We are celebrating the 20th anniversary of economic changes called Balcerowicz's Plan or Sachs's Plan. It's worth deliberating outcomes - what we can consider as success and where, due to negligences, did we fail.

Sach's Programme was based on five principals: stabilization, liberalization, privatization, social security program and harmonization of institutions. Leaders of Solidarity Movement, as they admit themselves, have trusted western advisors and accepted the plan despite not having enough knowledge base about economics (read more: Sachs, End of Poverty). Reforms, in spite of warps, became a real success. We do not live in a vacuum and nowadays we can calmly compare our experiences with Russia or Yugoslavia. On such a background Poland looks favorably.

Since ages we haven't been troubled by inflation. Unemployment, especially structural, is still relatively high, but thanks to people's mobility it's getting easier and easier to find a job that becomes within almost every man's reach. Of course not everywhere, of course not a dream job, but the market is getting more elastic and payments grow up each year. Polish New Zloty - a currency created with the aid of means recommended by western advisors such as Stabilization of Zloty Found - remains stable, strong and reliable. In 2007 it could've been actually replaced by Euro if Marcinkiewicz's and Kaczynski's government hadn't stopped that process.

In fact, we do have free market economy. In spite of this, in economy freedom index Poland gets a very low rate. A Businessman is still anxious about officials from the tax office, who can spoil his property with one single decision. Moreover, the amount of documents and papers that are necessary to set up a business is overwhelming, the bureaucracy is even bigger than in Polish People's Republic. During this 20 years huge polish companies, which could become regional leaders, just haven't arose.

Pension system, despite the reform, is poor and virtually noone can predict how much pension he will get. Many 30-year-old men have never use the pension founds as a result of being employed on a casual work contract or a contract to perform a specified task or work. In fact, it occurred that the founds were taking high commissions while they weren't very successful in investing our money.

Did we manage to protect the most vulnerable groups of people against the negative results of transformation? Here we can't talk about success. Some say that we have two Polands: high developed Poland A and it's opposition - poor and backward Poland B. What is the most alarming - Poland B constitutes the most part of the country. For many people escape from this division is emigration.

We reached institutional goals. Poland is a member of European Union that realizes it's own economical politics. We are the leader in Central Europe with law integrated with EU system.

Where did we fail? Higher educational system seems to react slowly to reforms. Publications in local journals gain a statute of serious studies and, as once a biotechnologist, prof. Krzysztof Dołowy wrote, adjusting our science to global standards goes very slowly. There are no Polish stars in human science. It's better if we talk about pure science, but the fact that polish inventions are often taken over by better-off foreign concerns hurts a lot.

The real challenge for proximate years is a battle against digital exclusion. A lot of people over 45 cannot use a computer. In some part of the country the internet is still hard-accessible or the access is too expensive.

I've made just  a cursory analysis, that doesn't pretend to fulfill a scientific criteria. My judgements are not general beliefs . This is my own outlook on economical changes of the past 20 years in Poland.