“Illiberal Democracy?” Poland in a Comparative Perspective

1. “Illiberal Democracy”?
Poland in Comparative, European Perspective International
Joanna Tyrowicz
Group for Research in Applied Economics

2. The introduction I was supposed to give:
Does Economic Neoliberalism
lead to Illiberal Democracy?
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3. 3
Problem? I have no idea what it means…
Economic neoliberalism?
 Do not ask the sign post to go in the direction to which it points
 Practical men […] are slaves of some long defunct economists
 Do not ask my advice if you have no intention of following it
Illiberal democracy?
 Economists only know (different types of) voting …
 … and (rational) inattention.
George Bernard Shaw
John Mynard Keynes
Richard Blundell

4. What do we know?
People tend to:
 favor redistribution more, when they themselves are in the dire…
 … and less, when they get out of it (for exogenous reasons!)
 more egoistic, when they have more to loose
 use personal/relatives experience much more than expert advice
 typically have no idea what they vote over (ofen including MEPs)
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5. What do we know?
People tend to:
 favor redistribution more, when they themselves are in the dire…
 … and less, when they get out of it (for exogenous reasons!)
 more egoistic, when they have more to loose
 use personal/relatives experience much more than expert advice
 typically have no idea what they vote over (ofen including MEPs)
5

6. What do we know?
People tend to:
 favor redistribution more, when they themselves are in the dire…
 … and less, when they get out of it (for exogenous reasons!)
 more egoistic, when they have more to loose
 use personal/relatives experience much more than expert advice
 typically have no idea what they vote over (ofen including MEPs)
Some other concepts:
 It is not the poor, the unemployed and the endangered by Polish
immigration that voted for Brexit
 It is not the poor, the unemployed and the endangered by Mexicans who
elected Trump
 Wealth inequality is on the rise (also) because of demographics
 Income inequality has been on the rise … in only few countries
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7. Fashionable to blame everything on
economists, but …
 We really have no idea why people suddenly change
handsome, smiling, charming gents for rednecks
 While we indeed argued that the handsome, smiling
charming gents messed up a lot of stuff, none of this is on
the agenda of the rednecks
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8. Fashionable to blame everything on
economists, but …
 Populism fuels on incompetence and lack of Kantian
criticism
 Acceptance for imprisonment fuels on fear
(„Escape from freedom”)
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9. Thank you for your attention!
Joanna Tyrowicz
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