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The “ Loi établissant le service de l'assistance publique" (Public Welfare Act) sparked considerable controversy after its adoption in 1921 .The Act provided for provincial and municipal grants to private and religious institutions providing shelter to the poor and destitute. Led by Henri Bourassa, among others, the debate concerned the problem of state intervention in an area traditionally conceived of as the responsibility of the Church. In contradiction to Bourassa's theories, most...

The crisis of the institutions of liberal capitalism dates back to the last decades of the nineteenth century. Economics was thenceforth forced to radically reconsider its achievements and even its basic presuppositions, to the extent that they were linked to a free-market and perfect-competition model.

Karl Polanyi is considered one of the most prominent social scientists of the 20th century. In his writings, an important concern was the relationship between the markets and the society (therefore, the state) as a whole; to discuss it, he introduced the concept of "embeddedness", fundamental for his study of the origins and consequences of the Industrial Revolution. An important part of his heritage is the study of the economic history of what he called "ancient societies," especially of...

Abstract:This essay explores the connections between Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation (1944) and midcentury social theory in the United States. It argues that Polanyi shared with his U.S. colleagues a critique of market society. In particular, Polanyi's work bears close resemblance to the early thought of management theorist Peter Drucker, with whom Polanyi lived while writing his celebrated book. By comparing Polanyi to his contemporaries who advanced similar ideas, one gains a...

The economic system of Hittite Kingdom shows parallelism with a description of Polanyi about redistribution system, as "Tributes firstly flow to the capital of an emperor, and then from there to the provinces". This system completely depended upon the social hierarchy. Tributes firstly flow to the capital of an emperor, and then from there to the provinces. This essay examines the tax collection system of the Hittite Empire, especially the aspect of redistribution of the taxes from the...

Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, The Great Transformation, offered a radical critique of how the market system has affected society and humanity since the industrial revolution. This volume brings together contributions from distinguished scholars in economic anthropology, sociology and political economy to consider Polanyi's theories in the light of circumstances today, when the relationship between market and society has again become a focus of intense political and scientific debate. It...

RésuméSituer Karl Polanyi dans son temps et par rapport aux grandes théories sociales du passé, y compris celle de Marx, nous permet de mieux comprendre les problèmes du temps présent. C’est de ce point de vue que l’article cherche à mettre brièvement en relief quelques aspects de la contribution de Polanyi à la connaissance historique, à la critique de la science économique et à la théorie politique., To consider Karl Polanyi’s thought in relation to his time and to great social theories of...

The purpose of this essay is to provide the historian with a generic understanding of the term economy by examining some aspects of the work of the Hungarian “economic historian” Karl Polanyi (1886–1964). It does not seek to explain Polanyi's economic ideas to economists nor does it seek to locate his ideas within the discourses of the academic discipline of economics; there is abundant academic literature which carries out those tasks. This essay is intended to help fill a void in the...

KM: a review article on Nafissi's book.

Essais, Karl Polanyi : L’ouvrage qui vaut à Polanyi une renommée mondiale ( La Grande Transformation paru en 1944) ne fut traduit en français qu’en 1983, signe (et cause aussi) d’une trop longue négligence pour un auteur désormais reconnu pour son apport incontestable aux sciences humaines et sociales ENG translation: The book which earned worldwide fame Polanyi (The Great Transformation, published in 1944) was not translated into French in 1983, a sign (and also because) of too long...

The purpose of this work is to analyze the Karl Polanyi’s conceptions about the pre-capitalist-markets, especially his revision of the categories of trade, money and market. In first place, we present a critical examination of the fundamental ideas of The Great Transformation, where his later reflections about pre-industrial societies are ground. Using some basic categories of the critique of political economy, we treat to show certain methodological and conceptual limits of his proposal....

La société est-elle condamnée à subir les lois du marché ? La publication d'Essais inédits de l'économiste Karl Polanyi permet de redécouvrir le (...)

Freewheeling capitalism or collectivist communism: when it came to political-economic systems, did the twentieth century present any other choice? Does our century? In Third Ways, social historian Allan Carlson tells the story of how different thinkers from Bulgaria to Great Britain created economic systems during the twentieth century that were by intent neither capitalist nor communist. Unlike fascists, these seekers were committed to democracy and pluralism. Unlike liberal capitalists,...

Globalization is undoubtedly the great overarching paradigm of our era. However, there is still little agreement on what globalization actually ‘is’ and some do not accept that it ‘is’ anything at all. This new book addresses the contestation of globalization by the anti- or counter-globalization movement. To contest means to challenge, to call into question, to doubt, to oppose and to litigate. This study shows how globalization is ‘contestable’ in many different ways and how the...

Karl Polanyi’s belief that the greatest threat to freedom was a poorly administered economy led him to an economics that was more existential and human-centered. Part I of this book develops Polanyi’s thinking for its significance today through a selection of papers on re-reading his major work entitled The Great Transformation. Part II looks at the life and work of Ilona Duczynska (Polanyi’s wife), political activist, writer and translator and important influence over Karl and his work....

The varied questions which arise from the contributions made in this work provide a new modernity to Karl Polanyi and show the major interest in bringing together, as openly as his own, the various historical and economic specialties , Archaeological, ethnological, present in the House of Archeology and Ethnology of Nanterre. One of the most stimulating aspects of the contributions gathered here is the importance given to the presence of men, far beyond the simple equation of economic...

This article explores Karl Polanyi’s analysis of the institutional separation of politic and the economy in the context of the 19th century market economy. The contribution his analysis could make to the quest for viable alternatives to the contemporary neo-liberal international order depends on how we construe two key concepts in his work, “disembeddedness” and “countermovement”. In this regard the author suggests that: 1) In Polanyi’s work the disembedded economy appears not as a...