I thought I might just say a few words about the Polish election that took place at the start of last week as I think it’s healthy to compare the democratic process in other countries with that of our own and because I think it provides some interesting general lessons regarding the direction that the global market economy is moving towards.

Well, on Tuesday of last week it was reported “Poland’s centre-right opposition party Citizens Platform [OP for short] scored a crushing victory in the country’s general election, putting an abrupt end to the conservative-nationalist Law and Justice party’s [PiS] self-styled ‘moral revolution’ after just two years”.

After the dismantling of the old Communist regime, the US, emerging as the world’s remaining super-power, had big plans for the transformation of Eastern Europe into a cheap labour pool for western manufacturing companies (producing goods for – surprise – western consumption, like magazines, cosmetics, electronics, cars, plastics and chemicals). This process, known as “shock therapy” (think “shock and awe” but with less bombs… or see Naomi Klein’s latest book) turned out to be catastrophic and galvanised a massive rebuke against the Washington Consensus, which led to a new right-wing party forming out of the religious-nationalist right called Law and Justice. It appealed to old conservative traditional values and promised national renewal through national purpose and discipline.

This “moral revolution” was, in reality, a coalition of a handful of parties on the ultra-right made up of the dominant PiS, the “League of Polish Families”, “All Polish Youth” and “Self Defence”. These parties hold deeply reactionary homophobic, anti-semitic and theocratic views. Indeed the deputy of the All Polish Youth was recently caught on camera in East Germany at a neo-Nazi rally, burning a swastika into the ground. As for the League of Polish Families, their recent campaign against ‘deviation’ (which means anything that is not them) and demands for 8 child families are classics of the genre. They also recently held a quasi-militaristic mass for all the poor people of Holland who are, apparently, forced into homosexual acts by sinister Jewish multinationals.

It is worth mentioning that the generational divide in Poland is quite apparent, with the older generation heeding the religious nationalist call of the now ailing Law and Justice party, and the younger ones gravitating naturally towards the more liberal Citizen’s Platform. It is hard for us in the UK to relate to this, to think of our parents generation living under a brutal military dictatorship like that of General Jaruszelski’s, where people had never even seen western-style cars, chewing gum or Coca-Cola, let alone adverts or computers. Yet, the current generation (if they are wealthy enough) have mobiles and the internet and despite influential individuals such as ‘Father’ Ridzik (the jaw droppingly opportunistic and corrupt one time priest and now full time media empire controller) putting all his resources behind PiS in a massive orgy of anti-semitism, homophobia, anti-feminism and smear tactics, younger Poles in support of greater liberty, shared text messages across Poland saying: ‘Do Poland a favour this election and hide your Granny’s ID’ (referring to the ID needed to vote), in an effort to stop another PiS victory.

So the PiS defeat is good news. However, the jubilance displayed by the pro-neoliberal European media is something of an indication that any celebrations may be premature. While the PiS denounced capitalism as “Jewish” and “homosexual” (!?), they have simultaneously opened the doors to every western firm looking to make a quick buck and have only maintained their power for this short amount of time by scaring the rural conservative population into thinking that without prayers in school and a ban on condom machines, the devil himself will take root. Despite claiming that they were preventing “liberal economic policies which were aimed only at the affluent part of society”, in reality they provided fertile welcoming soil for free investment from European and US multinationals which have benefited hugely from the pauperization of the work force and a high level of unemployment, offering new ways to undercut what the Financial Times refers to as “pampered Western European workers” with their “luxurious lifestyles”. In fact, a British industrialist recently explained in the Wall Street Journal that when workers see jobs disappearing it has a salutary effect on people’s attitudes. This was part of an article praising the Thatcher reforms for bringing about a low-wage, low-skill economy in Britain with great labour flexibility, and wonderful profits.

More recently, commenting on the Polish election, the Financial Times noted: “As far as the economy is concerned, Civic Platform inherits a strong position, as did the Kaczynskis in 2005. The economy is still drawing the benefits of a painful restructuring, which early this decade laid the ground for rapid growth: real gross domestic product is projected to rise 6.5 per cent this year. With the help of emigration, unemployment has plunged from 20 per cent in 2002 to 11.7 per cent. The budget is in good order: the 2007 deficit is forecast at 3 per cent, hitting the level required for euro entry two years earlier than planned and preparing the country for a possible adoption of the currency in 2012. The party has announced broad plans for tax reforms and deregulation but these are short on details. Bankers do not expect any fundamental overhaul of Poland’s bloated welfare system or other radical reforms. Civic Platform has talked little lately about its controversial plans for a flat rate of tax. But business people say privatisation, which ground to a halt under the twins, could soon be revived. The party’s policy is to sell off all the 1,200 companies still in state hands except for a few strategic holdings in the energy and defence industries.”

Of course as far as the FT is concerned, the economic is always privileged over the social world. Slightly smug, avuncular lines like ‘economic growth has thankfully been sustained, but, yes, it has hurt at times’ don’t actually mention that the hurt was human hurt, or that the growth was in fact to the benefit of a small and already wealthy minority. A recent survey by the IMF has noted: “According to economic theory, increased trade and investment should diminish income inequality in developing nations. The theory argued that as more low-skilled jobs moved from the U.S. to developing nations, for example, demand for lower-income workers would increase in developing nations, as would their wages in comparison with higher-skilled workers there. Overall, the income gap would close. The facts haven’t borne that out. Since countries in Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe began to liberalize their economies, the gap between rich and poor has widened. Political resentment has increased as a result.”

Also, this is not just true of the developing nations. As Joseph Stiglitz (the Nobel prize winning economist) observed at the start of this year the dominant economic model is producing rich countries with poor people: “despite the promise that a well-managed globalization would make everyone better off, the unheralded side of globalization American-style is that it is making many in the advanced industrial countries worse off. This is even so when economic growth increases because globalization has put intense downward pressure on the wages of the unskilled and the less skilled of the labor force.” It is the same in Poland, the winners of globalization — those with capital – may do very well, but the rest of the population (particularly the 19% living below the poverty line) are likely to bear the brunt of further “painful restructuring”.