Polish Citizens in a Transformed Society: A Social Contract Perspective on Business and Ethics in Poland

When 10 million Polish workers united to form the Solidarity movement in 1980, it became the first domino to fall in a chain of events that led to the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Within Poland, Solidarity created a social contract for rebuilding Polish society with the values of justice, dignity and freedom. Yet the actual transformation that Poland underwent emphasized mainly freedom, of those three values. Leaders implemented “shock therapy” to transform the economic system into a free market economy—with scant regard to the effects on human welfare. Today, Poland is regarded as one of the success stories of the post-Soviet transformation. But many Polish workers and consumers have felt excluded from the gains in living standards. Critics complain that the values of dignity and justice were ignored in the process of bolstering Poland’s economic freedom. Illustrating this at the level of the firm are cases on a labor strike and a consumer protest that also show Polish citizens challenging the terms of the social contract under which businesses operate in Poland. The discussion concludes that, in newly established democracies, social contracts must continually evolve as the population awakens to the challenges of creating a free and inclusive society.