ABSTRACT
Business circles, excited about the beginning of the opening of the Soviet bloc, were wary of the presumed power of the Polish working class. Workers who become class conscious in communist society embrace a notion of class that refers quite literally to everyone. And while that is its great strength it is also its great weakness. The conflicts natural to a liberal market economy can never be suppressed. A stable democracy requires that conflicts be minimal. But it also requires that conflicts be expressed, rather than lie latent waiting to blow up. The experience of Western democracies shows that ‘class’ is the optimal political cleavage - not of socialism but of liberalism. Market economies create class-based conflicts in which the interests of labour run contrary to the interests of capital. Class divisions make sense when one social group defines itself and its interests against those of another social group.
