THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN CONTEMPORARY POLISH ECONOMY

The experience of today's world shows that the economy has to be based on the market but needs a co-regulator, which can only be the State. The market, highly efficient in ensuring the effective operation o f companies and in stimulating development, fails both with regard to allocation and distribution by setting in motion self-destructive tendencies. From this follows the necessity to reject the neoliberal doctrine. The government, however, can not replace the market. Its role should be limited to influencing the economy and the conditions of social life by applying indirect measures. These propositions are based on an overview o f the evolution of ideas with regard to the economic role of the state in the capitalist system (Part I); a review of the actual conditions of the present-day market economies (Part II); and an analysis of the formation of the Polish economic system in a period of change (Part III)