Search

The ideas of Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation have often been referred to in the recent debates that have emerged as a reaction to the rise of neoliberal policies. This paper deals with contradictory interpretations of the notion of social protectionism in the work of Karl Polanyi. There are two opposing interpretations distinguished here. The first interprets social protectionism as a balancing principle of economic liberalism. The second understands social protectionism as a part of...

Halperin traces the persistence of traditional class structures during the development of industrial capitalism in Europe, and the way in which these structures shaped states and state behavior and generated conflict. She documents European conflicts between 1789 and 1914, including small and medium scale conflicts often ignored by researchers and links these conflicts to structures characteristic of industrial capitalist development in Europe before 1945. This book revisits the historical...

Mark Blyth's rebuttal to our constructive critique of Polanyi "blithely" takes for granted the accuracy of Polanyi's now-outdated historiography of capitalism--by means of a loose, overly expansive definition of capitalism that question-beggingly equates it with modernity. Blyth emphasizes the need to view markets as "socially embedded," with which we agree--but he appears not to take account of the individual self-interest that is thus embedded. Similarly, he asserts a priori the role of...

During and especially after the Second World War, a group of leading scholars who had been perilously close to the war's devastation joined others fortunate enough to have been protected by distance in an effort to redefine and reinvigorate Western liberal ideals for a radically new age. Treating evil as an analytical category, they sought to discover the sources of twentieth-century horror and the potentialities of the modern state in the wake of western desolation. In the process, they...

This conversation, transcribed from a conference in April 2002, is intended to illuminate current debates about the use and abuse of the embeddedness concept in economic sociology.

"If we don't set out a stronger theoretical base for our work, if the movements we build are simply pragmatic & without a sound intellectual base, we will not succeed in changing hearts and minds." Pat Conaty

Yes

This study expands the narrow economic-commercial focus of the topical media and places globalization in a multidisciplinary context as a continuing process and a permanent condition that transforms human living and society. Early chapters review the development of globalization as creating and diffusing knowledge, expanding people's perspectives on living, and continuing progress. These chapters introduce globalization as an iterative, human, and deliberate process of creating new knowledge...

EN: This essay proposes a periodization of Karl Polanyi’s work, from his early writings in Vienna to his anthropological work developed in the context of the substantivist-formalist discussion. The outstanding feature of this studies is the way they combine empirical sharpness with epistemological modesty. Unlike orthodox economy and imperialism theories, Polanyi doesn’t ignore the precarious theoretical situation of social science. His investigations are based on empirical thesis both...

Few would have predicted the rapid progress of the EU in developing common economic institutions 20 or 30 years ago, although many commentators might have foreseen the relatively slow development of convergent social policies. This paper sets the European debate in the context of the path-breaking work of Polanyi and Schumpeter at the end of the Second World War. It argues that the economic institutions of the EU are at least as important as the social policy institutions in understanding...

The hegemony of neoliberalism now poses a fundamental challenge to planners worldwide. Most influential in this regard has been Francis Fukuyama's 'end of history' ideology and its progenies - or mutations - such as the Third Way. A close reading of their proponents (especially Anthony Giddens) and critics (Perry Anderson, Pierre Bourdieu, Alex Callinicos, John Gray and others) with reference to the contrasting political-economic theories of Friedrich von Hayek and Karl Polanyi, however,...

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 compares Mexico and India's experiences with neoliberalism to propose that the collapse of the development state generates countermovements. In both nations, neoliberalism is associated with the decline of the one-party deminant system, and a restructuring of civil society. Variations emerge in the timing of democratization in these countries. In India, democratization preceded neoliberal reforms, whereas in Mexico democratization followed neoliberal reforms, but in both cases...

Whether globalization will result in improvement or deterioration in protection of human rights is not a matter that can be observed in the short term. Globalization is, in effect, the second ‘great transformation’ (Polanyi) spreading capitalism over the entire world. In consequence, many of its short-term effects will be negative. Nevertheless, its medium and long-term effects may well be positive, as it impels social changes that will result in greater moves to democracy, economic...

In examining the world-historical context of the rise of pan-Islamic nationalism in Iran, this paper posits Islamic fundamentalism as a modern and global (rather than premodern and local) movement. Drawing on Polanyi and linking economy, polity, and culture, this study traces the origins of pan-Islamic nationalism in Iran to the transformation of the world-market relations in the second half of the nineteenth century and the rise of the food/agrarian regime after 1870. It shows that the...

Neo-liberal policies and practices which impugn state policies as artificial interferences in the smooth operation of markets are at work globally, nationally and locally. Based on research about the Justice for Janitors in California, this paper examines the experience of the campaigns in San Jose and Sacramento. The paper is organized around a tension between two issues about markets that are explained by Karl Polanyi: their social reality as complex political constructions and the...

Revisits the debt peonage debate, central to understanding Latin American transitions to capitalism, particularly in Diormo, Granada, Nicaragua. Differences between capitalist and noncapitalist societies according to Karl Polanyi and Robert Brenner; Land peasantry in Diriomo; Legislation enacted to compel peasants to work in plantation agriculture.