Pandora's books

The Ministry of Education has begun to fulfill Law and Justice's (PiS) election-campaign promises to slash the prices of textbooks, and set them at certain artificial levels.

At first the Ministry wanted to force publishers to cut prices by 50 percent, and later by 25 percent. According to irritated publishers and economic experts, no one in the government is considering that textbook publishers are businesses dependent on margins and making money. If the plans are implemented, experts argue, the whole process will lead to disaster, as thousands may lose their jobs.

Several economic experts along with book publishers and their associations are sending out a warning: the Ministry's intentions are good, but its methods are ridiculous.

"You can't just freely manipulate the market and ignore the essential economic dependence between demand, supply and prices - and this is what they are doing," Robert Gwiazdowski, president of the Adam Smith Center says. "The less orders and prohibitions, the better, and we see it's totally otherwise."

Bohdan Wyżnikiewicz, deputy CEO of the Institute for Market Economics, was even more critical. "It looks as if the authors of these ideas were total economic amateurs," he said.

During last year's election campaign, PiS announced they would force book prices down. Though many thought it an empty election promise, PiS was apparently serious about the idea, which has horrified businesspeople. "We are very concerned about the government's planned interference," Piotr Marciszuk, deputy CEO of the Polish Chamber of Books, says.