Poland’s ascent from communist state to top 20 economy reverses the brain drain

Over the four decades since regaining its independence from Soviet-dominated rule, Poland has been transformed. Excluding oil-exporting states and financial hubs, incomes have converged with western levels at the fastest rate in the world; from 40% of the EU average in the mid-1990s to 81% last year.

National income surpassed $1tn (£755bn) last year, ranking Poland among the world’s 20 largest economies. International Monetary Fund projections show income per capita will soon overtake Japan and Spain.

the Gdańsk shipworkers’ Solidarność movement and Pope John Paul II’s 1979 pilgrimage to his home country paved the way for Poland’s transition to democracy in 1990 and an “economic miracle”. Integration with western institutions, including Nato in 1999 and EU accession in 2004, also helped.

For years, many Poles chose to emigrate to earn more abroad, in a brain drain accelerated by EU membership. Polish plumbers became shorthand in Britain for foreign labour amid the political battles over EU freedom of movement before the Brexit vote.

Now Britons are increasingly likely to have their taps fixed by Romanians and Bulgarians, after a surge in the number of Polish nationals leaving. In each year since 2021, when Brexit was enacted after a year-long transition period, twice as many Poles left the UK than arrived.

“The next phase will depend less on catching up, and more on productivity. We don’t have labour cost advantage at all. We need to focus on productivity, technology, cheaper energy and better regulation.”

“We have really good universities and skills teaching people. I think that can take us to unprecedented heights as a country.

“We’re a proper-sized country. Not too small, not too big; no inferiority complex any more. There’s nothing holding us back.”

yldstrk Poland still needs to apologize for its enthusiastic embrace of the Nazi death camps and helping to wipe out 90% of its thriving Jewish population before I will accept Poland as a decent country.

enthusiastic embrace of the Nazi death camps - you do realize that non-Jewish Poles were also targeted for liquidation in those camps, right?

Poland suffered under brutal German military occupation (the General Government). Nazi doctrine viewed ethnic Poles as racially inferior (Untermenschen). Approximately 1.8 to 2 million non-Jewish Polish civilians were also murdered by the Nazis.

Unlike almost every other occupied country in Europe, Poland never established a collaborationist government. The Polish Underground State (Państwo Podziemne) and its armed wing, the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), actively fought the German occupation.

"Helping to Wipe Out 90% of Its Jewish Population"
huh??? Poland established Żegota (the Council to Aid Jews), the only state-sponsored underground organization in occupied Europe specifically dedicated to rescuing Jews. The Poles as a nation did NOT "help" - yes there were individuals who turned in or murdered hidden Jews out of greed, anti-Semitism, or self-preservation. These individuals were viewed as collaborators and targeted by the resistance

The Nazis put the harshest penalty in occupied Europe: automatic death for the entire family of anyone caught hiding a Jew. Despite this, Poland has the highest number of Righteous Among the Nations honored by Yad Vashem (over 7,200 individuals).

I just finished reading Thomas Sowell' excellent book Conquests and Cultures that discusses the dynamics of national wealth and culture effects from war, colonialism, etc.

This is a long excerpt from the book, but explains why Communism, even with rich natural resources and obvious scholastic achievement, fails (please excuse some spelling, as this excerpt was derived from a photo of the page):

"...Cultural borrowings among nations and between civilizations also demonstrate the historic importance of human capital on a grander scale. At the national level, human capital includes not only particular skills and general work habits among the people, but also institutional arrangements and social and political traditions which facilitate the production of wealth. Dependable law is one of the most important of these. Governments likely to confiscate wealth are unlikely to find much wealth to confiscate in the long run. Similarly, a political system which fails to understand or respect the inherent requirements of commerce and industry can easily render commerce and industry less pro-ductive, whether by capricious taxation, suffocating regulation, or through other means.

Without these cultural frameworks, neither abundant natural resources nor the skills required to develop them are guarantees of prosperily, as the severe economic problems of post-Communist Russia demonstrate. One of the most richly endowed nations of the word. with such resources as petroleum, uranium, iron ore, gold, and manganese, for example, Russia had also by this time trained vast numbers of scientists and engineers, perfectly capable of developing those resources. All that was lacking was a legal, political, and financial system providing both the incentives and the protections required for an efficiently functioning market economy. Secure private property rights could have attracted foreign investors from around the world, were there a higher likelihood that what was invested could be retained and the profits repatriated. Yet the Russian people suffered economically from the lack of these intangibles, despite having all the tangible things associated with prosperity. Human capital must include political and legal traditions.

As just one striking example of the importance of these political and legal intangibles affecting tangible wealth, in the late twentieth century vast petroleum deposits under the Caspian Sea were estimated to be worth perhaps as much as $4 trillion, not counting the huge reserves of natural gas also found there. Yet, despite its potential for substantially raising the standards of living of the people in adjoining Azerbaijan and Georgia, little of this wealth was in fact being developed because of political and legal entanglements, including the political difficulties of trying to get a pipeline built from these landlocked countries through neighboring states with direct access to the open seas."

England's emergence as the first industrial nation, both in point of time and in terms of world pre-eminence for generations thereafter, owed much to its stable government and dependable legal framework. within which both Britons and foreigners could function in a market economy. The accumulation of knowledge behind the development of commercial law in England was a major advantage in that country's emergence as the leading nation in commerce, even before it became the leading nation in the development of modern industry. A distinguished economic historian described the process in England:

"... it was not until the latter part of the eighteenth century that the royal courts in London had accumulated enough experience in deciding disputes over insurance, bills of exchange, ships' charters, sales contracts, partnership arrangements, patents, arbitrations, and other commercial transactions to make English courts and law seem a factor contributing positively to the development of English commerce. The English courts allowed suits by foreign merchants and acquired a reputation for treating foreign litigants with scrupulous fairness. Mercantile transactions, insurance policies, and credit instruments subject to English law seemed more secure, more calculable in their consequences. less subject to the vagaries of sovereigns and changes of heart by one party or the other-advantages reflected in the growth of the British insurance industry, of London as a world financial center, and of British trade generally, as well as in low interest rates..."

Such intangibles as honesty and integrity are thus major factors in economic transactions and economic development. Like most things that are important, they differ greatly from one society to another. While it is unimaginable to do business in China without paying bribes, to offer one in Japan is the greatest faux pas," as a knowedgable scholar and world traveler wrote in 1997. An international survey of corruption that same year found the most corrupt countries to be Nigeria, Bolivia, Colombia, Russia, Pakistan, Mexico, Indonesia, Ludia, Venezuela and Vietnam-all countries with serious economic problems...

This passage was striking to me in the context of Poland's entry into the top 20 economies of the world.

Look at the damage that Communism does. Poland has a lot going its way, great history, good infrastructure, educated population, hardworking people, but it has taken them this long to dig out from under the communist ideology that ruled them, ruined them, and held them back for so many years.

It is interesting to note that I am a member of a large library network with hundreds of libraries throughout the state (which I can electronically request material from and have them delivered to my library only a mile or two away) and in this huge network, I found only one copy of this book in a university library over 70 miles away. And there has only been one edition published. It has almost 100 pages of notes and references, which is far more than usual. I suspect it has never been edited and republished because of the type and amount of content referenced have been attacked, re-done by Leftists or "discredited" by them and their omnipresent political correctness.

A lot of Sowell's other books have been revised and republished, but this one appears to have only been reprinted. I'll bet with all the manipulation and criticism of his findings and sources by those on the Left, he probably determined that revising and republishing this work simply wasn't worth the effort, since it contains hard truths that the Left has gone to great trouble to erase or re-write.

"...In almost all cases better regulation means less regulation..."

Absolutely. And if there were yet another reason beyond immigration, national security, economic strengthening, and cultural reacquisition from the Left, Trump's focus on deregulation and the reduction of government is a grand and valid reason to support his agenda, even if you did find his "mean tweets" abrasive:

What Trump and his Administration do not get enough credit for is the broad deregulation and removal of bureaucratic red tape, even apart from the 10% reduction in the Federal workforce. This below is a summary provided by Grok:

(NOTE: As an aside, this query below illustrates why the Left is terrified of "Super Intelligence" (SI) - because, if we don't allow them to regulate how it will be built...it will tell people the truth. This example is information that can be obtained by asking a simple question to an SI agent, rather than going through a search engine that can and does intentionally obscure and hide the information a citizen might be looking for.)

QUERY TO GROK:
Summarize what President Trump has done to reduce bureaucratic red tape in his second term.

GROK ANSWER:
President Trump’s second term (starting January 20, 2025) has emphasized aggressive deregulation through a “10-for-1” rule, a regulatory budget, major rollbacks of prior rules (especially energy/environmental ones), and efforts to shrink bureaucracy.** These actions have produced large reported cost savings, though much of the total comes from a handful of high-impact rules, and some efforts (like DOGE) faced mixed results or legal challenges.

Core Framework: The 10-for-1 Deregulation Mandate
On January 31, 2025, Trump signed **Executive Order 14192** (“Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation”). It requires agencies to identify and repeal at least 10 existing regulations (broadly defined to include rules, guidance, memoranda, policy statements, etc.) for every new one issued.
For FY 2025, the total incremental cost of new regulations (net of repeals) had to be “significantly less than zero.” OMB sets annual regulatory budgets/cost caps for later years.
This builds on (and strengthens) the first-term 2-for-1 approach. Agencies have far exceeded the ratio: In FY 2025, OIRA reported **646 deregulatory actions vs. only 5 significant new regulatory ones** (129-to-1 ratio), with ~$212 billion in net cost savings.
Overall through FY 2026, agencies reported roughly **$1.5–1.6 trillion** in net regulatory cost reductions under the EO (mostly from a few large rules), with rulemaking remaining net deregulatory. Federal Register page counts and final rule totals have been historically low.
Related orders expanded review of existing rules, directed use of “enforcement discretion” for interim relief, and pushed faster repeal of rules conflicting with recent Supreme Court decisions (via the “good cause” exception, though uptake was limited).

Major Specific Deregulatory Actions:
Key examples include:
Energy and environmental rollbacks (largest by cost impact): EPA repealed the 2009 greenhouse gas “Endangerment Finding” and related vehicle/engine emissions standards (claimed as the single largest U.S. deregulatory action, with ~$1.3 trillion in projected savings). It also rolled back carbon standards for power plants, fuel-efficiency/CAFE standards (DOT’s SAFE Vehicles Rule III, ~$283 billion savings), and other rules on methane, mercury, particulate matter, and more.
**Financial/compliance relief**: FinCEN revised Beneficial Ownership Information reporting requirements, eliminating burdensome disclosures (~$129 billion savings).
**Other**: TSA ended the shoe-removal requirement at airport security (~$25 billion claimed savings); FDA rolled back certain medical device/lab test rules; HUD eased mortgage paperwork; agencies rescinded DEI-related requirements; various NEPA permitting streamlining (e.g., at FERC); and reforms on endangered species, labor, disability claims, and anti-competitive barriers.
Agencies have also solicited public input on burdensome rules and pursued zero-based regulatory budgeting in energy sectors.

Bureaucracy and Efficiency Efforts:
**Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)**: Created on Day 1 (reorganizing the U.S. Digital Service) under Elon Musk’s involvement to cut waste, regulations, and spending. It drove workforce reductions (hundreds of thousands of positions affected via buyouts, RIFs, and freezes), contract reviews, and agency downsizing. Results were mixed—some claimed savings, but critics noted limited net fiscal impact, productivity costs, legal challenges, and that DOGE itself was later disbanded as a centralized entity.
Broader moves: Hiring freezes, Schedule F restoration (for policy roles), return-to-office mandates, elimination of certain advisory bodies/programs (e.g., Federal Executive Institute), and “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy” orders. Federal civilian employment dropped notably.
Overall Scale and Context:
Rule counts are on track for historically low levels (under ~3,000 final rules in 2026 would mark only the third such year, all under Trump). Significant rules have been heavily net deregulatory.
Savings figures are agency self-reported under the EO framework and often reflect avoided future costs from rolling back prior administrations’ rules. Independent trackers (e.g., American Action Forum, Competitive Enterprise Institute) confirm the strong deregulatory tilt, while noting concentration in a few big-ticket items and ongoing litigation.
Complementary actions include energy-emergency declarations, permitting acceleration, and reviews of anti-competitive regulations.

NOTE: These steps reverse many Biden-era rules and aim to lower compliance costs for businesses and consumers, particularly in energy, vehicles, finance, and permitting. Outcomes continue to evolve with court challenges and further rulemakings.

Trump gets zero credit for any of these efforts, but every single one of them is focused on making government cost less for taxpayers. Nobody enjoys paying more money for fuel for their vehicles or heating for their home. But if a dedicated, historically murderous Islamic theocracy like Iran who has been trumpeting for decades that they want to murder and eliminate America is able to build nuclear weapons, the cost of energy is going to change dramatically and permanently for everyone on the globe, not just the United States.

Trump put on the "big-boy" pants and played the adult in the room, doing what is right, and not as every existing Democrat and a good number of Republicans would do, which is kick the can down the road and do nothing.

Since the Presidency of George Washington, there have been few Presidents, if any leading this nation like Donald J. Trump.

And he came on the scene not a moment too soon.

Just a summary (again from Grok) which I should have included that explains Trump's efforts at removing bureaucracy and government overhead:

It is commonly accepted that the number of pages in the Federal Register are considered to be an adequate proxy for the amount of Regulation in the US Federal Government. (The Federal Register is constantly kept up-to-date with all federal laws and regulations)

The fewer pages-the less regulation.

Here is what Grok says when asked:

QUESTION: How much has Trump reduced the Federal Register since taking office in January of 2025?

ANSWER:. In calendar year 2025 (Trump’s first full year after taking office on January 20, 2025), the Federal Register dropped sharply to roughly 60,900–61,600 pages from the 2024 record high of 106,109 pages under Biden—a reduction of about 42–43% (roughly 44,500–45,200 fewer pages).

So, under Biden, the number of pages (again, serving as a proxy for the amount of government red tape and regulation) hit a historic high of 106,109 pages.

Trump INTENTIONALLY attacked this issue and reduced it to 61,600 pages.

INTENTIONALLY. This broad approach to useless legislation will have the long term effect of making energy cheap via promotion of things like Nuclear Power and oil exploitation of government owned land.

People may not like Trump's "mean tweets" but many of us don't give a damn because we want to, as REAL conservatives, to live in a country with less useless regulation which reduces costs.

enthusiastic embrace of the Nazi death camps - you do realize that non-Jewish Poles were also targeted for liquidation in those camps, right?

Poland suffered under brutal German military occupation (the General Government). Nazi doctrine viewed ethnic Poles as racially inferior (Untermenschen). Approximately 1.8 to 2 million non-Jewish Polish civilians were also murdered by the Nazis.

Unlike almost every other occupied country in Europe, Poland never established a collaborationist government. The Polish Underground State (Państwo Podziemne) and its armed wing, the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), actively fought the German occupation.

“Helping to Wipe Out 90% of Its Jewish Population”
huh??? Poland established Żegota (the Council to Aid Jews), the only state-sponsored underground organization in occupied Europe specifically dedicated to rescuing Jews. The Poles as a nation did NOT “help” - yes there were individuals who turned in or murdered hidden Jews out of greed, anti-Semitism, or self-preservation. These individuals were viewed as collaborators and targeted by the resistance

The Nazis put the harshest penalty in occupied Europe: automatic death for the entire family of anyone caught hiding a Jew. Despite this, Poland has the highest number of Righteous Among the Nations honored by Yad Vashem (over 7,200 individuals).
***********

Thank you for that perspective.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.