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This article re-interprets and develops Polanyi’s substantive institutionalist analysis of capitalist market economies and the market society in the light of two more recent approaches to the same issues. These are the Parisian ‘regulation school’ on contemporary capitalism and systems-theoretica l accounts of the modern economy. All three regard the capitalist economy (or, for autopoietic systems theory, the market economy) as an operationally autonomous system that is nonetheless socially...

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.

Dominant strands of thinking in contemporary social science consider economic globalisation, the increasing role of cross-border flows and transactions in economic organisation, in terms of some combination of either limited or considerable economic impact and either positive or negative consequences for the general welfare. Little attention has been given thus far to its political consequences within those parts of the world, the developed countries of the Global North, where its impact...

Assessments of resistance to globalization are necessarily influenced by the manner in which one conceptualizes these processes. Too often, both of the terms (‘resistance’ and ‘globalization’) are used promiscuously, the latter as a buzzword or catchall and the former in many different ways, sometimes as a synonym for challenges, protests, intransigence, or even evasions. Hence, we seek to juxtapose alternative explanations of resistance and highlight the complexities of conceptualizing it....

This article reconstructs Karl Polanyi’s account of fascism’s rise in his 1935 article, “The Essence of Fascism.” Following the elevation of Hitler to power in 1933, Polanyi embarked on a reassessment of Nietzsche, Othmar Spann, Spengler, Evola, and other figures of the interwar conservative revolution. He argues that the fascist quest for national unity emerges when 19th century liberalism fails to address the growing atomization and economic dislocation of modern society. On the one hand,...

This article advances Rodrik's political trilemma of the world economy by using insights from Polanyi’s The Great Transformation, which helps to grasp the interwoven dynamics of long-term transformations due to climate change and geopolitical reordering on one hand, and on the other short-term political ruptures due to countermovements. Rodrik's globalization trilemma shows the incompatibility of hyperglobalization with the need for an enlarged democratic policy space. Its nodes...

The basic proposition of this paper is that the so-called "new economic sociology", which is rooted in key ideas of Karl Polanyi, is an indispensable "tool" for two tasks: a) it provides us with a powerful critique of market fundamentalism, and b) it allows us to analyze the economic performance of contemporary capitalism by accessing the working of its institutional structure. From an analytical perspective, the paper suggests that Polanyian Economic Sociology is an essential complement to...

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...

Karl Polanyi’s double movement is a key tool for conceptualising free market fatigue in African business communities wrought by the insecurities of trade liberalisation. Synthesising Polanyi with Kwame Nkrumah’s work on neo-colonialism, the article argues that exhausted business communities in Africa can contest free market reforms and push for a return to developmentalist strategies, underscoring a double movement. In this discussion it highlights Ghana, a ‘donor darling’ in terms of...

In this article we argue that reinvigorating socialist politics requires championing a socialist worldview that goes beyond the critique of capitalism. Neglecting such an outlook leaves socialism tethered to the fortunes of capitalism and inhibits a broader account of its own virtues. We begin by explaining why worldview thinking is appropriate today. Then we examine two underappreciated works by Karl Polanyi (his 1927 lecture “On Freedom”) and Charles Taylor (his 1974 essay “Socialism and...

The rapid rise, expansion, and growing asymmetric power of online platform firms towards other businesses, labor and even the state itself occurred in a context of minimal regulatory oversight. In many respects, because the existing legal system was handicapped in understanding and regulating the new platform business models. The platform firms undermined traditional industry boundaries and developed surprising synergies by expanding in unexpected ways due to their ability leverage data and...

This book examines the development of Kurdish political economy and the emergence of collective Kurdish identity within a historical context through three main periods: the late-Ottoman Empire, the initial Republican Turkey era, and then the post-1990s period. It relates historical developments to the dynamics of Kurdish society, including the anthropological realities of the nineteenth century through the moral economy frame, the evolving nature of nationalism in the early twentieth century...

Karl Polanyi’s The great transformation emphasized the importance of non-market institutions for social equity and stability. In that same era, Friedrich Hayek postulated in The road to serfdom that superior economies were market-based and featured minimal government. I compare these worldviews in relation to property and violent crime. Using US county data, change in crime is modeled as a function of economic structure, economic conditions, and demographics. Consistent with Polanyi, the...

The conventional way of producing and distributing food is based on the use of agrochemicals, fertilizers, industrial fertilizers and other techniques from the Green Revolution, with increasing dependence on financial-industrial capital, which implies the intensification of the agriculture commodification. The object of this study was the emergence of modes of organization resisting this trend. Based on the theoretical reference of Karl Polanyi (2012a, 2012b), a case study was developed in a...

The chapter reviews aspects of the possible transformation of the financial system into a banking complex, that comprises both embedded Too Big to Fail (TBTF) financial institutions and disembedded ones. The transformation of the financial system into a two-tier banking complex is the result of the disconnection of the TBTF embedded institutions and the right size to fail disembedded financial institutions. The chapter revises the scope and consequences of this change on the monopolization...

Polanyi spoke of the commodification of money, and this chapter focuses on how interest-bearing debt became the major dynamic, also contributing to the commodification of land and labor. By the late third millennium BC the main way to obtain manual labor was to lend money and make debtors work off their debts as an antichretic interest charge. Personal debt became the lever for creditors to pry land out of the clan-based tenure system, mainly for sale under economic duress. Debtors who...

Karl Polanyi’s call, in The Great Transformation, for a re-embedding of markets, is widely understood to have come to fruition in the American New Deal and in the post-war order of ‘embedded liberalism’. Based on archival sources, this chapter shows that Polanyi’s political project was far more radical. Polanyi initially considered the New Deal a vital response to the problems of American capitalism, but one that would have little relevance to the problems and dynamics of European societies....

The chapter addresses the potential of Karl Polanyi’s contribution as a spatial theorist, or as an economic geographer in all but name. Although Polanyi did not identify as a spatial or geographical theorist as such, his work is rich with spatial insights and implications, notably as one of the original analysts of economic diversity. The chapter begins by contextualising Polanyi’s work in relation to the shifting locales and vantage points that shaped its production. It then turns to the...