American International Journal of Social Science

Dilemmas of and Methods for Transforming State-Owned Enterprises and Public Housing Stock in Poland – An Attempt at Defining the Model of Privatization
Piotr Lis, Sławomir Zwierzchlewski

Abstract
The aim of this study is to identify basic similarities and differences in the privatization of state-owned enterprises and the public housing stock in Poland as well as to attempt to find an answer to the question whether, based on the method for privatizing the two indicated stocks, we may speak of one common model of the privatization of public property in Poland between 1989 and 2012. The authors also define the major dilemmas of ownership transformations of state-owned enterprises and the housing stock. According to the authors, these dilemmas concern the degree and method of state intervention, the equivalence of transfer of assets and the scope of the citizens’ participation in privatization. The authors have assumed that the model of privatization which has dominated in Poland is the mixed one, i.e. the commercial and social model. Furthermore, besides market allocation of privatized property, a possibility of preferential purchase of ownership rights has been created. According to the authors, such a dualism stems from the following causes. Firstly, it was postulated that the society should be guaranteed participation in the process of privatization as early as at the stage of assuming privatization goals. Secondly, the discussion over the formula of privatization activities, held at the beginning of the system transformations in Poland, showed the clash between various conceptions which propagated both market methods of public property resale as well as non-equivalent methods. Even if there was not enough political will to apply non-market sales techniques, their implementation was forced by natural – in the case of system transformations – capital barriers of the Polish economy. Thirdly, legal provisions which regulated the process of ownership transformations in Poland became an important consequence of the promulgated goals of privatization and emerging dilemmas. They enabled the society to participate in the process to a large extent.

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