"Karl Polanyi in an Age of Uncertainty" (original) (raw)

Review Essay: Karl Polanyi: A Life on the Left, by Gareth Dale. NY: Columbia University Press, 2016. For a New West: Essays, 1919-1958, by Karl Polanyi. Polity Press, 2014.

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Book Review: Karl Polanyi, For a New West: Essays, 1919-1958

Karl Polanyi’s now cult book The Great Transformation (1944) did not take off immedi- ately after its first release, but since then its appeal to scholars in various social sciences has grown. The last economic crisis certainly confirmed the topicality of Polanyi’s radi- cal critique of the liberal utopia of self-regulating markets. This new book – the first since 1977 – brings together a selection of unpublished material taken from Karl Polanyi’s archives at Concordia University in Montreal. Prior to being released in English, these German and English writings benefited from an Italian translation by two legal scholars, who in this English edition provide a solid general introduction and an illuminating (for the average sociologist) postscript on Polyani’s juridical and political thought. Spanning over a period of more than 40 years, and heterogeneous by nature – lectures, conference papers, and unpublished essays – the content of the book is quite broad. Although it is obviously impossible to be exhaustive on the many themes developed by Polanyi in his various essays, we can nevertheless see how he engaged with the important issues of his times, through the lens of his original framework

Review of: Karl Polanyi A Life on the Left, by Gareth Dale. 2016, Columbia University Press

In Karl Polanyi: A Life on the Left , Gareth Dale continues his longstanding intellectual engagement with one of the twentieth-century's leading theorists of the market economy in a biography that traces the development of Polanyi's thought against the backdrop of his life. While the book may not fully grapple with the contradictions that emerge within the account, Chris Moreh praises this laudable and definitive work that is likely to inspire a new generation of activist scholars through its exploration of Polanyi's life and times.

Polanyi's Social and Political Philosophy and the Future of Liberalism-Introduction

Quaestiones Disputatae, 2022

This introduction summarizes the main themes of the contributions to a special issue of Quaestiones Disputatae on Michael Polanyi's Social and Political Philosophy and the Future of Liberalism. I draw out a thread that gives the reader a general understanding of Polanyi’s approach and comment on some issues brought up by contributing authors. For example, I suggest that there is a stronger Polanyian defense of democracy implicit in Struan Jacob’s paper, and I suggest that Polanyi’s approach to the differences between revelation and philosophy might be happier and more productive than Jon Fennell concludes.

The Enigmatic Life of Karl Polanyi

Karl Polanyi an enigmatic figure of world social science. He became really influential well after his death, and his fame is a result of a single book. Those who decide to read this biography most likely will have read Polanyi’s main work: The Great Transformation. They already know about double movement, embeddedness and fictitious commodity. Gareth Dale’s biography is a guide to the origins of these concepts and the magnificent book itself. We can learn from him what sort of studies, and indeed what kind of life experience produced it.

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