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BOOK ABSTRACT: Situates the current crisis in the historical trajectory of the capitalist world-system, showing how the crisis was made possible not only by neoliberal financial reforms but by a massive turn away from manufacturing things of value towards seeking profit from financial exchange and credit. Much more basic than the result of a few financial traders cheating the system, this is a potential historical turning point. In original essays, the contributors establish why the system...

RésuméEn dépit de l’absence d’un exposé économique systématique dans l’œuvre de Sartre, nous soutenons qu’il y a bien une économie sartrienne, même si celle-ci est encore à développer. Le statut que Sartre réserve à la « rareté » lui permet de faire un pas supplémentaire vers la critique de l’économisme par rapport à celui déjà effectué par Karl Polanyi, qui s’est contenté de récuser la confusion entretenue entre l’économique et sa définition formelle. La rareté, nous enseigne Sartre, ne...

I present five theses on the common within the context of the transformations of capitalist social relations as well as their contemporary global crisis. My framework involves “cognitive capitalism,” new processes of class composition, and the production of living knowledge and subjectivity. The commons is often discussed today in reference to the privatization and commodification of “common goods.” This suggests a naturalistic and conservative image of the common, unhooked from the...

Towards an Inclusive Democracy, it is argued, offers a powerful new interpretation of the history and destructive dynamics of the market and provides an inspiring new vision of the future in place of both neo-liberalism and existing forms of socialism. It is shown how this work synthesizes and develops Karl Polanyi's characterization of the relationship between society and the market and Cornelius Castoriadis' philosophy of autonomy. A central component of Fotopoulos' argument is that social...

L’idée qu’une rémunération juste du travail relève d’un calcul du mérite tend à s’imposer comme un lieu commun. Les présupposés et les conséquences d’une telle représentation sont ici interrogés dans la perspective ouverte par les analyses de Polanyi sur les effets dévastateurs de la fiction d’un marché autorégulateur lorsqu’elle atteint des réalités comme celles – parmi d’autres – du travail. Le paradigme du don et le concept arendtien de l’action permettent d’identifier, dans le besoin de...

Questions arise whenever social-scientific models are used in analysis of ancient texts, particularly regarding the feasibility of their application to social and cultural milieux different from those from which they were derived. An essay I authored that assessed the command in Luke 6 to "love your enemies" from the perspective of ancient reciprocity ethics, and that invoked Marshall Sahlins's taxonomy of reciprocity relations (general, balanced, and negative reciprocity), was queried by...

Karl Polanyi's most famous book, The Great Transformation, contains several ideas and theoretical notions which are at the heart of long-lasting controversies throughout the social sciences. Categories such as "double movement," "embeddedness," "disembedding," "market society," or "social freedom" have proved to be fruitful notions not only in anthropology, but also in sociology, political sciences, and economic history. The recent three volume publication of Karl Polanyi's writings during...

This paper is based on the idea that between the 1920s and the mid-1930s in Vienna there were two forms of heterodox economic theory: the Austrian economic school headed by Ludwig von Mises and another interesting form of heterodox economics opposed to the Austrian school (above all politically) and pursued by various social thinkers (Otto Neurath, Karl Polanyi, Otto Bauer, Felix Schaffer, Felix Weil, Jacob Marschak). They were engaged in the debate on the possibilities of a planned economy:...

Towards an Inclusive Democracy, it is argued, offers a powerful new interpretation of the history and destructive dynamics of the market and provides an inspiring new vision of the future in place of both neo-liberalism and existing forms of socialism. It is shown how this work synthesizes and develops Karl Polanyi's characterization of the relationship between society and the market and Cornelius Castoriadis' philosophy of autonomy. A central component of Fotopoulos' argument is that social...

This article presents Karl Polanyi's analysis of the dynamic relationships between economy and society in the information age. Of the many concepts Karl Polanyi provides in his analysis of economic relations, three stand as carefully calculated assumptions about the relationship between society and economy: the embeddedness of information in society, the commoditization of information and the existence of a double movement in the information revolution. Information has always been embedded...

Focuses on the social and political changes brought about by capitalism in Europe. Advocacy of socialist Karl Marx, Karl Popper and Karl Polanyi for social democracy; Discussion on the relationship between society and economy; Notion of futurism regarding the inevitability of change.

The chapter offers an analysis of capitalist crisis through a reading and discussion of two seminal texts on capitalism, Joseph Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy [1943] and Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation [1944]. These inspiring works on economic history and social theory offer profound insights into the nature of capitalist crisis. Although written in the mid-twentieth century many of the insights in these books are of relevance to the current situation as capitalism...

Este ensayo trata de situar la obra de Karl Polanyi en la tradición del pensamiento marxista heterodoxo, respondiendo a las objeciones que se han planteado en contra de tal filiación. Se analizan para ello los conceptos fundamentales del pensamiento del autor desde un punto de vista marxista: la “economía sustantiva” y la “economía formal”, la “falacia economicista”, la “incrustación” (Embeddedness) de la economía, las “mercancías ficticias” y el “doble movimiento”.

La riflessione di Karl Polanyi e Friedrich August von Hayek consente di analizzare da due punti di vista molto diversi la metodologia delle scienze sociali, la teoria adatta a studiare l'attività economica, l'organizzazione economica capitalistica e la società di mercato, le cause e il significato dei totalitarismi, il significato della libertà in una società complessa.

Capitalism is a social relation that cannot be reduced to the characteristics associated with it - markets, private property, profit and profit orientation. This relation can be shaped in different ways. The article refers to Karl Polanyi’s idea of the ›always embedded market economy‹ in order to develop basic characteristics of an example of post-capitalist economic ethics. Alternate abstract: Der Kapitalismus ist ein soziales Verhältnis, das sich nicht auf die mit ihm in Verbindung...

Has politics reached breaking point? Rather than defending liberalism or abandoning it, how can a socially just and ecological alternative be built? Peadar Kirby investigates the causes of our current multifaceted global crisis by drawing on the work of Karl Polanyi. This book explores Polanyi's theory that social disruptions result from the attempt to run society according to the rules of the market. Drawing on these ideas, it outlines pathways towards an alternative future that overcome...

The article explores recent contributions that rely on the combination of ideas from Karl Marx and Karl Polanyi to conceptualize social struggles. Two approaches are presented: selective perspectives, which highlighted the differences between class struggles as defined by the Marxist tradition and social reactions theorized by Karl Polanyi’s double movement, and inclusive viewpoints, that emphasized the potential convergence between these different expressions of contestation. Thus, we seek...

How can we explain why Karl Polanyi's book The Great Transformation is more relevant today than ever before? The central thesis of the paper is that Polanyi's analysis is groundbreaking because it goes far beyond the interpretation of the civilization of the nineteenth century. By focusing on the "belief of economic determinism," Polanyi challenges the juxtaposition of being and thinking, of material life-process and consciousness. He rejects the assumption that society encompasses a world...

In the first part of the paper, the concepts of "planning for freedom" by Friedrich Hayek and Karl Polanyi are compared. Hayek rejects "central planning" and also all kinds of "planning for specific aims," but he defends the principle of "planning for competition" as the main condition of a free society. This principle includes the provision of a pertinent institutional framework and state intervention to create markets in spheres of society previously ruled by nonmarket principles. Polanyi...