Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl Polanyi.

by Karl Polanyi, George Dalton (Editor)

Polanyi used economic anthropology and early economic history to jar us loose from ideas and generalizations about man and society implanted by the Industrial Revolution. (Classical economics and the ideology of laissez-faire, as well as Marxian socialism, came out of the English Industrial Revolution). He was particularly concerned to dislodge the notion -so widely and implicitly held- that markets are ubiquitous and invariable form of economic organization; that any economy can be translated into market terms, and the further notion that economic organization determines social organization and culture in all societies. These he regarded as wrong generalizations from the one very special case (laissez-faire capitalism) for which they are true. He argued that these generalizations must be disproved and disbelieved if we are evet to make industrial technology serve the needs of human community, and indeed if we are to understand the nature of economic organization in early and primitive economies. -from the Introduction by George Dalton, professor of economics and anthropology at Northwestern University.

This volume brings together some of the significant essays by late Karl Polanyi, whose writings are among the most influential factors in the present growth of interest in comparative economic systems and economic anthropology.

Genres: Economics, History, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Philosophy

346 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1971

About the author

Karl Paul Polanyi was an Austro-Hungarian economic historian, economic anthropologist, economic sociologist, political economist, historical sociologist and social philosopher. He is known for his opposition to traditional economic thought and for his book, The Great Transformation, which argued that the emergence of market-based societies in modern Europe was not inevitable but historically contingent. Polanyi is remembered today as the originator of substantivism, a cultural approach to economics, which emphasized the way economies are embedded in society and culture. This view ran counter to mainstream economics but is popular in anthropology, economic history, economic sociology and political science.

Polanyi's approach to the ancient economies has been applied to a variety of cases, such as Pre-Columbian America and ancient Mesopotamia, although its utility to the study of ancient societies in general has been questioned. Polanyi's The Great Transformation became a model for historical sociology. His theories eventually became the foundation for the economic democracy movement. His daughter, Canadian economist Kari Polanyi Levitt (born 1923 in Vienna, Austria), is Emerita Professor of Economics at McGill University, Montreal.