Law and Politics in Europe's Crisis: On the History of the Impact of an Unfortunate Configuration

EXCERPT [KM]: Karl Polanyi has experienced a renaissance in recent years.13 We refer to his work in our remarks on the failures of the European project for three interrelated reasons: (1) Polanyi has underlined that modern markets were not generated by some evolutionary process but established by political planning.14 Europe's “internal market project” is the best conceivable confirmation of his thesis. (2) One of the most important insights of his work concerns the “social embeddedness” of markets and the economy.15 These insights are of crucial importance because Europe has on the one hand realized that the functioning of markets requires comprehensive regulatory activities but at the same time tends to disregard the economic, political and cultural variety and dependence of markets. (3) Polanyi can also provide clarity with regard to the growing skepticism about so many firmly held beliefs about the benefits of ever more European integration. EXCERPT 2: Led by the prompting of its highest court, Europe is waving the flag of economic freedoms of Europe's market citizens and is retreating from its commitment to collective labor law – once the institutionalized countermovement to the commodification of labor.1