Self-Government as an Expression of Democracy

Stanisław Wykrętowicz (b. 1926) – Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Political Sciences and Journalism, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and the WSB University in Poznań. Prime scholar with the academic career spanning 70 years. Pioneer in research on economic self-government in Poland after 1989. Expert on socio-economic issues in the Senate Office. Research interests: local government in Poland and other European Union countries, technological and industrial progress, economic development of Poland in the 19th and 20th centuries, with a particular interest in the economic history of Poland (sugar industry, in particular).
The book Self-Government as an Expression of Democracy presents a historical overview of how economic and professional self-government has been developing both in Western Union countries and in Poland from medieval times to the present. The author highlights the need for establishing self-government (of the French model ) in Poland and points out that “Germany is the homeland of the economic self-government, just as France of the First Republic is the homeland of local government. He also underlines that chambers of commerce and industry of economic self-government are, under law, equal partners both to the government administration and to local government.”
The author believes that only entrepreneurs obligatorily associated in chambers of economic self-government have administrative powers to implement their actions better, and according to real needs and interests. The dispute over the legal system of chambers of commerce in Poland is continuing. Politicians and entrepreneurs have been lately showing their growing interest in creating economic self-government, under public law, which could represent the entire community of entrepreneurs and have the authority to implement tasks that would further the development of the Polish economy.