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This article outlines what the Polanyi problem consists of and provides information on some of the implications that arise in developing a Gramscian/Polanyian strategy of counter-hegemony for the labor and the modern social movements, as of August 2004. Labor and new social movements are allegedly an integral element for a progressive solution of the so-called Polanyi problem, which is how the tendency towards the creation of a global free-market economy can be reconciled with a degree of...

Karl Polanyi's analysis in The Great Transformation has played a prominent role in shaping our understanding of the nature and outcome of both globalization and the movements that have emerged to resist it. However, this article argues that Polanyi's account of the rise and demise of Europe's 19th-century market system is, in important respects, incomplete and misleading. Its central concern is Polanyi's neglect of class structures and processes and how this leads him to mischaracterize both...

The article review three books about the role of the state in promoting development. It includes "Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies," by Robert Bates, "Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation," by Peter Evans and "The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time," by Karl Polanyi.

This paper explores the intellectual tradition of Max Weber,Emil Durkheim, Joseph Shumpeter and Karl Polanyi — economic sociologists whose work has been largely ignored by corporate governance scholars focused on the more traditional areas of economics. The foundation laid by Weber is the central focus of the paper. Weber's writing in Economy and Society laid the groundwork for an approach to the study of firms and markets that diverges significantly from that in of the neoclassical economic...

Europe continues to search for its - "European" - social model and the search seems to become increasingly urgent. It is no longer just the "democratic deficit", but also and alongside it, the "social deficit" of the EU which needs to be cured. That new concern is, in fact, a rejection of the older answers. According to the ordo-liberal interpretation of the European legal order as an "Economic Constitution" and, successively, in the analyses of the EU as a "Regulatory State", the sphere of...

Ideology is always for something. Who thought neoliberalism was any different? The post-Cold War provides an excellent laboratory in which to observe 20th c. civilization crumbling, even as it marches towards world markets unbounded by law or social principles. Through repetition and rhetorical sleight-of-hand, the market has robbed the state and thus the polis of its agency. Thus, Schroeder’s SPD is contemplating yet another retreat from the social democratic model, in favor of the...

In the wake of frank neo-liberalism, and in the context of rising security fears, ways are being found to provide market liberalism with a more inclusive face. The Poverty Reduction Strategies currently prominent in international development, and Thirdway OECD 'Social Inclusion' policy frames claim common purpose to promote 'opportunity, empowerment and security' for people and places on the peripheries of global economies and societies. They share commitments to global economic integration...

Bringing together democratic theory and international political economy literatures, I begin with the thesis that economic globalization is undermining the embedded liberalism of the post WWII era. Embodied in the Keynsian welfare state, embedded liberalism held out democratic avenues for disaffected groups to hold political actors responsible for suffering induced by market forces. Transformations in the global economy, however, constrain the options available to governments and curtail...

The concept of embeddedness has gained much prominence in economic geography over the last decade, as much work has been done on the social and organizational foundations of economic activities and regional development. Unlike the original conceptualizations, however, embeddedness is mostly conceived of as a 'spatial' concept related to the local and regional levels of analysis. By revisiting the early literature on embeddedness - in particular the seminal work of Karl Polanyi and Mark...

The evolution of teaching is examined in three stages: apprenticeship, classical schooling, and mass schooling. All three stages use different social technologies to operate. The mass schooling is analyzed from the point of view of economic anthropology developed by Karl Polanyi, as a non-market economic system. Mass schooling uses the forms of motivation found in archaic, tribal economies: students do their homework and attend school out of considerations of reciprocity. Schools must be...

The current understanding of U.S. hegemony rests on the assumptions of neoclassical theories of both the state and the market. While the service-dominated economy is considered post- Fordist, the rhetoric of the state focuses on institutions of democracy. To what extent is our understanding of democracy dependent on the prior assumptions that the economy is ‘free’? If we reexamine the assumptions about the links between state and economy, drawing on the work of Gramsci, and Polanyi...

Examines a neoconservative-religious right nexus that has emerged in and around the Bush White House. Discussion on the work of Karl Polanyi to examine a paradoxical tension that exists between U.S. nationalism and the promotion of a free-market economy; Family values nationalism and free market capitalism; Proposed two areas of critique that have been influenced by the work of Christian realists.

This paper will explore the linkages and contradictions between the promotion of democracy and the application of economic and political conditionality in Southern Africa, with particular reference to Zambia. Many electoral democracies have emerged in Africa in the last decade in conjunction with and partially as a consequence of the conditions applied to loans by bilateral and multilateral donors. It will be argued that the process of conditionality and the neoliberal policies applied...

This article examines the relevance of the Karl Polanyi's contributions to economics in general and to the issue of endogeneity of human preferences in particular. Although Polanyi never spoke of endogenous preferences, one can capture in his work a vision of the historical specificity and institutional dependence of human purposes and reasons for behavior. It is undeniable that in Polanyi there is a certain tendency to overlook human volition and to fall into a kind of institutional...

We come to an analysis of Third Worldism through an historical understanding of the development project, one that locates Third Worldism as a moment in a broader series of resistances both to capital and colonialism, and to the techniques used by the state to maintain hegemony. Viewing Third Worldism in this wider context, we argue, enables us to not only explain the failure of Third Worldism to deliver on its vision of emancipation from colonialism, but to also explain the shape of...

This paper outlines a framework for understanding social exclusion that is multidimensional, dynamic, multi-leveled, and relational. Inspired by Polanyi's classification of the modes of economic inclusion, we propose that social inclusion and exclusion processes are rooted in four types of social relations: market (exchange and barter), bureaucratic (rational-legal), associative (common interest), and communal (complex reciprocity and shared identity). Each type reflects different, but...

This article presents information related to market transactions. As a mode of organization, markets are so pervasive in our own lives that it may be hard to think just how novel and contingent (in geologic time) they may be. It was economist Karl Polanyi who sought to isolate a juncture in this process of "becoming a market", the point at which the idea of the market transaction becomes not just a tool or an instrument, but a central organizing principle of social life. But it is not clear...

Santhi Hejeebu and Deirdre McCloskey's rebuttal to Karl Polanyi's Great Transformation begs several important questions. Yes, commerce can be found throughout human history--but is that the same as saying that people have been equally capitalistic at all times? If not, then how did modern capitalism come into being? Hejeebu and McCloskey portray capitalism as having evolved gradually, indeed quite naturally, rather than being a contingent product of politics. Not inconsistently, Hejeebu and...

This article argues, within the context of Karl Polanyi's work, that the common view of Chile is doubly miscontrued, in terms of free market economics. Events since the end of the dictatorship (1989) tend to confirm Polanyi's hypothesis in 'The Great Transformation' (1957; discussed in the following section) while at the same time negating the Chicago School's view that a free market society could be built--even under a dictatorship. In Chile from September 1973 onward through 1989, the...

The article presents the shared vision of Polanyi and Heilbroner. This paper focuses on the parallel ideas of economists Karl Polanyi and Robert Heilbroner. Their concept on the role of market system in the emergence of economics as a field of study is explained. More issues included are the requirements for the transformation of a pre-market society into a true market, Polanyi's influence to several economists, and relevance of the Polanyi/Heilbroner vision of the market system to the...