Consumerism, Solidarity and Communism

Consumer Protection and the Consumer Movement in Poland

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10072705
AutoresMałgorzata Mazurek (0000-0002-9139-2462, Historical Institute, Warsaw University, Graduate School for Social Sciences, Institute for Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences), Matthew Hilton (0000-0002-6792-2208, Social History at the University of Birmingham), Matt Hilton (0000-0002-8490-8117, University of Birmingham)
Año2007
Volumen42
Número2
Páginas315-343
Fecha de publicación2007-03-19
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0022009407075553
OpenAlexW2045415629
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9

It has long been assumed that inattention to matters of consumption contributed to the collapse of the centrally planned economies of the Soviet bloc. In Poland, the party-state followed a productivist model which occasionally paid lip-service to the consumer but which ultimately focused on the dictates of production. Yet, by 1981, there existed an organized consumer movement (Federacja Konsumentów) which emerged amidst the broader challenges to the state associated with Solidarity. In the transition to democracy, a form of consumer agency developed in Poland concerned less with the relative benefits of capitalism or communism in supplying consumer wants and desires, and more with a less overtly ideological notion of rights and protection promoted at the global level. This article demonstrates that Polish consumers and their expert representatives, both within and beyond the state, were capable of exercising an agency more complex than the negative one of frustration and recourse to alternative forms of provisioning usually associated with a command economy

Agency (philosophy · Capitalism · Communism · Consumerism · Consumption (sociology · Democracy · Economic system · Economics · Ideology · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Solidarity · State (computer science · European history and politics · Law · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies · Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition