Karl Polanyi

39 languages

Tools

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The native form of this

Polányi Károly

. This article uses

when mentioning

individuals.

Karl Polanyi

Polanyi,

1918

Born

25 October 1886

Died

23 April 1964

(aged 77)

, Canada

Spouse

(

1923)

Children

Relatives

(brother)

(nephew)

(niece)

Academic background

Influences

Academic work

Discipline

School or

tradition

Notable

ideas

, the

(

)

Influenced

Part of

, and

Basic concepts

Provisioning systems

Case studies

Prestations

Gifting

Provisioning

(hunter-gatherers)

Colonialism and development

Political economy

Major theorists

and

Karl Paul Polanyi

(

;

Polányi Károly

; 25 October 1886 – 23 April 1964)

was an Austro-Hungarian

, and politician,

best known for his book

which questions the conceptual validity of self-

regulating markets.

In his writings, Polanyi advances the concept of the

, which

refers to the

process of

and push for

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 of

, a cultural version of

economics, which emphasizes the way economies are embedded in society and

culture. This opinion is counter to

but is popular in

and

Polanyi's approach to the ancient economies has been applied to a variety of

cases, such as

and ancient

, although its

utility to the study of ancient societies in general has been questioned.

Polanyi's

The Great Transformation

became a model for

His theories eventually became the foundation for the

movement.

Polanyi was active in politics, and helped found the

[

]

in 1914, serving as its secretary. He fled Hungary for

Vienna in 1919 when the right-wing authoritarian regime of

seized power. He fled Vienna for London in 1933 when

came to

power in Germany and fascism was ascendant 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 at

and later taught at

Early life

[

]

Karl Polanyi was born in Vienna and raised in Budapest by a German‑speaking

into the secular middle class.

His younger

brother was

, a

, and his niece was

, a

world-renowned

He was born in

, at the time the capital of

the

[

]

His father,

, was a

railway entrepreneur. Mihály never changed the name

Pollacsek

, 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.

Karl and Michael Polanyi's mother was

. 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 in

's active intellectual and artistic scene.

Polanyi studied at the

Early career

[

]

Polanyi founded the radical and influential

while at the

, a club which would have far reaching effects on

Hungarian intellectual thought. During this time, he was actively engaged with

other notable thinkers, such as

, and

. Polanyi graduated from Budapest University in 1912 with a doctorate

. In 1914, he helped found the National Citizens' Radical Party of

Hungary and served as its

[

]

Polanyi was a

officer in the

, in

active service at the

and hospitalized in Budapest. Polanyi

supported the republican government of

and its

regime. The republic was short-lived, with socialist

toppling the Karolyi government to create the

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 of

As a consequence, Polanyi left Hungary

permanently.

In Vienna

[

]

From 1924 to 1933, he was employed as a senior editor of the prestigious

(

The Austrian Economist

) magazine. It was at this

time that he first began criticizing the

, which

he felt created abstract models that lost sight of the organic, interrelated

reality of economic processes. Polanyi himself was attracted to

and

the works of

. It was also during this period that Polanyi first

developed an interest in

Polanyi married the communist revolutionary

, who was of

Polish-Hungarian background. Their daughter

carried on the

family tradition of academic economic research.

In London

[

]

Polanyi was asked to resign from

Der 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 the

1936. His lecture notes contained the research for what later became

. However, he would not start writing this work until 1940, when

he moved to

to take up a position at

. Polanyi had

for many years sought employment at British universities but was

unsuccessful.

The book was published in 1944, to great acclaim.

In it,

Polanyi described the

process in

and the creation of the

contemporary economic system at the beginning of the 19th

century.

[

]

United States and Canada

[

]

Polanyi joined the staff of

in 1940, teaching a series of

five timely lectures on the "Present Age of Transformation".

The

lectures "The Passing of the 19th Century",

"The Trend Towards an

Integrated Society",

"The Breakdown of the International System",

"Is

America an Exception?",

and "Marxism and the Inner History of the Russian

Revolution"

took place during the early stages of World War II. Polanyi participated in

Humanism

Lecture Series (1941)

and

's Lecture Series (1943) where his topic was "

: Or

Is a Free Society Possible?"

After the war, Polanyi received a teaching position at

(1947–1953). However, his wife,

(1897–1978), had a background as a former

, which made gaining an entrance visa in the

impossible. As a result, they moved to

, and Polanyi commuted to New York City. In the early 1950s,

Polanyi received a large grant from the

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 volume

Trade and Market in the Early Empires

. Polanyi continued to

write in his later years and established a new journal entitled

Coexistence

. In Canada he lived in

where he died in 1964.

Selected works

[

]

, ed.

Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economics: Essays of Karl Polanyi

(New York: Doubleday &

Company, 1968); collected essays and selections from his work.

Pearson, Harry W., ed.

The Livelihood of Man

(Academic Press, 1977)

Polanyi, Karl.

(Boston: Beacon Press.

1944) ISBN 0-8070-5679-0

Polanyi, Karl, Conrad M. Arensberg, and Harry W. Person, eds.

Trade and Market in the Early Empires

(Glencoe, Ill.:

The Free Press, 1957)

Polanyi, Karl.

Dahomey and the Slave Trade: An Analysis of an Archaic Economy

(Seattle: University of Washington

Press, 1966).

Polanyi, Karl.

For a New West: Essays, 1919–1958

(Polity Press, 2014),

Articles

[

]

"Socialist Accounting" (1922)

"The Essence of Fascism" (1933–1934); article

"Universal Capitalism or Regional Planning?",

The London Quarterly of World Affairs

, vol. 10 (3) (1945)