JERZY BACZYŃSKI: Good evening. I would like to welcome you as the host of the venue for today's meeting. The subject of the conference is the future of the welfare state—one of the most vivid and fascinating issues of our time. I have the impression that we constantly keep revolving around this subject, even though we might not be entirely aware of it. This includes the editors of the Polityka weekly as well. We try to describe the reality in Poland and see that the creation of a state, its responsibility to the citizens—it is a subject which has never been fully discussed in Poland. The lack of discussion surrounding the Amber Gold scandal is an example of this. I wish to thank the co-organisers of this event: the Friedrich Ebert foundation and the Ferdinand Lassalle Centre for Social Thought. I also wish to welcome the speakers and His Excellency, the ambassador of Sweden. I await to hear the answers to the questions related to the main subject with great impatience, especially the two questions formulated by the organisers for the purpose of the invitation to today's conference. The first one is: “should the welfare state still serve as a reference point for social democracy?” It is a fascinating question—in Poland a full vision of a welfare state has just been presented by the PiS party. A surplus state—surely this has nothing to do with social democracy. The second question is as follows: “can the Nordic welfare state model serve as a source of inspiration for Poland?”—the eternal question: can we create a second Sweden after building a new Japan and a new Ireland? I am very anxious to hear the answers to these questions. MICHAŁ SYSKA: Good evening. I would like to thank everybody for attending today's conference, on behalf of the Ferdinand Lassalle Centre for Social Thought and the Friedrich Ebert foundation. I wish to express my gratitude to editor Jerzy Baczyński and the Polityka editorial team. We are grateful that we can hold this event in their headquarters. Polityka is and has always been a phenomena in the media market. At a time of media tabloidisation it is still a medium which treats its readers as debate partners and not consumers looking for cheap entertainment—this makes us even more glad to be here. We feel honoured that we can discuss a very important subject in the office of a weekly with such long intellectual debate traditions. I would also like to thank the director of the Friedrich Ebert foundation, Knut Dethlefson and his team for supporting our centre and the “Social democratic social policy” project. Today's meeting is an element of this project, while its final result is to be a book publication under the same title, written by young social democratic scientists from Warsaw and Wrocław. When a couple of months ago we began works on the project, we hoped that Prof. Tadeusz Kowalik would be the first reviewer of our work. Unfortunately, he has passed away a few weeks ago. He was a renowned economist, social democrat and probably the most known supporter of welfare state in Poland. His heritage still remains a constant source of inspiration for the young left-wing intelligentsia. We viewed Prof. Kowalik not only as an authority but also as a good friend. He gained our respect mostly through being a publicly active intellectual who used to passionately defend his views. He was also a very reliable scientist who could calmly present his arguments or showcase his great polemical talent. I am very glad that Prof. Kowalik's family is here with us. I would like to thank the speakers who decided to take part in the discussion. Firstly, allow me to thank Prof. Joakim Palme, the director at the Institute for Future Studies in Stockholm. We have provided the professor with a very intense schedule right from the time of his arrival in the morning. I believe he has already taken part in about eight interviews. I hope that he will also contribute to our knowledge in this discussion and that his views will evoke a heated debate. I also welcome Prof. Mirosław Grewiński from the Pedagogical University in Warsaw. In Poland, Prof. Grewiński is one of the scientist exploring the notion of the welfare state, especially the changes in the paradigms and
reforms of a welfare state. I find it very fortunate that the moderator of today's debate is a journalist, who in his activity as a publicist tries to bring all the interesting global discussions regarding the economy, social policy and many other disciplines in Europe to the readers in Poland. I welcome and thank editor Jacek Żakowski, who agreed to be the host of today's meeting. I hope we all have a successful and inspiring discussion, which will perhaps open up some new directions for Polish politics. JACEK ŻAKOWSKI: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. First, I would like to mention that I strongly dislike the Polish translation of the term “welfare state” to “państwo opiekuńcze.” It makes it sound as if we were all children. One connotation is that of the state as a night guardian, on the other: a kindergarten nanny. This implies a sort of quasiideological competition between a kindergarten nanny and a janitor. I believe that the term “welfare state” stands for something completely different. All the citizens in a welfare state are in a way connected, regardless of their geographical location. This is much more than just care. It is a certain relationship, a society, a family, an accountability and mutual dependence. It is not at all about patronising. I think that the problems with the welfare state in Poland comes to a large degree from the terrible name it has here. Obviously, there are also cultural differences between us and the Nordics, but we will get to that in a moment. We also need to mention the other problem, one that I find very important. As opposed to the Nordic countries and Western Europe, we are to a greater degree in statu nascendi. The Polish society is in the process of being properly formed—a culture without continuity. It would be hard for the Nordics to imagine that they could become Texans, but we still have a choice. That is why I find discussions like this one today justifiable. A conversation of this sort would serve no purpose in Austin, TX. In Poland it makes sense. This provides us with a special responsibility. The world of future generations will have already been established. This is the approach I have entering this discussion. I am certain that Prof. Palme is not wasting his time coming to Poland, since a lot depends on meetings like this. Allow me to begin by asking Prof. Grewiński about the background which leads to the differences between Nordic societies and Poland. In the last few years we have encountered a very strong barrier. After the establishing of Donald Tusk's government, Minister Boni—who was his Giddens, i.e. the intellectual force behind the government— formulated a thesis expressed through the slogan: “more Finland in Ireland.” This was supposed to mean that a project of cultural and political change was to be introduced. I have the impression that this venture failed, to a large degree probably to a certain cultural pressure. Perhaps Prof. Grewiński can elaborate—after all that is what professors are for. MIROSŁAW GREWIŃSKI: Good evening and thank you for inviting me here. In reference to Mr. Żakowski's introduction, I believe that the term “welfare state” should be replaced by something else. It is no accident that there are two translations of this term in Polish: “państwo opiekuńcze” (caregiver state) and “państwo dobrobytu społecznego” (state of social prosperity). The latter has to do with the Nordic countries, while in Poland, after 23 years of transformation, in a sense we still have a caregiver state or even a social aid state. Thus, I would argue that we should talk about a Polish social policy, which would be broader than the welfare state by definition. Social policy can be European, global or national in its scope. Prof. Ryszard Szarfenberg believes that national social policy or social policy as a whole is equivalent to the welfare state. I personally think that one can differentiate between a civic social policy, a local government social policy and the market in social policy. That is why I encourage to discuss social policy or a set of social policies, and not just a state. Otherwise we limit the scope of the discussion to the social functions of a state, which obviously change throughout the years along with the needs of the
citizens. The differences between the Scandinavian model and Poland, or rather CentralEastern Europe as a whole, are truly huge. I do not think that we will be able to successfully transfer the model or entire welfare state system to our country. This is practically impossible. Sure, we can borrow certain good solutions, implement certain modules. We can use some of the system's good practices, benchmarks or reference points. But I do not believe that we can incorporate the entire model in Poland. This has to do with cultural reasons, with tradition. The welfare state in Sweden or in other countries of the region have been developing under completely different cultural, social and religious conditions. Even the fact that we are a catholic country has its import here. Most believers in Scandinavian countries are protestants. Some countries function under monarchy, which is not the case in Poland. There is also a lack of wars in the Nordic countries. They are neutral in military conflicts. This is also important. Poland has been very active in various conflicts. All this makes it impossible to bring the Scandinavian model over to Poland. We constitute a different culture, we have a different institutional system and a completely different cultural, legal and organisational heritage. There was a lot of research on culture in Europe. I believe that Robert D. Putnam's research was most prominent. The result of his studies showed that culture or tradition determine the capacity of certain regions for more intense and more successful activity. This also involves different regions in the same country. Since we are talking about two completely different systems, it is hard to imagine transferring them ad hoc to another country, regardless of how strong we want that to happen. The Scandinavian model is great. In Scandinavia, all the indicators—which we will probably talk about more in a moment—are the best in the world. I believe that we will not manage to implement this system in Poland. This is related to what Gøsta Esping-Andersen, as well as Tomas Inglot, refer to as “path dependence.” In a sense, we are dependant on the path we have chosen for ourselves many years ago, which includes all the cultural and social things I have mentioned and which we cannot change. In his last paper, Esping-Andersen claims that the most important thing has to do with the fact that such changes can be made only in the context of a grand event. A new state is created after a military conflict or a social cataclysm. But when reforming a state, i.e. by transforming its institutions, systems etc., we cannot suddenly decide to build this or that system under a new government. It will be very hard to discuss a model which we cannot fully incorporate in Poland. JACEK ŻAKOWSKI: This means I have some good news and some bad news, professor. The good news is that Putnam's next book after Making democracy work was Bowling alone, in which the author showed that a culture can be very dynamic and changeable. True, the changes in America are rather negative, but they occur fast and radically. A civic society can quickly dissolve, but it can also quickly build itself anew. The bad news— though in a sense also good—is that perhaps a radical event like the one you mentioned is yet ahead of us. There is talk about a crisis and a decline of Europe. There are fundamental challenges waiting for us all over the world. I would now like to address Prof. Palme. Can the welfare state still be an efficient political programme for social democracy on the European level, not only in a single country, in a reality undergoing such radical changes? Perhaps we should come up with a new notion of social balance state based on other mechanisms and ideas? JOAKIM PALME: First of all I would like to thank the organisers for inviting me and providing me with this and other opportunities to express my views, including a large number of interviews. The organisers of the debate asked if it was difficult to answer the same kinds of questions over and over again. I said that the questions were different but I gave them the same answers.
You have raised some fundamental issues regarding the way we should look at the welfare state. Is there a way to reorganise, reconceptualise, redesign the welfare state to face the grand challenges of today and tomorrow? Let me start by saying that I agree with prof. Grewiński, who stressed the need to ask fundamental questions about why we have a welfare state in the first place. I think that a lot of the discussion on the welfare state has been very defensive, focused on defending the welfare state for its own sake, which I find pointless. We need to have an idea of what the welfare state should deliver. The concept of a social well-being welfare state is a step forward, as we shift the focus from how we organise the welfare state to what we want it to deliver. I find a problem specific approach much more fruitful. We cannot limit ourselves to asking questions on the general level. We need concrete questions when discussing the needs of the ageing population or the need to recreate a new gender balance or the need to make the welfare state programmes compatible with the labour market institutions. All these questions demand a more specific approach to the welfare state. I truly welcome this approach. What is more, any kind of policy learning has to be a bit modest in the sense that we cannot assume we can simply transplant the institutional apparatus from one context to a completely new one. Although we should be aware that in a way we are prisoners of our past, dependant on previous institutions and cultures, I welcome this general notion that change is possible and that we should not overestimate the importance of culture. I think that culture can be changed through institutions. But it is much more demanding than if you just continue along the old, familiar path. Do welfare state programmes have something to contribute to the constant challenges that we are facing in Europe? I think that it depends on how wise we are in terms of approaching the agenda. This question is important since it is asked not only in Europe but also elsewhere. This has to do with the fact that we are facing some very fundamental challenges related to the times we live in. This has to do with the universal trend of ageing populations. We know that the ageing of our populations is putting more pressure on society, since single individuals cannot solve this problem on their own. With fewer children in the world, this is something that becomes increasingly difficult. The other big social challenge is the universal trend towards increasing inequalities. This is what the OECD sees as one of the major challenges of today. When you listen to European leaders—but also to leaders elsewhere, from China, Vietnam or Latin America— they see the threats to social cohesion stemming from increases in inequalities, something that warrants more public policy solutions. I think that at the same time many politicians feel trapped by what they usually refer to as globalisation. It is not always clear what they mean when they use the term. One former Dutch prime minister, who later became a professor of globalisation at our university, said that it is difficult to define the notion, but that every politician knows globalisation is out there and that we have to adapt to it. I think that we need to be more precise than that and ask specific questions, trying to find out what globalisation is really about. This is related to what used to be the conventional wisdom that most tradedependant, exposed economies in Europe have also developed the most sophisticated systems of social protection. This is not a coincidence. It was possible in the 50s and 60s to combine globalisation with more sophisticated systems of social protection. At some point in time it was seen as impossible, but I think it mainly had to do with the different mindset that came from the neoliberal hegemony which developed in the 80s and 90s. This is also related to the fact that we had not been careful in monitoring our institutions. We assumed that the institutions would deliver what they were intended to deliver—this was not always the case. It was also clear that many countries struggled with problems of cost control, incentive structures etc. I think that what you have mentioned in terms of the European challenge is critical in the sense that the European discussion has now led to a
perception of the necessity to combine economic and social objectives. This was very clear in the Lisbon Agenda from the 2000, which involved the idea of combining the most competitive economy in the world with creating more and better jobs, as well as promoting social inclusion and social cohesion. This was a response to the single market framework which existed before. When the Dutch and French populations said no to the new constitution, European politicians understood that they could not get popular support for political and economic integration unless they can match this integration with a stronger emphasis on social objectives. In this context, the Nordic example came into focus because Scandinavia has experienced the most rapid growth rates over the past decade and because it combined this with equality in big welfare states. JACEK ŻAKOWSKI: I have the impression that there is a certain trap waiting for us here. There are cultural differences within Europe, also regarding the perception of a balanced state. It is very hard for me to imagine a way to cope with these differences. What works well in Scandinavia would probably become corrupt in Naples within a year. I do not wish to offend anyone, but I also think that the same can be said for some cities in Poland. Meanwhile there is the growing pressure for integration. Economies will become alike. Each next reaction to the crisis shows how forced this economic uniformity truly is. It is hard to find a unified answer in social politics, even due to the aforementioned differences in tradition etc. If a single state establishes an intensive social policy it will be severely punished by the markets. How can we avoid this situation? JOAKIM PALME: I think we need to frame the issue differently. If we frame it as a sort of conflict between the market and the welfare state, then we are implying that the welfare state is a burden which we have to carry and which we will at some point have to abandon. If this is our starting point, I do not think that we can avoid the trap you mentioned. I think we need to be much more precise about designer policies. We also need to reformulate the welfare state from just being about caring—as prof. Grewiński mentioned. If you look at what the welfare state does in a broad sense, you will see that simple redistribution from the rich to the poor is a very small element of the whole process. The welfare state mostly deals with different life cycle problems – supporting families and children, as well as old people, and insuring people against unemployment and sickness. If we wish to avoid this trap, we need to perceive the welfare state as a social investment. It so happens that I have been editing a book together with a group of colleagues. The book is entitled Towards a social investment welfare state, and in it we argue that if we wish to avoid the trap in question, we need to prolong the time horizon regarding the implementation of the welfare state. We need to think about the welfare state as an investment, a life cycle process. We need to understand that if we do not invest in the welfare state today, if we keep believing that we cannot afford it today, then once our populations get older we will face gigantic problems. This will not happen tomorrow or in five years but in ten or thirty years. All European societies will be severely affected and the countries that do the least of social investment will suffer the most dramatic changes in the future. JACEK ŻAKOWSKI: The English refer to this as a contradiction of horizons. The problem is that the markets reward and punish immediately, just as politics, while the horizon you speak of is of no interest to brokers or politicians since they cannot use it for their benefit. MIROSŁAW GREWIŃSKI: We should probably move towards a “glocal” social policy. On the one hand, all the globalisation, Europeanisation, internalisation and cosmopolisation processes turn the state into a mediator between institutions and organisations which
should create, programme and perhaps even govern social policy on the transnational level. On the other hand, the problems in social policy are solved on the local level. Because of this, the state is at a loss, as there occurs the supremacy and internationalisation of decisions and solutions. Our participation in the Union, but also in the Council of Europe and all the conventions we signed, including those related to the UN, indicate that Poland respects the entire effort of the consensus. This has to do with legal and social actions. Still, the social problems of citizens are solved in communes and through village administration, which is why we need a local social policy, What is the new role of the state? It is not to provide care but to provide support. The state should govern a multi-dimensional chaos of various interactions and involving different actors. If the state cannot manage this chaos we will not be able to develop the important aspect of social policy which is e.g. the mobilisation policy, the multi-sector activity policy or social economy. This is because different subjects on the local level will have to provide increasingly advanced and individualised services. This multi-level organisation structure means that the state has to be an efficient manager of these services. Poland is weak institutionally and service-wise. We are experiencing an institutional crisis窶馬ot only in Poland, as it is observed all over the world. March Olsen's book on institutions deals with this issue. We have to cope with the internal problems of the state and its institutions. Only then we can try to establish a modern type of social policy. Whether it is to be a state social policy or a social policy supervised by the state is an open issue. I personally think that people require security regarding their needs and risk on a local level, through the best services realised in different sectors. That is why I encourage the Left to become familiar with the concept of pluralism, variety and multisectoralism. This is the answer to the question about how to cope with the growingly complex social reality, a process referred to by Prof. Julian Auleytner as taming the social chaos. The key question is: which social or welfare functions should be left in the hands of the state, and which ones should be handed over to other sectors or subjects? Should the state handle only legal, redistributional, programming and governing functions, at the same time becoming the main source of services? That is what the welfare state is: a coordinator which co-finances various things, which provides supervision but also leaves certain space for active non-governmental organisations and the market. The market would also function as part of such a policy, as in Poland social market economy is a constitutional principle. The constitution implies a market economy that is social in character, not a capitalist or market welfare state. According to the constitution, we should accept market solutions, at the same time introducing social entrepreneurship, i.e. implementing what Prof. Hausner is lately dealing with and which is supported by many others: social economy, social companies and various social cooperatives. We have completely dismantled cooperatives in the 90s. Today we speak of the need to reintroduce social cooperatives. Numerous good examples and experiences are at our disposal. Still, we need to assume a contemporary view of the state. It should be a mediator between European institutions and the local level. It should be a good governor, it should properly manage and co-finance. This means there has to be the redistribution of funds, but not through pumping huge amounts of money into shielding activities which do not bring long-term results and social change. We are currently petrifying our system through inefficient institutions. We are also wasting European funds, as system projects are realised in those inefficient institutions. They spend a lot of money. We will be able to find out whether the investments they fund are successful only through ex-post summaries and fund evaluations. The next question is: should the state have the same functions today as it used to have 30 years ago or should they be different? We are experiencing a change in reality and the social environment. 30 years ago nobody used cell phones or the Internet. If technological change can be that fast, we should also notice changes in social
processes, even if they are not as rapid. The key issue is which social functions should currently be governed by the state. JACEK ŝAKOWSKI: Perhaps Prof. Palme can answer this question. I think that we need to look for solutions through transnational modelling, if only due to market pressure. How then should we determine the functions of a state in a contemporary welfare state? JOAKIM PALME: There are some who argue that we should pursue redistribution policies via paying taxes to the European level and letting the European level redistribute the funds where it finds it most useful. I think the experience with agricultural policies should point at the fact that the European Union can play a very good role here. I think that what is clear is that the European Union can be a facilitator when it comes to policy learning. This should be conducted in a much more systematic way. It has been done within the Lisbon Agenda with the so-called open method of coordination, but it is a very complex and not very transparent operation. We can clearly see that there exists a number of successful initiatives all over Europe, not only in the Nordic countries. I think we could use the European arena for popularising these successful initiatives and reforms all across Europe, so that they can stimulate action on the local level. But one has to be cautious when saying that the European Union should necessarily play a more active role. The issue of the market punishing certain policies is to be taken seriously. I do think there was a number of misunderstandings on the part of the market in the 80s and 90s, informed by the neoliberal agenda rather than real world examples. Still, I would argue that the market is a bit more wise today than it was in the past. When you look at competitiveness rankings, big welfare states are not ranked low. Quite the contrary: the Nordic countries are found among the top ten. I think we need to convince the market actors that we are actually able to implement the kind of policies described by prof. Grewiński, through which one can actually achieve something which enables individuals to take part in the market. I wish to argue for a social investment welfare state as a way of strengthening markets and at the same time responding to the need to increase the number of taxpayers. Additionally, there is certainly a lot of cultural issues involved here. There is a need for institution change which is related to gender. Over the past 50 years modern Scandinavian countries have witnessed various kinds of lax reforms of the social policy systems which had enabled what we call the dual-earner model. Obviously, it is not perfect—I have some severe critique of some of the exact policy designs, but the outcome has been positive in terms of implementing policies which enable women to combine family responsibilities with working on the market. Fighting poverty has also been very successful, but the important thing is that certain means have been implemented to enable work on the market. This required massive public investment in early childhood training and in elderly care facilities. Sweden was different in the 50s and in the 60s. There was a political coalition between the liberals and the social democrats which introduced a reform of the taxation system and social policy systems. It was pushed despite strong cultural resistance, and has now created a new culture. Currently, the conservative party leader and Prime Minister goes to England to promote a modern family policy model for the English conservatives as a way of responding to the challenges of the British society. I think that this is an example where institutional change can foster cultural change but it is not without effort, both politically or economically. It is a fact that women at all levels of education and in more and more European countries are performing better than men. The state and individuals are investing a lot of resources in human capital. This capital is depleted unless you find collective solutions to enable women to be part of the markets. The issue of private provision of publicly regulated, legislated, funded services has
also been raised today. This is another method of making way for a more plural society, which is especially important in Poland, where the civic society was destroyed during the communist years. Here, again, we can see interesting examples. For a couple of decades, Sweden has been a laboratory for private provision of publicly funded services. We have made some advancements and some setbacks as a result of this policy. An arena for discussing and disseminating the experiences is what I see as the primary role for Europe. Europe has to be a political leader, informing the market about how public policy can be good for the market, not vice versa. JACEK ŻAKOWSKI: Thus, Europe should serve as a laboratory for social strategies and as an exchange arena for information, while the state should introduce cultural and mental changes in society. Who then should be responsible for providing services? JOAKIM PALME: We really need to take a broad perspective and look for numerous solutions. Allow me to provide an example. Elderly care services in Sweden have been on the decline for a couple of decades in terms of the share of the elderly population receiving public support. This is partly related to the fact that old people become increasingly healthy and rich, which is why they are able to take care of themselves. partly because of the perceived funding restrictions. But at no point in time has the state been the major carrier for old people—it has always been the family members. State policies can enable the families to take responsibility for their elderly, but if the state is not there, the families will be overburdened and in the end may choose to abandon the elderly and leave them to be taken care of by the church or the state. That is why we need to find ways of combining the efforts of the various sectors of society. Thus, the policy design and the way the state regulates it and funds can either stimulate the third sector, i.e. the families, or can lead to the destruction of valuable social capital. We need to perceive the state not as an enemy of the family but rather as a facilitator for the family to help it serve its function in the new world. JACEK ŻAKOWSKI: What aspects of human functioning, which elements of the everyday lives of citizens should be involved in a welfare state policy and welfare state regulation? One can imagine that this is mostly about health care, education and social support for those in need etc. But how do we define the scope of this policy? Should the welfare state involve all citizens or only a selected few? The welfare state model functioning in Great Britain has been radically changed in the name of efficiency. The state introduced high tuition fees, reduced health care funding etc. Is there a model which could combine the social ideal with economic efficiency in a short and long time horizon? MIROSŁAW GREWIŃSKI: It all depends on whether we wish to define social policy as a broad policy of social public investment for all citizens, or rather as a shielding policy, which encourages exclusive support for excluded citizens and social risk groups. The Ministry of Labour and Social Policy in Poland is not responsible for health care and education. From an organisational point of view we thus water down social policy to social insurance, to a social security system, the labour market, social welfare and the family. Education and health care are also issues of the public policy which we refer to as the social policy in Polish tradition. The key question here is: do we consider social policy to be a Gesellschaftspolitik or a Socialpolitik? I am personally an advocate of a social policy in a broad sense, which aims at securing weaker groups and investing in society or social groups at the same time. Such a policy involves a whole spectrum of solutions in different areas. Mr. Żakowski mentioned the ones that are most important, but there is also a whole lot of other problems which should be addressed by this policy, such as migration. For over 20 years Prof. Antoni Rajkiewicz has been arguing that in order to find solutions for the
needs of today's welfare state we need knowledge regarding migration, multiculturalism and demographic issues in the family and the household. It is not by accident that foreign authors claim that changes within the family or in the household, as well as changes on the labour markets have the greatest influence on reorganisation of the welfare state. These two key elements force the need for the welfare state of today to be reshaped and adapted to certain irreversible processes, regardless of whether we like it or not. The mass introduction of women on the labour market, a process ongoing since the 70s, can be one example of this. It forced us to introduce changes to the welfare state. I believe it is very fortunate that women were given the opportunity to work, but this forced a reorganisation of the welfare services, sanitary services, nurturing services etc. of the traditional family model. I do not wish to get into details, since there are too many examples I could use. We need to take five key issues into account. The first one has to do with demographics. It can be used to support a higher fertility rate, as it is currently too low. Secondly: migrations. 2 millions of Polish citizens left the country. The government promised to introduce a so-called return policy for those citizens, but it failed. There is also the issue of multiculturalism, which is becoming prominent in other countries, e.g. in Norway. We all remember the bloody events in Norway which took place last year. In one of his papers, Prof. Anioł—who was in Norway at the time—wrote about multiculturalism becoming a grave problem there. Finally, there is the serious problem of deactivation—not unemployment, but deactivation of citizens. We are currently raising the retirement age in Poland to 67 for men and 65 for women. Still, we have no idea how to motivate the 70% of 55-year-olds and other professionally passive people who have not yet reached the retirement age and remain outside of the labour market. We are thus raising the retirement age for those who are already professionally active. The social support system is probably the greatest source of problems. The ageing of the society forces long-term care services which we cannot provide. This type of care in Poland remains in the grey area. It is also dispersed, as part of the services is taken care of by social welfare and the other part by health care. How should we develop these services so as to make them available, if you have to wait 6 years for a nursing home in a city like Łódź? Additionally, a private institution is also available and is offering vacancies, but it cannot be funded by the state. We have to decide whether we wish to provide services for people and their needs or for the public sector. I also think that education is a very grave problem. We need to decide whether schools should function the way they currently do. The situation is often different in each school, but on a macro level it is obvious that schools need to change. This includes universities as well. All this is why the social policy in Poland is teeming with all sorts of unsolvable problems. We have not solved these problems during the last 22 years since we lack a serious public debate and political consensus, even between parties. Today, Swedish scientists travel to Great Britain to teach local citizens. A consensus between the left-wing and Christian democracy in Europe led to the creation of a European social policy as such—without it, the solutions which are currently available would remain beyond our reach. I do not think we should fear a combination of different concepts and ideas in order to claim the best solutions. I believe that the last piece of the entire puzzle is the health care and disability issue. There are four systems in Poland which support the disabled, but none of them introduces disabled people onto the labour market. What use do we have for a system which aims at labour market inclusion if the disabled are not part of it? There are many subjects which require a detailed discussion. Debates on the topic of the welfare state are debates on the macro level. We can point at indicators and figures and see that they are
better in Scandinavian countries and worse in other countries. We can compare them, describe the differences etc. but it is the details that matter. We need to analyse each and every problem in detail. The government should establish a group of experts, activists, practitioners and decision-makers with whom it wishes to discuss these problems. For a number of years I have been witnessing a significant lack of strategic thinking regarding the things which could happen in 20-30 years if we do not undertake proper action. JACEK ŝAKOWSKI: This is where the contradiction of horizons I mentioned earlier comes in. I think that in the last few years we are slowly abandoning the conviction—often promoted by many important and renowned individuals—that the market is able to regulate everything. The market was supposed to regulate university education. Four years ago we would hear such things said by very respectable people. There was an appeal to create a social welfare market. Health care was also supposed to be regulated by the market. The same with education: not long ago a certain Minister of Education and respectable historian claimed that if we increase the number of private schools, we will improve the functioning of schools through competition. The belief in the market is a barrier which prevents us from all sort of meditation on social policy issues, since the common mindset is that we do not need to think about these things at all. As I have already mentioned, we are slowly abandoning this approach. My next question to Prof. Palme has to do with the change in awareness in Sweden. The very interesting subject of the liberal-socialist coalition from the 60s has been mentioned. The coalition paved the way for social change. What is the story behind that change? Where did it come from? JOAKIM PALME: I think that the history of a breakthrough in modern society is yet to be written. Still, I believe that it is clear that an important aspect had to do with the political mobilisation among women. This was a very important trigger behind the number of critical policy changes. But there was also a certain understanding in the business sector. They have experienced labour shortage, so the resistance for tax increases necessary to increase child care investment were not as strong there as in other areas. I think that there is a certain political history behind the modernisation of the Swedish family policy. But the interesting thing is that when we look at other Nordic countries, we see that they have had different political histories and were influenced by the Swedish policy initiatives. I guess that Norway came last of the Nordic countries but has perhaps gone further than the others. Germany is another interesting example. The German CDU Minister of Family Affairs implemented a Scandinavian type of parental leave insurance. We do not have to repeat the same political histories, as some of the solutions are already there. The history behind them is interesting as such, but once the ideas are established and the practical solutions are at hand, you can try to implement them and use them. My take on the European situation is that Europe should be used as an arena for policy learning, but only if we are serious about forcing the member states to comply to certain economic criteria, such as restricting the size of the budget deficits and public debt. Our analysis of the post-war development here in Europe is that the most important public policy drive for economic growth is investment in education. But the sad story with Europe is that the richer we get, the more lazy we get. We do not match our economic growth with a similar or even higher degree of education investment. Thus, if we really wish to be serious about the future, we need to advocate the European Union implementing stronger policy measures to force the member states to invest in education. Otherwise, if we continue what has been the trend during the recent past, i.e. the richer we get the less we spend on education, then the entire European continent will be embarking on a downward spiral. There are two important policy elements which have widespread support in Europe:
lifelong learning and flexicurity. Lifelong learning is about investing in people over their entire life cycle. But this means that the state needs to start from year one and never give up, even when the people are fifty years old. If you are serious about having an effective retirement age at 67, you need a long-term commitment, and you need to provide very good individual terms for investment in education. The companies have a lot to gain, just like the state. We need new kinds of partnership. Flexicurity is important – in the global world we cannot protect jobs, but we can protect the people. Thus, we need to make people secure enough to be flexible on the labour market, to move from the old sectors to new sectors. This is impossible only if they are properly trained through lifelong learning and if they have security in the transition. There are options for giving this social dimension a bigger role on the European level, but only if we take a broad perspective on social policy. JACEK ŻAKOWSKI: These are grave problems we are discussing here. There are huge amounts of money in question and painful defeat is often suffered by those involved. But we do agree that social policy is an important mission for the state. This is not about maintenance, as we know that we cannot suddenly put everything in order. But if we abandon the notion of maintenance we can avoid gigantic amounts of wasted funds. One example of such waste has to do with education. The state has undoubtedly wasted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people through university level education. These people have received worthless education on a pitiful level and in completely useless professions, spending huge amounts of money and wasting many years of their lives. If one was to study the consequences of the destructive activity of private education in the area of university level education—perhaps not all of it, but a significant portion of it—then, I assure you, the funds the state has wasted this way could be used for the financing of a pro-family policy for many years. Where should we look for the reasons of this situation? This is not about ill will but rather the conviction that life will regulate everything by itself, so that the state does not have to interfere. I think that we are not experiencing a financial barrier or a knowledge barrier. Knowledge can be imported. But there certainly is a mental barrier. Perhaps Prof. Palme can help us get rid of the false awareness which is a source of huge waste and difficulty, and which we cannot get rid of, even though we are very well aware of it. This is one phenomena I cannot understand: how are we to get rid of false awareness? I guess that if we wish to receive an answer to this question we should turn to philosophers rather than political scientists or sociologists. Nevertheless, today's debate is a significant starting point on the path towards changing this awareness.