Głównym celem artykułu jest przedstawienie cech charakterystycznych, funkcji oraz podziału współczesnych legend miejskich. W tekście przytoczone zostały modele znanych badaczy miejskiego folkloru: Czubali, Brunvanda, Gajdzińskiego, Barbera. Opisowi głównych kategorii legend miejskich towarzyszą odpowiednie przykłady, takie jak: historia o krwawym haku, zabójcy na tylnym siedzeniu, śląskich wampirach, złodziejach organów, trupim jadzie oraz o fałszywym policjancie.

The future of social security in the European Union in the global realities of the 21st century through the prism of mega-trend to minimise labour and automation costs

In the contemporary global economic reality, many social, cultural and political problems emerge. Most of all, this problem is connected with economic and financial spheres. The paradox of contradictions manifests itself between the objective tendency of globalization and universalization and subjective particularism and egoistic interests of transnational corporations, governments and societies towards solving and eliminating them. The following paper presents these problems from the point of view of the threats posed by megetrend of minimizing the labor costs and its far-reaching future results. The important question of robotization and automatization, which should be coordinated with a vision of a macro-scale social policy, is also mentioned. It is emphasised that such policy may be conducted in the area of European Union, because particular states, includuing Poland, are not able to cope with such challenges.