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Marx and Polanyi both held that socialism, in one form or another, was a preferable and possible alternative to capitalism. Their ideas are seen to offer theoretical tools to understand the tensions and contradictions of capitalism, and to inform ways to overcome them. This paper discusses Polanyi's work from a Marxist perspective in order to illuminate his strengths and weaknesses. Its main focus is to discuss Polanyi's juxtaposing of commodification against exploitation, in diagnosing the...

This article sets out a framework for analysing the globalizing labour process, arguing that the old dualisms of ‘capital’ versus ‘labour’ and ‘formal sector’ versus ‘informal sector’ are inadequate and unhelpful. It begins by making conceptual distinctions between work and labour and between labour and labour power, and goes on to identify a globalizing class structure in which a ‘precariat’ is emerging as a potentially transformative new mass class. Denied so-called ‘labour rights’ and...

Economics and the economy have an uneasy relationship. Economics is akin to the logic of mathematics in contrast to the term "economy," which is an institutional framework to provide for material wants. While they overlap in the modern market economy, economics provides distorted results when applied to tribal societies, the economies of antiquity, or modern state-organized economies. Harold A. Innis and Karl Polanyi both attempted to find a different conceptual framework for a truly general...

The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi, written in 1944, is a twentieth-century classic. It presents a passionate critique of the inhumanity of liberal capitalism, an inhumanity which, Polanyi thought, could never be repeated. The social and political institutions developed in the post-War period not only protected society from the cruelty of the self-regulating market, but were essential to enable the market itself to function. The history of the market, Polanyi tells us, is a history of...

The social protests ort the streets of indebted sovereigns in crises across the Eurozone have made debt restructuring an imperative. Further delay in achieving this expeditiously and equitably significantly exacerbates the social costs of crises from which current and future generations will struggle to recover. This article examines the feasibility of the drastic and widespread debt restructuring needed to resolve the problem in the face of existing private law sanctions that protect...

This paper aims to clarify the logical structure of Karl Polanyi's concept of institution, especially with regard to his most important contribution to political economy—the conception of self-regulating markets as institutions. Although Polanyi did not provide a well-developed concept of institution, this article argues that such a concept exists in his work. Moreover, there is in Polanyi's work a sophisticated institutionalist account of the self-regulating market that has been largely...

In this article I revisit Karl Polanyi's writings on ancient Mesopotamia. I begin by situating them in the context of his general approach to trade, markets and money in the ancient world. Next, I reconstruct his major theses on Mesopotamia, drawing upon his published works as well as unpublished documents in the Karl Polanyi and Michael Polanyi archives. Finally, I provide a critical assessment of the merits and demerits of his contribution, with reference to Assyriological research...

This article challenges some fundamental propositions of property rights theory by revealing the inability of new institutional economics to fully grasp the notion of property, as reflected in its narrow and problematic definition of property rights. The concept of property relations is proposed as better suited to capture the social and institutional aspects of property. By reconsidering the case of the Montagnais, originally used by Alchian and Demsetz for illustrative purposes, and...

As the environmental debate has intensified, post-Keynesians, Regulationists and Polanyians remain relatively silent. All treat time as historical, consider economic issues subordinate to politics and have plenty to say about growth, institutions, uncertainty, and path-dependent events. These concepts seem pertinent to understanding the economic-environment problematic. This article explores the 'environmental potential' of these three heterodox economic traditions. We examine the conception...

The problem of the governance of economic transactions arises from the fact that they are sequential. This creates uncertainty regarding the fulfilment of implicit or explicit contracts. Institutional economics understands this uncertainty as arising from opportunism and seeks a solution in specialised contract enforcement institutions. Economic sociology understands the uncertainty as a result of misunderstanding and finds a solution in mechanisms of governance that, in addition to...

This paper proposes an analytical framework using the regulation approach and consisting of explanations of some concepts and a simple way of modeling; the concepts and modeling are developed by focusing on the distributive aspect of environmental issues and using environmental costs as key indices. As a basis for the framework, we refer to the ideas of Polanyi and the surplus approach, and we recognize the socio-economic system as interlinked triple reproductions of the economy, humans, and...

This article investigates China's market reforms and rapid economic development from the late 1970s. The following questions are posed: (1) How did the Chinese 'peasant revolution' and the rural policies and institutions of Mao China influence the market reforms and subsequent economic development? (2) How does China's development after the market reforms relate to Marxist and Polanyian notions of proletarization and commodification of land and labour as preconditions of capitalist...

This contribution aims at exploring what is today the new "normal" in economic policy, namely, austerity. It must be read as a homage to Karl Polanyi, the first who understood the tragedy, and to Kari Polanyi-Levitt, who expanded on her father's thought. Austerity has nothing to do with old anticyclical or stabilizing policies. It is a permanent regime devoid of any sound foundations. It is a pure quasi-religious policy that is self-reinforcing. The author emphasizes the fundamental conflict...

An introduction is presented which discusses articles within the issue on topics including neoliberalism, the Austrian economist Karl Polanyi's perspective on the history of industrial society during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and free enterprise.

The recent economic crisis has once more underscored the close connection between markets and social life, thrusting this point at the centre of the analysis of economic and political activity and has once more asked the question of whether and how individuals are embedded in both. Here I argue that an analysis and partial reconciliation of the positions of F. A. Hayek and Karl Polanyi on the topic can help in this debate.

This paper interprets Karl Polanyi through dialectical critical realism. The paper maintains that this interpretation offers Polanyi methodological coherence and philosophical support. It further provides dialectical critical realism with an exemplar of explanatory critique. It is argued that the social theory of Polanyi aims at the demystification of market-systems as they are theoretically constructed by both orthodox and heterodox accounts of capitalism. Dialectical critical realism is...

The article reviews the book "Karl Polanyi: The Limits of the Market," by Gareth Dale.

Attempting to revitalize the substantive approach to economics in the tradition of K. Polanyi, this paper revives the neglected substantive theory of money's origins by Bernhard Laum and thus disputes the formal approaches that see the origins of money in the context of trade. A wide range of evidence, from archeological to etymological, is utilized to demonstrate that relations between men and God, carried out through the intermediary of state-religious authorities, played a causal role in...

This essay describes and interprets J. Ron Stanfield's analysis of Karl Polanyi. Stanfield has helped to clarify Polanyi's "double-movement" thesis by arguing that the double movement of self-regulating market forces and the protective response is essentially about freedom versus security. These insights provide an analysis that takes Polanyi into the twenty-first century by developing a theory of "reembedded globalization." This is not something that Polanyi experienced before his death in...