THE VALUES AND GOALS OF A SOCIALDEMOCRATIC POLICY

THE VALUES AND GOALS OF A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC POLICY

Ryszard Szarfenberg, PhD

Warsaw 26.03.2012

I have already had the chance to touch upon the issue of left-wing social policy and the analysis of the development of the social policy in Poland, regarding its affiliation with the Left or lack of thereof. At certain times, when I was more up to date with programme discussions among Polish political forces, I pondered the form and content of a potential left-wing social policy programme, especially in the context of more or less practical solutions to the challenges of the contemporary world. I would like to mention certain limitations related to the social democratic nature of social policy. Quite often I have considered myself far more radically leftist than social democracy. Also, even though I am currently working at the Journalism and Political Sciences Department, I am not that much interested in matters related to direct politics, i.e. the stances of political parties, future elections and voting results. I am far more interested in what is referred to as social policy, meaning the politics of a given government after a party's victory in the elections. That is why I know much more regarding social policy than social democratic ideology or its development, even though I always considered myself to be leftist. In most cases I wished to think of myself as an advocate of far more radical leftist ideas than those related to social democracy. It was only later, when I got involved in defending the welfare state through discussions with its adversaries that I have defined myself as a social democrat.

Welfare state was, after all, a social democratic idea.

Thus, even though I am an academic and am not really involved in the current political conflicts or grassroots movements, I have left the confines of pure science which observes a given phenomena from the outside, as I have become involved in the Polish Committee of the European Anti Poverty Network. First, I contributed my work as a social expert, to later become the chief of its Executive Council. That is why I am more familiar with politics from the point of view of social non-governmental organisations, which aim at battling poverty. Left-wing politicians often do not hold left-wing views. The left-wing rhetoric which I am familiar with mostly through reading English literature from the social policy field, is also missing in non-governmental organisations. I am especially fond of British discussions regarding the welfare state. In the 80s people tried to react to the criticism surrounding the welfare state and the politics of Margaret Thatcher. This was often done with the use of analyses conducted from the point of view of political philosophy. The welfare state model had to be defended, even though after the Second World War it was welcomed as an obvious direction for development.

The first question we have to answer is: how should we understand social policy in the contemporary context? Apart from pondering its terminological scope one can search for a subject which should be responsible for its realisation. Should it be the state alone or perhaps someone else as well? If we decide that it is the responsibility of the state and non-governmental organisations, then is there room within social policy for market subjects? Does social policy involve only social matters, securing incomes, social insurance or some other issues? Should we discuss benefits which are organised and provided by the state alone or should we also include other social policy instruments?

I believe that a truly social democratic strategy should be a social development policy reaching out beyond purely social matters and involving issues related to the economic policy and the regional development policy. Issues related to egalitarianism and equality should also be prominent within this strategy, especially regarding regional development. It is lately popular to stress the need for a social cohesion policy, supporting the weaker and poorer regions in order to reduce poverty and inequality.

But why should we be discussing a social democratic social policy in the first place?

The politics of today are purely pragmatic. There are certain problems which require rational solutions. It makes no difference if our approach is social democratic or liberal. I have been attacked by Dr Boni twice when I was trying to define certain problems as social democratic or liberal. He was convinced that this sort of language is anachronical an should no longer be used as it brings nothing more than pointless conflicts.

The end of ideology thesis has also become strong, especially regarding the traditional ideologies originating in the 19th and 20th century. In global cyberspace where views and ideas permeate each other, a narration which views the world in a clear-cut manner is a thing of the past. As I am a descendant of the school of Prof. Supińska—who is here with us today—the axiological element has always been important to me at a time when my identity of a considerate critic of reality was being established. That is why I was always interested in the relation between science and values. I am not saying that the end of ideologies is a fact and that we should abandon the social democratic language. I believe that we can look at this issue from a broader perspective, utilising a social democratic political philosophy. This makes sense especially in the contemporary context.

It also determines are long-term strategy. One can perform various manoeuvres at the tactical level or disregard certain assumptions formulated in one's long-term strategy, as well as certain fundamental values. When it comes to a long-term strategy focused on the realisation of political and socio-political goals, however, this becomes an important element.

If we thus decide that ideological matters are important for social policy, we can move on to decisions regarding which solutions are social democratic and which are not. I find that it often proves difficult when we are asked about our opinions regarding various matters. Take bridging retirement or uniformed retirement. It took me time to arrive at a social democratic approach to this issue. It is the same with the raising of the retirement age. What does social democracy have to say about this? This has to do with a certain incapability which might come into play even if we are knowledgeable in the area of general ideas such as egalitarianism etc., as it turns out we cannot use this knowledge to answer more practical questions. Should social democrats always support labour unions and their opinions? Perhaps this is only a tactical choice and we have to act different each time we assume a new strategy? How should we know if a given social policy is social democratic or not? We can look for examples. Simply put, if the Swedish social democrats are doing it, it must be social democracy. But, in all seriousness, there really are certain sources of inspiration available to us. If we look at Scandinavian countries, comparative research shows that some of them do not utilise a social democratic model at all. It is debatable whether a given model is social democratic or whether the current social democratic party's policy is compatible with such a model or rather goes beyond it or is considered its revision.

The next question is: should we look for a single model or rather a number of social democratic social policies? There is the social democratic model in Sweden, but a Norwegian take on the model is also available. Perhaps there are some significant differences between the two. This gives us at least two social democratic models. But we also have Belgium and the Netherlands, which represent another approach. There might also be huge differences between the social democratic parties in different countries themselves, as well as their conceptions regarding their recipe for winning the next elections. Thus, if there is a vast amount of social democratic models to choose from, which one suit us best? Should we be asking such questions at all or perhaps look for separate elements of each model which we think will be most successful in our context?

Perhaps we should create our own model using other systems, including those which are not considered social democratic but which offer several solutions which we consider to be social democratic? If we have established our goals, e.g. egalitarianism, and we know from scientific studies that certain solutions are better in introducing egalitarianism, then the only thing which remains is to identify their provenance. This seems to lead to tension between an ideological approach and a scientifically proved social policy.

There is the question of importing certain ideas. If something works within the Scandinavian model, does that mean it will work in Poland? If we decide that it will, how are we to transport it into our country? This has to do with the diffusion of certain solutions.

In the 90s, but also currently, not even one organisation served as a vehicle for the Scandinavian and social democratic model. Thus, we were forced to witness international organisations, such as the World Bank or the OECD, promote ideas which were much more neoliberal in character. It was in 2004 that the OECD admitted that when it comes to labour market solutions, there are two models which proved to be successful: the AngloSaxon model and the Scandinavian model. In 1994 they would still suggest the AngloSaxon model as the target model for every country. It thus took 10 years to admit that the other model was also successful, even though it is more expensive. Perhaps then there is an alternative to the classic social democratic model, which considers economic growth and full employment to be important matters. What instruments should we use to achieve our goals? Two new players appeared on the political scene: the Greens and the feminists.

Their postulates included things such as care economy. In the 80s or even 70s, the classic social democratic welfare state was criticised by representatives of the more radical leftwing. After 1989 these movements are still growing in strength. Are we able to include the postulates brought up by the Greens and the feminists in our social democratic concept?

Can we at least try to implement their suggestions regarding non-formal care? I have participated in a discussion dedicated to the Polska 2030 report. I have been invited by the Market Economy Research Institute. The young economists responsible for the report were also present there. I tried to present a vision which was an alternative to the polarising-diffusive model suggested in their work. Many left-wing circles criticised the report, while the discussion itself was very interesting.

All the questions I have raised above are difficult to answer. At first I did not know how to directly address them. Instead, I prepared a short introduction to the more systematic deliberations on the subject. I have been struggling in the area of the axiological basis of social policy for many years, even though most often I was battling students rather than political adversaries.

When it comes to the terminological scope of social policy, we have to be aware that a lot of things have changed since the times of the classic welfare state. The name itself consists of two elements: “welfare” and “state.” The latter obviously means the government, which is why new concepts of a welfare system or welfare regime have emerged as early as in the 90s. There have been attempts at abandoning the dominant position of the state in the model. When we deprive the state of its role as the main subject of the welfare state model, we need to include other players into the socio-political arena.

But first we have to identify them and determine their role in the system. Should we include international organisations? This also constitutes a departure from the dominance of the state. This is where we encounter the thesis which claims that the contemporary nation state is becoming weak and anachronical, since more and more power goes to the territorial self-governments through the process of regionalisation. Thus, regionalisation grants more power to organisations such as the European Union. Because of this, the state is becoming weaker and this fosters the idea of a multi-subject social policy, as opposed to state social policy. There is also the question of the areas in which the state should be active. Certain social matters go beyond the problem of ensuring social security.

This is the case with many controversial issues present in contemporary political discourse. The social democratic party should offer answers to various questions related to social policy in a broad sense.

Next is the issue of political-social diversity, which adds another dimension to the way we look at social policy, even in its narrow sense. The product mix is its first element and has to do with benefits in various forms and packages. There has been a certain shift of focus in the welfare state model. The classic welfare state revolved mostly around money benefits, especially social insurance, which mostly had to do with compensating for or replacing income in a situation of social risk. In the 1990s and in the beginning of the 21st century services became more important. This was followed by a departure from

money benefits and more focus on education. This meant e.g. more services aimed at professional activisation. If we treat money benefits and services separately, our social policy can become very incoherent. A good social policy should combine money benefits and services in packages, which is more beneficial. Various social professions provide the services. New jobs emerged as a result of a deregulation in occupations, such as career officer or employment agent, which both appear in the domain of labour market services. I have also heard that the social worker—the main occupation in the area of social support—has originally been listed as a deregulated occupation, but was later removed due to backstage manoeuvrings. Currently, professions from the domain of education or health services have become very strong and are fiercely defended. We have to keep in mind that society consists of various professional groups with their own ideologies, approaches, methodologies etc.

The organisation mix stands for benefits provided through organisations and networks from different sectors. If we include non-public subjects in our social policy, we have to expect the problem of the non-public sector's reaction to dealing with a state which is contracting the services and which wishes to remain competitive etc. Inter-organisation networks and the fact that different sectors wish to strengthen their position in reaction to the state's suggestions are matters popular in contemporary discourse.

The new system can involve various sources of financing apart from the state budget. The regulation mix, which has to do with the so-called soft law and hard law, is very important. Soft law is most often referred to in the context of the European Union. The European Union still lacks the proper tools to regulate a typical, benefit-based social policy. That is why the open coordination method has been adopted. It is the first example of an approach which goes beyond state-only regulation. Some say that the state should encourage the non-governmental sector and the private sector to introduce autoregulation. There is a wide spectrum of stances we can use in our social democratic strategy, starting with those which suggest that we should eliminate the element of choice, as in the case of social insurance. The element of choice appears only in the case of the third pillar. Some speak of the concept of choice being influenced by default choices. The citizen has a certain degree of choice, but it is the state that defines default choices. When the citizen becomes employed, they automatically join an employee pension programme.

They are allowed to leave it at any time, but it is mandatory to join it. This is how the state increases, at least partially, the number of people who participate in programmes which it deems important.

Should we move from social policy to a social development policy with social policy as one of its elements? This would allow us to address a greater number of dilemmas in the socio-political discourse. The idea of development is currently very popular. There is talk of the development of Poland, development policies etc.

A few more words regarding the ideological nature of politics. We can criticise social policy in an ideological manner, just like the neoliberals did in the past. Their criticism came from their belief in the market, not from scientific research. Similarly, the belief in and support for the welfare state is a form of ideological affirmation. One welfare state model can prove more efficient in reducing inequalities than another one. Part of feminist criticisms of the welfare state had to do with the fact that the model promoted a patriarchal family model, which was obviously non-egalitarian.

What about the ideological structure of a social policy model? If we are proponents of the social democratic ideology, we should base our development strategy on the principles of this ideology. This task involves two stages. First we have to determine the basic aspects and definition of our ideology. Only then can we move to establishing the strategy itself. In the process of its practical implementation we begin to modify some of our principles as they turn out to be unuseful. The ideology itself might be convincing, but political work is mostly aimed at achieving given goals according to the ideological

objective.

Allow me to return to the end of ideologies concept. It is justified in the domain of social policy theories. Some theoreticians pointed out that social policy is mostly formulated by determinants which are unrelated to ideology, such as industrialisation, economic growth, demographic correlates, the ageing of society etc. The demographic argument is currently so dominant that one could practically use it to justify anything.

Society is ageing—it is a solid fact. The government's policy should address solid facts and real-life problems. This is what we could refer to as sociological-demographic determinism. It is, of course, accompanied by economic determinism or technologicaleconomic determinism. It is popular to say that the contemporary world and the economy are based on capital flow, the Internet etc. which is why the labour market needs to adapt.

This is why, according to the end of ideologies theory, matters related to interest, ideologies, diverse cultures etc. are meaningless, since everything must become subject to the determinist logic. On the other hand, there is another theory which connected social policy with the political mobilisation of the working class. The welfare state we know was most developed in countries which were dominated by social democratic parties which remained in close cooperation with labour unions. This theory directly points at the social democratic ideology motivating and mobilising the working class. We need to ask ourselves whether this is no longer out of date. How are we to mobilise the working class of today? How are we even to identify it? What we have is a vast number of diverse professions in various sectors. Each group has its own interests and has little in common with the other. At times these groups fight each other. This is a very interesting take on the matter. You have probably encountered the term “precariat.� It defines a new class we can try to relate to in a social democratic policy. Guy Standing, the proponent of the common European income claims that it would be wise to use the precariat as a basis for social activity. The social democrats have for decades been looking for a group to replace the working class with as the main social vehicle for change.

When formulating a social policy one can also refer to values. The classical triangle of values includes freedom, equality and solidarity. There are also various combinations of these three. We could name at least three models of democracy: inclusive democracy, which combines freedom and equality; dualist democracy combining freedom and solidarity; participative democracy merging solidarity and equality. Equality is the key value in social democracy. However, if we focus on equality, we need to define its scope and form. There are those who support direct equality, as well as proponents of a more complex equality. Thus, there are conflicting views in the context of equality itself.

Egalitarianism can be justified in many ways. There also exists the classic social democratic interpretation of freedom, i.e. autonomy. Solidarity or communitarianism can also be understood in a social democratic fashion. The views we assume constitute our identity. Social democrats can stand for worker groups, hired workers or perhaps all citizens who gather in the streets and fight towards some goal.

As for ideological conflict, I consider the division to social democracy and neoliberalism to be an oversimplification. Neoliberalism has become a label for all phenomena and ideas incompatible with social democratic views. The dominant ideological discourse in the 80s, at least on the level of political philosophy, had to do with communitarians vs. liberals. As social democrats, we might refer to ourselves as left-wing communitarians. Despite of that, there are certain circles within the communitarian movement which stress the role of the Church, the nation etc., and which we might find difficult to identify with.

The conflict between laissez-faire and statism is also interesting. Some believe it to be out of date. Thinking in the state vs. the market categories is no longer constructive after the changes introduced through neoliberal policies. We know that the market needs to be regulated. Nobody is trying to build utopias based on the idea of a non-regulated

market. The regulated market area is currently quite popular. It involves a public regulator which regulates the market indirectly, through the use of various instruments. The market itself is often artificially established by the state.

When it comes to choosing sides in the elitarianism vs. egalitarianism conflict, it is very easy to choose the latter. There is also a democracy vs. autocracy (technocracy) conflict. The discussion between Prof. Balcerowicz and Minister Rostowski regarding the Open Pension Fund is an example of a debate between two technocrats—experts discussing the means of changing the system. What I find especially important in the contemporary context is the radicalisation of democratic movements, with direct democracy becoming more prominent, as in the example of the Indignant Movement in various countries.

Democracy can also be part of a typical social policy through public schools being controlled by parents. The parents then become a vehicle for democracy. The Open Pension Fund or the social security system can also be controlled by its addressees. We should thus try and define statism, collectivism, democracy or egalitarianism in the social democratic context.

We could approach the matter in a more simplified manner: equality vs. efficiency, security vs. flexibility. The classical social democratic social policy revolves around security and equality. What I have referred to as a neoliberal social policy has to do with efficiency and flexibility. Within this division there is no room for flexicurity, since security and flexibility appear on opposite poles. The key value for economists is efficiency, though it is often defined in various ways. The most common approach considers efficiency to lead to an increase in average wealth. If we pursue the increase in average wealth, we might say that our policy is efficient. A more praxeological approach is to compare expenditures with revenue. High efficiency is when our expenditures are low and our revenue is high. In GDP terms, we evaluate funds spent on public policies or the economic policy, and study the level of economic growth. A government which spends little on economic or public policy, at the same time ensuring high economic growth, is considered very efficient.

Equality and efficiency in economics are usually placed on opposite sides. If we cannot build a flexicurity model since flexibility and security are opposites, perhaps we could try and combine protection with equality to establish some sort of “protequality”? We can coin a new term and present our alternative. From a social democratic perspective, especially when it comes to tactical instruments, we can introduce a new alternative for flexicurity and for flexploitation.

We can also assume the liberalism of rights vs. communitarianism of duties stance.

It was very popular in Anglo-Saxon discussions to juxtapose rights and duties. The communitarians proposed a programme which stressed the importance of duties. This is about defining a given group we should be loyal to and address our duties to. Liberalism of rights is often considered an alternative to neoliberalism, and has to do with human and personal rights, especially integrated rights, i.e. not only political and personal, but also economic, social and cultural rights. If I have certain rights as a citizen, it is to be expected that I demand to be able to use them. My demands can be considered pretentious if we first expect certain duties to be carried out and only later move on to the realisation of one's rights. From the point of view of social democracy, we expect the realisation of fundamental rights which enables us to fulfil our duties.

A high degree of redistribution is required if we are to pursue the equal opportunity concept. We have to submit large sums of money through the social and public policy budget in order to achieve equality or egalitarian goals. There is a wide variety of social democratic stances: e.g. left-wing communitarianism or central communitarianism, as well as left-wing communitarians and left-wing liberals. “Left-wing liberal”—this does not sound right, but it makes sense if we consider rights to come first and later move on to identity and duty.

Most discussions regarding social democracy have to do with the transformation of the old Labour party into the new Labour Party. A major group of theoreticians began to try and mark the differences between new social democracy and old social democracy.

Giddens' Third Way theory has often been referred to as undercover neoliberalism. I disagree with this opinion. Third Way politicians simply wanted to implement a new method of achieving goals originating from the social democratic ideology. It is a serious oversimplification to call them undercover neoliberals. Most social democrats, including those in Germany, have went along the Third Way. Where then should we look for social democrats? Those who did not pursue the Third Way are more left-wing than social democrats, often having more to do with populism.

It is obvious that certain aspects of the social democratic model are absent in the conservative or liberal models. Decommodification is one of them. It evaluates the degree to which a given policy, especially a social policy, makes our household financially independent from our situation on the labour market. Defamilisation has to do with our financial status being independent from our family status. The degenderisation policy, conducted e.g. in Sweden, revolves around gender equality and the separation of one's social role from gender.

The social democratic model can occur in a dynamic variation. In 1985 it was partially incorrect to include Denmark in the social democratic model category, as it utilised a model which was part conservative, part social democratic. In 2002 a certain shift has been observed. Denmark pursued a generous workfare model, which is quite infamous among social democratic circles. Some consider the workfare model to be the opposite of active social policy.

If we are looking for an example of a truly social democratic model, we should turn to Norway, which implemented one in 2002. Belgium, just like the Netherlands, is slowly departing from the conservative model in the direction of the social democratic one. We thus encounter the problem of model affiliation. Where should we look for truly social democratic systems? This might be troublesome if we expect to find a long-term solution.

The European Commission is advocating the flexicurity model, most prominent in Denmark and the Netherlands.

When we manage to identify the model we wish to implement, we need to find an international organisation which would promote it. An analysis in the first half of the 90s showed that not even one organisation promoted a typically social democratic approach on the international arena. True liberalism was already abandoned as well—the International Monetary Fund or the OECD can be ascribed to this model only historically, as they have already changed their approach by that time. They did not stress the role of the market any more, they abandoned social policy, but they included certain elements of it. The World Bank also changed its approach. At first, it pursued structural adaptations, regardless of poverty. After 10 years of criticism it now lists battling poverty in its mission statement. Today I had the opportunity to talk to a World Bank representative for the Baltic states and Poland. He was wondering whether the World Bank should launch its antipoverty operations in our country.

As I have already mentioned, after the Second World War the welfare state model was being pursued without any real philosophical or theoretical foundations. There was no need for that, as party programmes and political strategy documents were enough. In the 70s and 80s the consensus fell through, not only because of neoliberal criticism, but also due to criticism from radically leftist movements. The students and feminists decided that the welfare state had little to do with their vision of battle in the left-wing spirit. The revolutionary thought experienced a comeback.

In the 90s, due to the attacks on the welfare state, an apologetic movement emerged. I have contributed to this movement with a book in which I attacked welfare state critics, claiming that their arguments were weak and unconvincing. I made references to

those who justified the indispensable nature of a state social policy. But this was only a way to react to the attacks. In the 90s there were more important things than defending the current state of things. This was a time of a new wave of reforms, which required the adversaries of the proposed changes to present their own alternative. There were two sides among left-wing circles. The first one focused on defending the current state of things from attacks by critics. The other side started to notice the need for change, though not using the solutions proposed by the critics. The critics themselves were very radical from the start. They called for a complete dismantling of the system and announced the end of the welfare state. The radical left wanted a revolution and intended to turn everything upside down. Their suggestions were rarely well-thought-out, especially in the beginning.

The contemporary consensus is represented by the European Commission and other influential circles. A certain characteristic which makes this consensus different from neoliberalism is the way it acknowledges human capital as a key element of the labour market, pointing out that social policy can be beneficial for the economy. This does not refer to every aspect of social policy, but rather the more active ones, related to education etc. The flexicurity element is present here, even though it is closer to the neoliberal model in its approach to flexibility. The approach to security is influenced by the Danish and Dutch focus on ensuring a very wide array of professional activisation related to life-long education etc. The knowledge-based economy concept—popular among neoliberals—is also prominent. At the same time, the consensus considers social policy to be important in achieving economic success, especially on the labour market, when it comes to employment. It no longer views social policy as a barrier. Other aspects of the consensus include social inclusion—known in Poland as “social integration” or “active integration” in the context of the Human Capital Operational Programme and “employment quality.” Junk contracts and jobs which do not ensure basic social security constitute low employment quality. Instead of dismantling the welfare state, the new approach promotes its transformation, which involves investing in human capital, social investments and an empowering state. Before the Human Capital Operational Programme, which introduced the element of human capital investment in Poland, there was the Sectoral Operational Programme for the Development of Human Resources. Human resources evolved into Human Capital. The other thing advocated in the new approach is the development of social services, which I have already mentioned, through life-long learning, education, flexicurity as an alternative to workfare etc.

The question is: is this enough? Most discussions are currently conducted within the framework of the current consensus. The most important conferences and various types of discourse utilise the language of the consensus and depart from the Keynesian paradigm we are familiar with. Nevertheless, there still exist certain neo-Keynesian streams in the domain of economy. Social democrats should determine whether they should join the current approach and work within its framework, at the same time opposing a more Americanised version of the workfare and promoting a different sort of activisation strategy.

We can join the consensus and still look for humanised versions of social policy in its various forms, without contesting the entire model. This does not change the fact that the radical Left still insists on referring to the current consensus as a cover for neoliberalism and argues that it will lead to consequences identical to those brought about by a purely neoliberal policy.

In a 2003 article T. Fitzpatrick searches for an alternative to the new paradigm, one which would go beyond productivism. The consensus I have described above considers unemployment to be its biggest problem. It is also concerned with whether social policy is good for the economy. Employment and the labour market is perceived as the best solution for social exclusion. Everything revolves around the economy, the labour market, the problem of unemployment etc. This approach is referred to as the productivist

paradigm, related to economic growth as the main goal and the main method of conducting social policy. The budget for social policy is dependant on economic growth.

Social democratic productivism suffers from the same limitations as pure productivism. If productivism fails to defend the interests of those who function outside of the labour market, and is incapable to solve problems related to the natural environment, then perhaps we should start looking for a different solution. Future generations should have the same opportunities which we have today. That is why we should perhaps think about a postproductivist paradigm which would allow us to properly acknowledge emotional and ecological values. The major aim of such paradigm would be to give priority to values which are more fundamental in their nature than the economic value. Emotional values, defined by Fitzpatrick, refer to care provided outside of the market.

Fitzpatrick also suggested civic minimums in various forms. I have already mentioned Guy Standing, the proponent of the common civic minimum income as an alternative to the classic welfare state. How should social democrats, who are very attached to the classic welfare state, address the severe criticism of the advocates of the common civic income? Perhaps we could combine minimum income with other aspects of a classic, or altered but still fundamentally stable, social policy. Civic minimums do not have to be related only to income, but also to education and many other areas. The guaranteed healthcare services package is a popular concept.

We could also start to acknowledge the useful activity unrelated to participation in the labour market. The classic feminist postulates encourage to take women's household work into account. We could also consider the notion of deliberative democracy, i.e. the process of deliberating discussion in order to reach a consensus with the direct beneficiaries and addressees of a given policy.

The social democratic vision of the good of the citizen has to define the good of the citizen. Only then can we diagnose existing problems. A diagnosis is used to compare the current state of things with a normative vision of the desired state of things. If we do not have a normative vision our diagnosis comes down to presenting random sets of numbers and proving that we are correct as we suggest certain solutions. When we define the good of the citizen and society from a social democratic perspective, we can perform a genuine diagnosis, formulate our goals and activities which we later pursue through a social democratic development strategy. Taking the context into account is crucial. The consequences of each context influence social policy. The OECD has lately stated that the recent increase in inequalities is too severe. It thus entered a social democratic discourse, which I find very paradoxical. It is curious to see the OECD publishing two reports on the subject of the increase in inequalities, complete with with suggestions on alleviating the situation. This shift of focus can prove to be very positive for the social democratic strategy, focused on egalitarianism. A lot of left-wing representatives view precarisation and the increasing inequalities as an opportunity to bring their postulates to attention. The proper way to use this situation is still an open issue. There is the risk of becoming outrun by populists or rightists. The Right has recently been implementing a society-related language in their rhetoric. This is yet another element mentioned in the debate on the end of ideologies. All parties use the same arguments and similar terminology, which makes it very hard to win an electorate. Even Donald Tusk, when speaking of cuts, calls out for socially fair cuts.

Which development model should we choose? Social democrats consider justice to be the key. Perhaps we should consider a one-dimensional model. Yet, if we include ecological values, our approach becomes two-dimensional. Many Polish documents stress the need to pursue a sustainable development. But is the ecological element treated seriously in the context of Polish politics? There is also the choice of paradigm and philosophical stance. How do we define the good of human beings? Do we assume objectivist categories, focused on the fulfilment of needs determined by experts, or

subjectivist categories, which fulfil human needs according to their preferences? The feminist concept formulated through feminist discussions and published in the Feminist Economics journal refers to Amrtya Sen's capabilities and functionings theory. Capabilities include all that which we can potentially become and the things we can achieve through our freedom. Functionings refers to our achievements, i.e. who we really are.

I have been looking for a name as interesting as the “polarisation-difusion” model proposed in the Polska 2030 report. I came up with the “integrative-redistributive” model.

The name itself makes this alternative quite attractive. The idea is based on human rights, mainly the right to a sensible participation in development. This is different than the classic third generation rights. I am referring here to the right to development as defined in the UN declaration from the 80s on the right to development. All we need to due is put this in welfare state terms—I am still very attached to the welfare state model. During the transformation period in Poland we had the emergency welfare state which attempted at retaining certain elements of the welfare state from the communist system. The welfare state is mostly interested in social services, though these can also mean money benefits.

Full employment is also the case here, not workfare, but a return to true full employment, also among the disabled. Social development is next and involves focusing on the local community level. The combination of these ideas would lead to the establishing of the integrative-redistributive model. By moving from the regular welfare state to a post-productivist welfare state we can also acknowledge emotional and ecological values, as well as economic values, which here constitute a valuable element of the entire system, and not its priority.