In 1944 Austrian born Karl Polanyi published his most well known book The Great Transformation in which he critiqued dominant economic thinking and offered another lens in which to view global markets and the history of capitalism. The Great Transformation has remained an influential text especially in the fields of sociology, history and anthropology (Block 275). Polanyi believed that there was a series of myths surrounding the origins and workings of capitalism that began with Adam Smith and his book Wealth of Nations. The Great Transformation looks to counter some of those myths by adding an anthropological and historical analysis. Polanyi claims that our market driven society is a historical novelty (Watson) and that for the majority of
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First of all Polanyi 's personal history is thought to have had influence on his humanist approach to economics. Twice a migrant due to conflicts in central Europe, Polanyi lives much of his adult life in Canada despite teaching in the States, because his wife’s communist beliefs kept them from being allowed to live in the US (Block 276). His most prominent work, The Great Transformation, was published in 1944 which was the same year that Friedrich Hayek published his book The Road to Serfdom and John Maynard Keynes was using his influence on the global political economy to create the Bretton Woods system (Watson). It was the beginnings of the Cold War and the political and economical battles between the Chicago School of Economics (classical liberalism) and Keynes interventionist approach we 're taking center stage (Watson). Despite being on the outside of a discussion that was based largely on market efficiency not origin, Polanyi create an alternative approach to viewing economics. His paradigm shift, reset the terms of the argument. It was no longer about whether markets were economically efficient but was about the human and environmental costs of allowing nature and people to be included as parts of the production process in a market economy
First of all Polanyi 's personal history is thought to have had influence on his humanist approach to economics. Twice a migrant due to conflicts in central Europe, Polanyi lives much of his adult life in Canada despite teaching in the States, because his wife’s communist beliefs kept them from being allowed to live in the US (Block 276). His most prominent work, The Great Transformation, was published in 1944 which was the same year that Friedrich Hayek published his book The Road to Serfdom and John Maynard Keynes was using his influence on the global political economy to create the Bretton Woods system (Watson). It was the beginnings of the Cold War and the political and economical battles between the Chicago School of Economics (classical liberalism) and Keynes interventionist approach we 're taking center stage (Watson). Despite being on the outside of a discussion that was based largely on market efficiency not origin, Polanyi create an alternative approach to viewing economics. His paradigm shift, reset the terms of the argument. It was no longer about whether markets were economically efficient but was about the human and environmental costs of allowing nature and people to be included as parts of the production process in a market economy