DISINTEGRATION IN AN INSTITUTIONALIZED WORLD

Abstract

We live in an institutionalized world, where all activities are determined by norms, procedures, and habits. The institutionalized system is a result of human’s striving for an order that lowers the transaction costs and contributes to the increase of profits from economic activity. The system still transforms: new elements of the system are created; they are better fitted to a current economy status, they replace previous ones that did not show a satisfactory efficiency. The contradiction between formal and informal institutions may lead to a damage of existing solutions (namely formal ones). However, such disintegration is a road to integration, because it makes possible to build up a new system, in which contradictions are gradually removed. The system transformation in Poland can be such an example: more and more efficiently working system emerges after a period of institutional disintegration.