Market society and the institutional theory of Karl Polanyi

2021 ◽  
pp. 78-100
Author(s):  
Michele Cangiani
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Theory ◽  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
Market Society

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koji Yamamoto
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
Market Society ◽  
History Of

The Conclusion to this book returns to the larger question of significance: what might the history of projecting tell us about the nature of incipient capitalism and its evolution? To start tackling this larger question, the main findings of this study will be juxtaposed with the influential visions of capitalism presented by Max Weber, Karl Polanyi, and others. The study ends with a brief foray into Adam Smith’s writing. It was by eliminating projectors from the discussion and obliterating the history of their broken promises that Smith erected his monumental vision of a market society governed by an ‘invisible hand’.

Global Currencies and Domestic Regulation

2019 ◽  
pp. 112-139
Author(s):  
Georgios Dimitropoulos
Keyword(s):  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
Market System ◽  
Market Society ◽  
Control Approach ◽  
Double Movement ◽  
Regulatory Measures ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
And Control ◽  
Domestic Regulation ◽  
Global Financial System

This chapter identifies cryptocurrencies and other virtual currencies as global currencies that could have a major impact on national jurisdictions. Regulation concerning cryptocurrencies can be described in the terms of the ‘double movement’ that Karl Polanyi identified for the expansion of the market society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Cryptocurrencies have been developed by anti-establishment individuals and groups, and other opponents of the global financial system that—in Polanyi’s terms—belong to a collectivist counter-movement. The effect they have produced, though, is rather to expand global markets and the market system. This has spurred a counter-movement to the counter-movement, or what could be called the ‘anti-countermovement’. The response of the anti-countermovement to the expansion and influence of the global currencies is paradoxical, if not schizophrenic. The anti-countermovement treats global currencies both as currencies and as a technology. This has led to various regulatory measures in different jurisdictions. When viewed as currency, cryptocurrencies are regulated both as money and commodities, leading to an indifferent approach to their regulation or a command-and-control approach or various intermediate approaches. When viewed as a technology, different jurisdictions have taken an enabling approach to the regulation of cryptocurrencies by establishing ‘innovation hubs’ and ‘regulatory sandboxes’ for FinTech companies. This chapter concludes by discussing the dangers of embedding cryptocurrencies through enabling them, namely the problem of more finance, and possibly an internal clash of domestic agencies. The way to mitigate the dangers of embedding through enabling is by regulating the new cryptocurrency intermediaries.

scholarly journals Marketization and development on a European periphery: From peasant oikos to socialism and neoliberal capitalism on the Danube-Tisza interfluve

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 200-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Hann
Keyword(s):  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
Market Socialism ◽  
Market Society ◽  
Neoliberal Capitalism ◽  
Self Sufficiency

The modern term economy is associated above all with market exchange. But it derives from the Greek oikos, which for Aristotle referred to the well-managed estate, able to withstand the forces of supply and demand by virtue of a high degree of self-sufficiency. The paper explores the long-term discontinuous expansion of the principle of price-forming markets (in the sense of Karl Polanyi) at the expense of self-sufficiency in a zone of the Great Hungarian Plain where the author has carried out long-term field research. The historically “backward” region of the Danube-Tisza interfluve has been integrated into wider historical processes through different forms of market exchange, first under peripheral variants of capitalism, then in the later decades of socialism, and recently under neoliberal capitalism in a political climate of “illiberal democracy” or populism. The paper analyses continuity and change across these epochs at the societal level, with ethnographic illustrations. In addition to Polanyi’s notions of “market society” and “double movement”, it draws theoretically on Ferenc Erdei’s agenda to overcome rural backwardness through embourgeoisement; it is found that the interests of the rural population were more effectively promoted in the decades of market socialism than in any other period before or since.

scholarly journals Economic process as institutionalization of values. Karl Polanyi’s institutional theory and its ethical consequences

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 69-86
Author(s):  
Maciej Kassner
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Theory ◽  
Transaction Costs ◽  
Economic Problem ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Institutional Integration ◽  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
The Social

This article is devoted to a critical reconstruction of Karl Polanyi’s institutional theory and its ethical consequences. Starting with the distinction between the formal (neoclassical) and the substantive (institutional) understanding of the economy, the article proceeds to discuss the main forms of institutional integration of economic life described by Polanyi: reciprocity (symmetry), redistribution (centricity), and exchange (market). In this context, the author examines the connection between the work of Karl Polanyi and the economic anthropology represented by the works of Richard Thurnwald and Bronisław Malinowski. The author argues that three main forms of institutional integration of economic life introduced by Karl Polanyi can be interpreted both as analytical tools to describe institutions and as a grand scheme for the classification of different economic systems. The next section of the article is devoted to a comparison between the institutional theories of Douglass North and Karl Polanyi. For North, the main explanatory category is the idea of transaction costs, whereas for Polanyi the key idea is that of the social embeddedness of the economy. When speaking about the social embeddedness of the economy, Polanyi draws our attention to the inseparable bonds which exist between economic institutions on the one hand, and culture, social structure and politics on the other. This theoretical difference between North and Polanyi, the author argues, has important ethical consequences. If Polanyi is right, then institutions are not only alternative solutions to a certain economic problem (i.e. the efficient allocation of resources, the reduction of transaction costs) but above all they are the embodiment of different conceptions of a good life. In conclusion, the author emphasizes the political dimension of Karl Polanyi’s institutional theory, along with its intriguing promise of liberating our social and political life from the economistic fallacy, that is, from the unfortunate tendency to think about society in market terms.

Ignorance, denial, internalisation, and transcendence: a post-structural perspective on Polanyi's double movement

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER HOLMES
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
Market Society ◽  
Economic Discourse ◽  
Double Movement ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Discursive Field ◽  
Double Limit

AbstractIn this article, I suggest what an engagement between post-structuralism and the work of Karl Polanyi might look like. I do this by presenting a reading of Polanyi's concept of ‘double movement’ as a form of problematisation through binary opposition. I suggest that the central opposition that the double movement depicts – between economy and society as reflected in processes of marketisation and social protection – presents itself in such a way that the problems emanating from the opposition can only be solved through its transcendence. On one hand, the terms of transcendence are limited by the terms of the opposition. On the other hand, since transcendence is never reached, the double movement problematisation stabilises the existence of a lacuna between the lived experience of market society and the discursive field of that market society. As such, the form of the problematisation places a double-limit upon the ways in which ‘solutions’ can be presented. I present this thesis in relation to two instances of double movement discussed by Polanyi in his book, The Great Transformation. I then apply the argument to invocations of the economy-society opposition in contemporary political economic discourse, where it remains as ubiquitous as ever.

scholarly journals Re-embedding embeddedness: what is the role of social enterprise in promoting democracy and protecting social rights?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Roy ◽  
Pascal Roy ◽  
Simon Teasdale
Keyword(s):  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Market Society ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Conceptual Paper

Purpose In today’s “market society” almost every aspect of the everyday lives is shaped by market forces. In this essay, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the potential role of social enterprise as one means of re-embedding the economy into society to ensure the economy works for people, rather than the other way around. Design/methodology/approach This is primarily a conceptual paper: a provocation. Findings The authors argue that to work as an embedding force, social enterprise needs to ensure both reciprocity and market exchange while acting in a way that attempts to compensate for the retreat of the state through providing public services and promoting collective decision-making and public deliberation. Originality/value Drawing upon the work of Karl Polanyi to conceptualise social enterprise as an “alternative” economic actor within a plural economic system, the authors contribute to on-going debates about social enterprise as an alternative way of organising markets and society. The authors highlight the challenges involved in achieving such a vision and suggest ways these might be overcome.

Development Theory and the Constitution of Market Society: A Polanyian View

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Scott
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Development Theory ◽  
Development Studies ◽  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
Market Society ◽  
Final Point ◽  
Policy Debates

Abstract This paper argues that development studies could benefit from a closer engagement with the arguments of Karl Polanyi. Firstly, a Polanyian perspective gives greater weight to non-economic and non-material factors in making, maintaining and modifying markets. Secondly, it focuses research on the problematic, state- sponsored and contested process of bringing the market actor into being. Finally, a Polanyian approach might better link a, broadly speaking, leftist analysis to “real world” policy debates about the relative balance between market freedoms and regulation. The conclusion elaborates this final point.

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