We are chasing Europe in all category showing technological progress. We know this from history: in the same way it blocked the modernization of the concreteized farm-pantain strategy during the times of the First Republic.
Piotr Lewandowski
At the end of August, an interesting confrontation took place in the "Beer with Mentzen" cycle. The guest of Sławomir Mentzen was erstwhile Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki – but I will not compose about political conjoinments here, due to the fact that much more interesting were economical themes, and 1 in particular: the approach of both masters to innovation and investigation and improvement expenditure (R & D). It can be said that we had a clash of 2 highly different positions, a kind of dispute between the "old" and the "new" one, with the paradoxically and completely unintuitively both of the debaters switching places. Metrically older Mateusz Morawiecki (57 years old) turned out to be a supporter of “new” (technological advancement and innovation), and the younger of him by the close generation Sławomir Mentzen (38 years old) presented himself as a strong opponent of innovation spending. This is astounding, due to the fact that Sławomir Mentzen, as a politician of libertarian views, has so far had the opinion of this “modern” – after all, his generation entered adulthood in parallel with the universal informationisation of Poland (the alleged generation of Neostrada) and the mass availability of mobile telephony. In Mentzen's case, however, something "did not work" – individual experience of the benefits of technological advancement did not translate into his approach to the economy.
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In any case, at 1 point Mateusz Morawiecki began to mention figures showing how much Poland spent on R & D for his government: in 2023 it was PLN 53.1 billion, which translated into 1.56 percent of GDP. This is inactive not adequate compared to the EU average of 2.35% of GDP. However, it is essential to return that for Morawiecki these expenditures grew at least gradually. Sławomir Mentzen responded to this with a curiosive speech, which indicated that – hold on to your seats – the investment in innovation is fundamentally unnecessary, and Poland's economical improvement should be based on the availability of inexpensive labour. Admittedly, it was an incredible demonstration of resilience to facts and denial of reality. Over the last fewer years, economists have produced "tons of paper, volumes of analysis" proving that based on inexpensive labour is simply a dead end in the long run, that this improvement model is just moving out and we come to the wall, that without a technological leap, there is simply a stagnation that leaning on low labour costs condemns us to peripherality and the function of an eternal, semi-colonial subcontractor in the global pecking hierarchy, that expanding R & D spending is simply a pressing necessity almost “to yesterday”. Peas against the wall – Mentzen knows better due to the fact that investing in innovation brings with it – attention – costs and risks. Let us stress: this is said by the economical liberal for whom taking risks should be "obvious obvious".
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During the full speech Mentzen sounded as if he had been taken alive from the 1990s and early 2000s, erstwhile unemployment reached 20% and in fact, with what, but with inexpensive labour the problem was not. More – we were able to divide half of Europe. His argument is the logic of a dreary business “Janusz”, who will not invest in a digger as long as he has at his door a taboo willing to wave shovels behind a bowl of rice – and erstwhile those willing, he will request a large voice that the state bring him a labour force even from the another end of the world.
Meanwhile, the Polish economy needs innovation like air, and even more basic – simple automation, which is apparent in developed countries. Let's just look at (data for 2022): the number of industrial robots in South Korea is 932 per 10,000 workers; in Singapore – 605 per 10,000; in Japan – 390; in Germany – 370; in Sweden – 274; in Denmark – 230. In Poland it is 70 robots per 10,000 workers. Let's keep moving. R & D expenditure: Israel – 5.44% of GDP; South Korea – 4.81%; Sweden – 3.53% of Poland, as I mentioned above, has so far crawled to 1.56 percent of GDP. Innovation? According to the European Innovation Ranking, Poland is ranked 23rd in the EU, between Hungary and Slovakia. Do we see that distance to catch up?
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Now, the most crucial thing is that the low labour costs of Sławomir Mentzen, as loved by Sławomir Mentzen, hinder the modernisation of the economy. Just like the excavator vs. shovels – it is not worth investing in robotics, since it is cheaper to get human labour even from the Himalayas. As a result, we are following Europe in all category showing technological progress. We know this from history: in the same way it blocked the modernization of the concreteized farm-pantain strategy during the times of the First Republic. This is the same mechanism, which resulted in Poland being a supplier of grain and natural materials, almost all of highly processed goods bringing from abroad. And in specified intellectual neofeudism we live – but what the hell, we have practice.
