In contrast to most of the states deemed worth studying at the time, Poland, though a nation-based polity, had throughout the middle ages and early modern period shown a remarkably casual attitude to the possession of its historic lands and the harnessing of its resources, human or material. It had not built up institutions of central government, created organs of control, invested in infrastructure, armed itself or taxed its citizens to any significant degree. When describing the Polish state in the 18th century, foreign observers would use the word "anarchy", in its original sense of absence of government.

The Poles themselves were proud of this state of affairs. Polska nierz dem stoi (Poland's strength lies in the absence of government) was a rallying-cry of the political majority. From the early middle ages, the Poles had shown marked distaste for all authority, particularly if it was concentrated in few hands. And although there was a strong sense of a Polish world in existence (in contrast to the German and Bohemian ones), a lack of obvious natural frontiers which might define it and the fact that it was inhabited by various ethnic groups and welcomed newcomers such as Jews, Armenians and Tatars militated against successive kings' efforts to consolidate it. By the end of the middle ages, the Polish gentry had established robust parliamentary institutions as a check on royal power and enjoyed greater personal liberty than any other group of people in Europe, as well as the lowest rate of taxation. They called their country "the Commonwealth" and regarded it as their common property.

Their suspicion of strong central government intensified by reaction to what was going on beyond their borders. To the east, the unfettered power of Ivan the Terrible provided chilling evidence of the human cost involved in the creation of a strong Muscovite state. To the north and west they could see the political class and the representative bodies of Sweden, Brandenburg and Prussia being gradually emasculated and abolished. And while the Poles agreed to differ on religious matters, in virtually every other part of Europe the absolute rule of monarchs transformed the Reformation and Counter-Reformation into a bloodbath.