Karl Polanyi | |
|---|---|
 Polanyi,c. 1918 | |
| Born | 25 October 1886 |
| Died | 23 April 1964(1964-04-23) (aged 77) Pickering, Ontario, Canada |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Kari Polanyi Levitt |
| Relatives |
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| Academic career | |
| Field | Economic sociology,economic history,economic anthropology,Philosophy |
| School or tradition | Historical school of economics |
| Influences | Robert Owen,Bronisław Malinowski,G. D. H. Cole,Richard Tawney,Richard Thurnwald,Karl Marx,Aristotle,Karl Bücher,Heinrich Schurtz,Ferdinand Tönnies,Adam Smith,Alfred Radcliffe-Brown,Werner Sombart,Max Weber,György Lukács,Carl Menger |
| Contributions | Embeddedness,Double Movement,fictitious commodities,economistic fallacy, theformalist–substantivist debate (substantivism) |
| Part ofa series on |
| Economic,applied, anddevelopment anthropology |
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Case studies
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| Social andcultural anthropology |
Karl Paul Polanyi (/poʊˈlænji/;Hungarian:Polányi Károly[ˈpolaːɲiˈkaːroj]; 25 October 1886 – 23 April 1964)[1] was an Austro-Hungarianeconomic anthropologist,economic sociologist, and politician,[2] best known for his bookThe Great Transformation, which questions the conceptual validity of self-regulating markets.[3]
In his writings, Polanyi advances the concept of theDouble Movement, which refers to thedialectical process ofmarketization and push forsocial protection against that marketization. He argues that market-based societies in modern Europe were not inevitable but historically contingent. Polanyi is remembered best as the originator ofsubstantivism, a cultural version of economics, which emphasizes the way economies are embedded in society and culture. This opinion is counter tomainstream economics but is popular inanthropology,economic history,economic sociology andpolitical science.
Polanyi's approach to the ancient economies has been applied to a variety of cases, such asPre-Columbian America and ancientMesopotamia, although its utility to the study of ancient societies in general has been questioned.[4] Polanyi'sThe Great Transformation became a model forhistorical sociology. His theories eventually became the foundation for theeconomic democracy movement.
Polanyi was active in politics, and helped found theNational Citizens' Radical Party in 1914, serving as its secretary. He fled Hungary for Vienna in 1919 when the right-wing authoritarian regime ofAdmiral Horthy seized power. He fled Vienna for London in 1933 whenAdolf Hitler came to power in Germany and fascism was on the ascendancy in Austria. After years of unsuccessfully seeking employment at universities in the United Kingdom, he moved to the United States in 1940 where he joined the faculty atBennington College and later taught atColumbia University.
Polanyi was born intoa Jewish family in Vienna.[5] His younger brother wasMichael Polanyi, aphilosopher, and his niece wasEva Zeisel, a world-renownedceramist.[6] He was born inVienna, at the time the capital of theAustro-Hungarian Empire.[7] His father,Mihály Pollacsek, was a railway entrepreneur. Mihály never changed the namePollacsek, and is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Budapest. Mihály died in January 1905, which was an emotional shock to Karl, and he commemorated the anniversary of Mihály's death throughout his life.[8] Karl and Michael Polanyi's mother wasCecília Wohl. The name change to Polanyi was made by Karl and his siblings.
Polanyi was well educated despite the ups and downs of his father's fortune, and he immersed himself inBudapest's active intellectual and artistic scene. Polanyi studied at theMinta Gymnasium.[9]
Polanyi founded the radical and influentialGalileo Circle while at theUniversity of Budapest, a club which would have far reaching effects on Hungarian intellectual thought. During this time, he was actively engaged with other notable thinkers, such asGyörgy Lukács,Oszkár Jászi, andKarl Mannheim. Polanyi graduated from Budapest University in 1912 with a doctorate inLaw. In 1914, he helped found the National Citizens' Radical Party of Hungary and served as itssecretary.[citation needed]
Polanyi was acavalry officer in theAustro-Hungarian Army inWorld War I, in active service at theRussian Front and hospitalized in Budapest. Polanyi supported the republican government ofMihály Károlyi and itsSocial Democratic regime. The republic was short-lived, with socialistBéla Kun toppling the Karolyi government to create theHungarian Soviet Republic. Polanyi left Hungary for Vienna in order to undergo medical treatment. During this time, the Kun government was replaced by the right-wing authoritarian regime ofAdmiral Horthy.[10] As a consequence, Polanyi left Hungary permanently.[5][10]
From 1924 to 1933, he was employed as a senior editor of the prestigiousDer Österreichische Volkswirt (The Austrian Economist) magazine. It was at this time that he first began criticizing theAustrian school of economics, who he felt created abstract models which lost sight of the organic, interrelated reality of economic processes. Polanyi himself was attracted toFabianism and the works ofG. D. H. Cole. It was also during this period that Polanyi grew interested inChristian socialism.
He married the communist revolutionaryIlona Duczyńska, of Polish-Hungarian background. Their daughterKari Polanyi Levitt carried on the family tradition of economic academic research.
Polanyi was asked to resign fromDer Oesterreichische Volkswirt because the liberal publisher of the journal could not keep on a prominent socialist after the accession of Hitler to office in January 1933 and the suspension of the Austrian parliament by the rising tide of clerical fascism in Austria. He left for London in 1933, where he earned a living as a journalist and tutor and obtained a position as a lecturer for theWorkers' Educational Association in 1936. His lecture notes contained the research for what later becameThe Great Transformation. However, he would not start writing this work until 1940, when he moved toVermont to take up a position atBennington College. Polanyi had for many years sought employment at British universities but was unsuccessful.[5] The book was published in 1944, to great acclaim.[11] In it, Polanyi described theenclosure process inEngland and the creation of the contemporary economic system at the beginning of the 19th century.[citation needed]
Polanyi joined the staff ofBennington College in 1940, teaching a series of five timely lectures on the "Present Age of Transformation".[12][13] The lectures "The Passing of the 19th Century",[14] "The Trend Towards an Integrated Society",[15] "The Breakdown of the International System",[16] "Is America an Exception?",[17] and "Marxism and the Inner History of the Russian Revolution"[18] took place during the early stages of World War II. Polanyi participated inBennington's Humanism Lecture Series (1941)[19] andBennington College's Lecture Series (1943) where his topic was "Jean Jacques Rousseau: Or Is a Free Society Possible?"[20]
After the war, Polanyi received a teaching position atColumbia University (1947–1953). However, his wife,Ilona Duczyńska (1897–1978), had a background as a formercommunist, which made gaining an entrance visa in theUnited States impossible. As a result, they moved toCanada, and Polanyi commuted to New York City. In the early 1950s, Polanyi received a large grant from theFord Foundation to study the economic systems of ancient empires.
Having described the emergence of the modern economic system, Polanyi now sought to understand how "the economy" emerged as a distinct sphere in the distant past. His seminar at Columbia drew several famous scholars and influenced a generation of teachers, resulting in the 1957 volumeTrade and Market in the Early Empires. Polanyi continued to write in his later years and established a new journal entitledCoexistence. In Canada he lived inPickering, Ontario, where he died in 1964.
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