Co-organizers: Sections of Sociology of Labor and Economic Sociology

Does Poland operate under a modified version of the “Parsonian pact,” where economists study wealth while sociologists focus on capital and labor? How do mechanisms of resource accumulation and status reproduction intersect with systems of work, career advancement, and status achievement?

Since the analysis of “capitalism without capitalists” (Eyal, Szelenyi, Townsley 2000) and subsequent observations of class formation, activity, and lifestyles, sociologists have concentrated on social achievements, advancement patterns, and the reproduction of social position within stratification systems. Should contemporary discourse replace the early 2000s opposition of “capital-labor” with “wealth-labor”?

Growing economic analyses confirm or refine—though do not refute—Piketty’s assertions about wealth’s dominance over capital in modern economies. Poland presents a particularly biographical manifestation of this phenomenon: the scale of succession challenges in Polish enterprises mirrors that of 19th-century America during industrial capitalism’s emergence. An entire generation that built post-communist capitalism now confronts the question: “What will my children do with their inherited wealth?”

Does sociology adequately engage with discussions about resource reconfiguration and the mechanisms governing their reproduction or transformation? These inquiries direct us toward examining stratification orders and class divisions, including the persistently debated “middle-class hegemony” thesis, while highlighting the notable scarcity of research on group interests and elite dynamics in contemporary Poland.

Increasing studies document growing inequalities, primarily driven by the expanding percentage and wealth concentration among the affluent. This raises fundamental questions about the sources of elite positioning, patterns of social mobility, and mechanisms of social control. Equally important is understanding the social relations that both connect and separate various populations and social groups.

Is Polish society increasingly restricting elite access as wealth concentrates? Is the apparent absence of an upper class merely illusory? Does wealth’s growing significance represent a step toward the emerging interpretations of “refeudalization” of society?

This session aims to examine the social and economic sources of wealth and capital generation and reproduction in Poland, contextualizing these processes within the broader Central and Eastern European region and various global contexts characterized by wealth