Karl Polanyi, Athens and us: the contemporary significance of Polanyi's thought

Abstract

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 Classical Greece. Polanyi used these studies to compare the ancient societies with his own times, in an effort to understand them all. This paper aims to relate Polanyi's work on the Athenian society with his studies about the modern times, showing that it is possible to draw lessons from Polanyi's thought on the relationship between the society, the state and the market that can help to design a political agenda for our days. In the first part, we present the most important aspects o the life and work of Polanyi, and in the second we discuss the most important aspects of his worldview. Then, in the third part, we study his view of the early Athenian economy; mainly, we focus on the coexistence of a kind of state planning and a market, showing how this understanding is crucial for the whole Polanyian legacy, with its emphasis in the comparison of different societies and times. We conclude by underlining the relevance of this interpretation advanced by Polanyi to understand the societies of our days, focusing on some proposals to extend his approach to deal with our contemporary problems.

Karl Polanyi and substantivism in economic development

“…The main difference was the place occupied by the economy, or rather embeddedness in social relations, and was now descaled. The social consequence of this complete freedom is the removal of the human side from the economic aspects of life (Wjuniski, Fernandez, 2010). In this world, man has become a purely economic being and the human economy has become a market economy.…”

“…According to Polanyi (2012a), markets and the economy should be an accessory to social rela-tions, a means of helping the exchange of goods and services, but should never replace social relations, as they did during the industrial revolution and beyond that point. The completely free market transforms all of the characteristics of social life into marketable goods, as happened with land, labor and money (Wjuniski, Fernandez, 2010).…”

“…At the same time, this economy required a strong reaction from society to mitigate its transformative effects. This process was called "double movement" by Polanyi because one force is seen as a reaction to the other: the evolution of the markets and the development of the liberal creed forced society to protect itself (Wjuniski, Fernandez, 2010).…”

“…For Wjuniski and Fernandez (2010), much of Polanyi's effort, in the whole of his work, was to show that the market itself is not a sufficient mechanism to organize the economy in order to ensure social cohesion. Emphasizing the need for states and society to develop other mechanisms in order to prevent imbalances generated by the market.…”