 4mo ago
      I think you got it backwards. Over the last 20 years, the SLD govt used to literally sell new legislation for bribes, PO (currently in charge of Poland) literally has right now a guy in their ranks who has likely stolen 100s of millions PLN from a public company, but is the prime minister’s BFF so the prosecutor canceled the investigation. The stuff PiS has done is nothing compared to those. I actually think that the Anti- Corruption Bureau that PiS founded is one of the core reasons Poland was able to mostly weed out the post-Russian corruption (corruption is unfortunately the main export of Russian culture, every country they invaded ended up extremely corrupt).
      - rasz 4mo ago
aksH21 4mo ago
Solidarność was funded by the West, though you may credit Polish/Eastern European capture of US foreign policy and the Polish Pope, too. It is true of course that they were the most persistent and brave. I don't think it would have been possible in East Germany for example, which ran a tighter regime until Poland managed the peaceful revolution.
- goobatrooba 4mo ago
  I'm sure that some people claim that but I would be grateful for evidence that solidarnosc received significant material support from the west.
technate4eva 4mo ago
[dead]
BrandoElFollito 4mo ago
It was mainly thanks to two men who decided to give up their future: the prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki and the minister of finances Leszek Balcerowicz. Today's politicians look like angry toddlers in a sandbox in comparison. There ware other great people of course, but these two paid the price.
chistev 4mo ago
I just bookmarked that book. Thanks

anikan_vader 4mo ago

>> Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. In what sense? Czechia is richer per capita. Almost all of the former Soviet satellite states in eastern Europe have had largely peaceful (since 1991) sustained economic growth. The exceptions are exactly those countries which continue to have Russian troops occupying portions, namely Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova.

deleted 4mo ago
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jakozaur 4mo ago
Poland's first partly free election was on 4 June 1989, preceded by the roundtable negotiations. The protests in Czechoslovakia came later, called the Velvet Revolution, from 17 to 28 November 1989. In June 1990, Czechoslovakia held its first democratic elections, a year after Poland. Poland paved the way for the whole of central and eastern Europe. The Round Table produced the negotiated-exit template that Hungary built on in its own talks that summer, and that Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and the Baltics drew on as their regimes fell within months. And it did so from the deepest macroeconomic crisis of any of the satellite states: hyperinflation running into the hundreds of percent by late 1989, an unresolved sovereign default from 1981, and chronic shortages. Since then Poland has converged fastest of any of them. From a low base it has climbed to the upper-middle of central and eastern Europe by GDP per capita PPP, overtaken Hungary, and is now closing on Czechia and Slovenia.
- somenameforme 4mo ago
  I'm curious what this means in real terms from the perspective of a Pole. GDP/capita is often a relatively useless metric in modern times. For instance Ireland has one of the highest GDP/capitas in the world -- around 50% higher than the US. But that's because of economic games with their working as a tax haven to enable corporations to avoid paying taxes to their home countries. It doesn't translate to anything for the average Irishman.
  - rayiner 4mo ago
    > GDP/capita is often a relatively useless metric in modern times. "Often" is the wrong modifier. GDP/capita aligns very closely with material standard of living for the median person. If you look at the GDP/capita growth in India and China since 1990, or South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, since 1950, that reflects very real increases in material standards for ordinary people. There's two, relatively well-understood situations where GDP/capita isn't reflective: 1) Countries where the economy is dominated by resource extraction or tourism 2) Tax havens But it's pretty easy to tell whether one of these exceptions applies. It doesn't in the case of Poland, which has a broad, diversified economy with a high level of industrial production.
    - standeven 4mo ago
      Isn’t GDP pretty easy to boost with deregulation and government overspending, at least in the short term? Neither of which benefits the people.
      - bobthepanda 4mo ago
        You can’t really keep that up over 35 years though, which is what Poland has achieved.
      - philwelch 4mo ago
        Deregulation does benefit the people, at least if it's done in ways that lead to sustained economic growth.
alkyon 4mo ago
In chronological sense. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989 Round Table agreement, which paved the way to the partially free elections in 1989 won by the opposition, preceded similar events in other countries by several months including Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and the Fall of Berlin Wall.
BeetleB 4mo ago
Romania?
- xdennis 4mo ago
  Romania is still occupied by Russia. Unlike with Germany, where the East and West reunited, Romania failed to reunite with Eastern Moldova (Western Moldova is in Romania) because of Russian interference in the 1990s. The Russians invaded Transnistria (which was never Romanian) and expanded a bit west. So the Russians still occupy part of the land that is by right Romanian and still have political influence in R. Moldova. That is slowly being eroded.
  - arewethereyeta 4mo ago
    > Romania is still occupied by Russia? I'm a Romanian and never heard such nonsense. We have nothing to do with what's going on in Eastern Moldova nor with people from that region. We do not consider them Romanians at all. While a lot of them come here and integrate well, as a general feeling in these areas, they are more russians than romanians and I assure you, should it be to a vote, we wouldn't join. And btw, Romania is not occupied by Russia stop spreading such nonsense.
  - jgtrosh 4mo ago
    To those who do not know about this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Moldova_and_Romania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Moldova_and_Rom... (My external barely informed understanding is that proponents of unification are largely right wing nationalist, pro-Russians call for a unification with Bessarabia while ceding Transsinistria to Russia; Moldovans are largely against union in polls.)
mmooss 4mo ago
The OP shows the per capita GDP growth of the former Soviet bloc states since 1990. Poland is #1 at 252%, Romania #2 at 148%; Czechia is last at 72%.
vkou 4mo ago
Ukraine didn't have Russian troops occupying anything but the leased Crimean bases before the war started (and I do count the start of the war as being immediately after Euromaidan)... Yet in 2013, it was the second poorest country in Europe. (Ahead of Moldova, which has been occupied for decades, but significantly behind Belarus and Bulgaria)
- brnt 4mo ago
  They didn't need troops till Maidan. They had the government already.
  - drysine 4mo ago
    Orange revolution in 2004 changed the Ukrainian government.
    - Eldt 4mo ago
      And how long does weeding out corruption take?
      - drysine 4mo ago
        [flagged]
        distances 4mo ago
        De-russification didn't really start until the Orange Revolution, though. It's a long and painful process for Ukraine as reducing corruption requires shedding all the Russian influence. Before that, a lot of the problems genuinely are because of Russia. All states escaping the Russian curse improve speedily once they join the EU, and I expect the same to happen in Ukraine.
        drysine 4mo ago
        >De-russification Oh, please, please elaborate on that. How do you link corruption to ethnicity and language?
aussiegreenie 4mo ago
>Czechia is richer per capita This is a very bad measure of anything, especially wealth.
tasuki 4mo ago
> Czechia is richer per capita. Are you sure about that? I'm Czech but have lived in Poland for 8 years and visit regularly. Poland used to be way poorer than Czechia, but these days it looks the other way around. I think the stats are either lagging behind or computed wrong. Note I regularly visit both the cities and the countryside in both Czechia and Poland. Btw, the article has a "GDP per capita growth in post-communist countries" table, with Poland at the top and Czechia at the bottom.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
deleted 4mo ago
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CodeNest 4mo ago

[dead]

mmooss 4mo ago

> The story is longer: Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. The shock therapy, plus NATO and EU aspirations, paved the way. The story is told in much more detail in the OP. What do you feel is missing from it?

exitb 4mo ago

Notably, only five years have passed between last Russian solders leaving Poland and the country joining NATO. Quite a speedrun.

cromka 4mo ago
And it was about the only period when Russia was so week it did not meddle internationally. Putin ascended to power in 1999.

haddr 4mo ago

[dead]

nixon_why69 4mo ago

Why wouldn't the story be that they succeeded despite the shock therapy? Honestly asking, I am not an expert on Polish economy, but I heard bad things. Maybe all of those hardworking people could have done even better with a different macro strategy?

mrkaluzny 4mo ago
The rapid and successful conversion to market economy was the main reason we are where we are. Human cost was extremely high, crime went up quickly and lots of money was lost. I'd argue this was corrected by joining EU and by adjusting the plan to polish reality. What made it a success was also the social capital in Poland, a lot of people worked extremely hard to pull it off, but still high unemployment was alleviated only by joining EU and people leaving to find employment elsewhere
- goobatrooba 4mo ago
  Not to forget tens of billions in EU subsidies. Not trying to diminish the polish efforts, but not every country gets this opportunity of massive, predictable transfers without much conditionality. I wonder how far Poland would be without the years of PiS corruption.
  - wrzuteczka 4mo ago
    I think you got it backwards. Over the last 20 years, the SLD govt used to literally sell new legislation for bribes, PO (currently in charge of Poland) literally has right now a guy in their ranks who has likely stolen 100s of millions PLN from a public company, but is the prime minister’s BFF so the prosecutor canceled the investigation. The stuff PiS has done is nothing compared to those. I actually think that the Anti- Corruption Bureau that PiS founded is one of the core reasons Poland was able to mostly weed out the post-Russian corruption (corruption is unfortunately the main export of Russian culture, every country they invaded ended up extremely corrupt).
    - rasz 4mo ago

aksH21 4mo ago

Solidarność was funded by the West, though you may credit Polish/Eastern European capture of US foreign policy and the Polish Pope, too. It is true of course that they were the most persistent and brave. I don't think it would have been possible in East Germany for example, which ran a tighter regime until Poland managed the peaceful revolution.

goobatrooba 4mo ago
I'm sure that some people claim that but I would be grateful for evidence that solidarnosc received significant material support from the west.

technate4eva 4mo ago

[dead]

BrandoElFollito 4mo ago

It was mainly thanks to two men who decided to give up their future: the prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki and the minister of finances Leszek Balcerowicz. Today's politicians look like angry toddlers in a sandbox in comparison. There ware other great people of course, but these two paid the price.

chistev 4mo ago

I just bookmarked that book. Thanks