Protection of competition at the market as a guarantee for freedom of economic activities in Poland and the European Union

• Author: Przemyslaw Czarnek
• Pages: 717-725

717

PRZEMYSŁAW CZARNEK*

PROTECTION OF COMPETITION AT THE MARKET AS A

GUARANTEE FOR FREEDOM OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES

IN POLAND AND THE EUROPEAN UNION

The concept of social market economy formulated by the German

ordoliberals and used for the first time in the post-war Germany has

become also the basis for the economic order of the other states of the

European Union. One of its pillars is the freedom of business activities,

which does not only mean that the possibility for everyone to start

production and trading of any given goods by using all of the forms of

such activities which are tolerated by law. The freedom of business

activity also means excluding the possibility of creating legal acts which

could monopolize the market and a legal obligation to counteract such

behaviour. It is only because in the conditions of a free-market

competition, close to the price system of perfect competition as

postulated by ordoliberals, a person running business activities will be

actually free, which means that the effects of one’s work will solemnly

depend on the person in question.

Ordoliberal market economy – a competitive economic system

As it was emphasized in the introduction, the concept of the social

market economy has been born within an economical trend called

ordoliberalism. This concept was seeking an answer to the question of

how an economic system should function, what should it be based on

in order to assure an effective functioning of the economy on one hand,

and to allow individuals to live in a responsible freedom on the other.1

Answers to that question were sought, among others, by W. Roepke, the

creator of the concept of “de-proletariatization of the masses through

universalization of ownership”2. Another representative of ordoliberalism, A.

Rostow, warned against the dangers of arbitral interferences in the market

(made by the state), at the same time allowing it the right for the so-called

liberal interventions. According to him, the optimal economical system was

* John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.

1 Por. T.T. KACZMAREK, Ludwig Erhard i społeczna gospodarka rynkowa, W-wa

2004, pp. 123.

2 A concept similar to the postulates of Pius XI from the encyclical Ouadragesimo Anno.