You must understand that both you and your children will have to work harder. Who could have have said such a thing to the Poles in these days of economic growth (around 5 or 6% I believe)? Who would threaten a free people so blatantly? Was it a lesser-known Dickens character? A Dark Satanic Miller? A bloated plutocrat? Perhaps it was that guy with the top hat from Monopoly.

The speaker was Jeremi Mordasewicz of the Polish Confederation of Private Employers, quoted in today’s Dziennik along with a few trade union representatives, demographers and dissenting economists. No, I’m only joking about the last three: journalist Magdalena Janczewska sought no alternative views. Only those of employers are represented in her article, which is headlined “Only Immigrants can Save our Pensions,” an opinion Janczewska obviously shares, since she writes: “Only arrivals from the east… can save our public finances from catastrophe.” Employers, of course, have much to gain from a flood of cheap labour. One workshop owner is given space to moan about how he could not get a visa for a Ukrainian mechanic. The reader is left to assume it was because of bureaucratic hassle (after three months he gave up) but could it have been because the law states that to obtain a work visa for a non-EU citizen the employer has to show that there are no Poles available to do the job. Could it have been that there were Poles willing to work as a mechanic, but not at the wages being offered?

This article is Dziennik’s contribution to the scare story about how we are getting so rich that we are poor. The article does not mention Poland’s growing wealth, which will to some extent offset the decline in the numbers of workers. However, they do have a quick vox pop (mostly with yuppies) and one of the respondents (aged 48) shows a better grasp of reality than that professed by the employers and their journalist: the state won’t go bankrupt; it will find the money somewhere, for instance, from taxes.

A daring, non-conventional voice. He seems to be implying that the Poland of the future will have greater tax receipts than the Poland of the present. But that would mean Poland would have to be experiencing economic growth…