The article tackles the problem of theoretical significance of transformation experiences in Poland. Taking into account their usefulness for explaining transformations in the post-communist area, research perspectives and orientations dealing with radical system changes are presented. The analysis is focused on the idea of theoretical eclecticism, its qualities and cognitive limitations. It is aimed at answering the question of the specificity of Polish transformation in light of sociological knowledge.
Contemporary Polish poverty in the majority of cases is new one, resulting from social and economic transformations, modernization processes and the system change. It is mainly the poverty of job market 'outcasts', capable of working yet redundant in the new conditions. The article attempts at answering the question of the role of state institutions in creating the new type of poverty in Poland as well as the state's responsibility for the generation of a broad category of 'transformation losers'-unprivileged and deprived of access to conveniences behind the conditions and quality of social existence. Starting from the issue of system transformation, the author analyses the problems of unemployment and poverty in the context of political changes undergoing in Poland.
Following the change of legal and political principles, the rules of social structurisation, along with the connotation of some conceptual categories important for defining social structure, were altered as well. Although political transformation was intentional and expected to produce only positive outcomes, the diagnosis and evaluation of its results for society are still, 20 years later, being examined and discussed. An important theoretical issue is that of the extent to which the present shape of social structure and the observed state of stratification are due mainly to universal processes, hardly controllable (such as the processes of reaching social positions in market economy), and that to which they result from intentional actions (such as education and employment policy or social policy). Although producing an unambiguous opinion on the above is difficult, the matter is certainly worth considering. Taking into account the present state of observations and drawing on available research results as well as own analysis, this task is undertaken in the present article.
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