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Asked 'Are You best Off Today
This is the question Taxation put to the electorate when he ran for president of the us in 1980.
Eight years after what politicians here make reference to as the "Polish revolution," and 4 years following the post-Communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) came to power, Poles are considering an identical question: "Are we best now?"
In legislative elections last Sunday, the right-wing Solidarity Election Alliance decisively outpolled the ruling SLD and appears likely to lead the next government. Both Solidarity and the SLD,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], including former Communists,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], have supported the development of private enterprise.
Tadeusz Smyka,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a shoemaker who sells his wares in a flea market not far from Warsaw's main stop, in the beginning declines to assess the political scene and also the changes since 1989. He would only get angry,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], he admits that.
But then he changes his mind and runs after his visitor, making up ground far from his booth,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], to avail himself from the chance to sound off.
"We're much worse off than before 1989. I've my own workshop in the center of Warsaw,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], however i have to emerge in the cold to sell shoes at a flea market on weekends to make ends meet," Mr. Smyka,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], an ardent SLD supporter, complains.
"It's all [Lech] Walesa's fault,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]," he adds, talking about the former president. "Everywhere Walesa went, he asked people to arrived at Poland to make money." Consequently,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], producers from Brazil, Italy, and Spain dumped cheap shoes onto the Polish market, forcing him to chop his own prices dramatically. That,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], in turn,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], meant laying off basically among the 14 employees Smyka had before 1989.
With less assist in the shop,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], it's harder for him to retool quickly to reply to changes in styles, which further disadvantages him.
"The Communists weren't as good at suppressing the independent Polish craftsmen as Walesa was," Smyka says. "For 45 years the craftsmen and farmers of Poland lived well,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], however the last 5 years happen to be enough to kill them."
His son and daughter now work for American firms in Warsaw. His daughter earns a good salary, 2,500 zlotys per month (about $715) at Hewlett Packard, the computer firm, that is spending money on her English-language study along with other education.
Both his children are more affluent than he is now,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], he admits that. But he seems not to make a connection between this development and former President Walesa's encouragement to foreign firms to come to Poland.
In broad terms, Poland has been among the surprise economic testimonials of Europe's former Eastern bloc. It's the only country whose economy is really larger today than in 1989.
"The numbers are remarkably good,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]," agrees a Finance Ministry official. "But they do not tell the whole story - they don't describe a realistic look at people's lives."
Jadwiga,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], for example,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a manager at an automotive-supply warehouse,who declined to become fully named, assesses her situation as she stands before her wares at the flea market.
"Things haven't really changed," she says. "I do things i did before, however i have to work a lot more than before to keep my quality lifestyle. My salary isn't enough. Life has become much more expensive."
She supplements her income by selling automobile seat covers and other products in the flea market. It should be a profitable sector: In just the very first seven months of 1997,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Poland imported 300,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],000 cars. But Jadwiga says she doesn't notice any upturn in her own business.
Over in the more affluent neighborhood of Ursynow,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a guy who would like to be called just Andrzej, and who now owns his own printing business after many years of working in a large state-run firm,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], says frankly,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], "Life used to be easier. There is you don't need to work hard. I could go back home at 3 or 4 within the afternoon. Now I must work all day."
But his wife does not work away from home, he volunteers during a brief interview before a supermarket. "We have sufficient to reside on,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]," he says, while adding it would be be nice to possess more.