What Can Marxists Learn From Polanyi?

The starting point of this paper is this comment by Rhoda Halperin on the relationship between Marx and Polanyi. Our objective is, however, to examine how reading of Polanyi could be useful to understand, or supplement, Marx’s own views on both capitalism and the “human condition” in general, rather than vice versa. In this regard, we argue first that those followers of Polanyi who believe that Marx should be treated as a rival of Polanyi, and that Marx’s “historical materialism” and his critique of capitalism is economically (or technologically) determinist, mechanistic, and reductionist, either misunderstand or misrepresent Marx.. We believe that these properties should be taken as representing the position that could be called as “vulgar” Marxism, rather than representing Marx’s own position. This type of “vulgar” Marxism is first of all positivistic or scientistic in its outlook; that is, it maintains the positivistic distinction between facts and values and thus considers ethics as being trivial in understanding and resisting capitalism. Secondly, its “materialistic conception of history” is guilty of the “economistic fallacy”, since it overlooks the fact only under capitalism do we have an “economic society”. Third, its class conception is mechanistic and reductionistic in that every act of resistance to capitalism must be explained in terms of, and carried out through, class struggle. Last, but not least, the “vulgar” Marxism is fatalistic in the sense that it maintains the view that capitalism will inevitably be collapsed through class struggle. We believe that none of these charges can be sustained if one considers Marx’s work in its entirety, and that there are important affinities and overlaps between Marx and Polanyi.