NCJ Number
138943
Journal
EuroCriminology Volume: 3 Dated: (1990) Pages: 65-79
Date Published
1990
Length
15 pages
Annotation
The paper argues that it is not the scale of the disclosed hidden economic activity that proves most important but rather the devastation it causes in social consciousness.
Abstract
The publicism of the second half of the l980s suggest that the socialist system and correct functioning of the Polish economy are threatened not so much with acts which are classified by the law as economic crimes but with a whole catalog of dysfunctional behaviors on the part of its population. People work like others do but simultaneously commit acts that infringe upon the established order and functioning of the national economy. Various manifestations of dysfunction are identified from the perspective of the pathology of institutions as are disturbances in the Polish system of decision making and control. One feature of institutional pathology is its way of executing responsibility; it becomes most difficult to identify individuals or concrete groups who would feel responsible for actions taken. Such scattering of responsibility becomes particularly visible in the consequences of incorrect decisions and in a range of dysfunctional and pathological activities. 26 footnotes