Karl Polanyi. Группа авторов

and searching for paths towards a new society which combine the freedom of the individual with social justice and opportunities for everyone to develop and realise their full potential.

      Karl Polanyi’s crucial contribution, which he elaborates on in the last pages of The Great Transformation and which is certainly worth rediscovering, consists of a passionate appeal against dogmatism and simplification. It is a plea for dialectics and pragmatism. The criticism of a misguided faith in the self-regulating forces of the market must not lead to a rejection of markets as such. The critique of excessive individualism inherent in liberal thought must not let us forget the importance of the right to non-conformity and the protection of minorities. At the same time, there is no way around the fact that a society can only be built based on ‘planning’, ‘regulation’, and ‘control’ (Polanyi 1944/2001, p. 265) and a state capable of acting, otherwise it is the law of the jungle that governs: digital platforms displace their competitors through tax and social dumping; cycling remains a niche for the environmentally conscious while flying continues to be subsidised. In short, without ‘planning’, ‘regulation’, and ‘control’, that ‘freedom in a complex society’ is simply not possible, at least not if it is to be more than the individual freedom of the privileged.

       Why Polanyi ought to be considered the personality of the century

      Karl Polanyi deserves to be assigned a central role in the 21st century because his thinking is helpful in the search for constructive, solidarity-based alternatives. Polanyi is, of course, not the only pioneering, unconventional thinker to look to in these times of massive change for a comprehensive critique of the system and a concrete diagnosis of the times. The aim is not to pit Polanyi against Marx, Weber, Adorno, Keynes, or many others. Thinking in unconventional ways means assuming distinct perspectives in order to avoid becoming disoriented in the diversity of current dynamics. That said, there are many good reasons for the renaissance of Polanyi: his work invites us to reconceive the relation between the economy and society. Polanyi helps us discern the dangers facing a society in which material self-interest is considered the only valid social interest: Is it worthwhile? Does it pay off? Can we afford this and that? Moreover, Polanyi helps us to once again embed such economic reflections in the greater social and ecological context. It is the only way of turning the social needs of the many into the main driver of the economy, instead of orientating it towards catering for the individual interests of the few.

      And, finally, Polanyi also invites us – not least based on his own biography – to return to the beginnings of the 20th century and learn from history: from the struggle for democracy and women’s rights, for the welfare state and against war. The great victories (against fascism and in building international understanding) and gradual successes (the many small changes in legislation, changed routines and cultural givens such as increasing progress toward gender equality, the broad acceptance of homosexuality, the growing responsiveness to the needs of the disabled) may serve as a source of inspiration for confronting the increasingly powerful right-wing populists and authoritarian forces. Indeed, it might just all change for the better: ‘[…] creating more abundant freedom for all’ (Polanyi 1944/2001, p. 268) is possible. ‘Freedom for all’ remains the ultimate goal of concrete utopias.

       References

      Robert Boyer in the last part (“Karl Polanyi – Wirtschaft als Teil des menschlichen Kulturschaffens”, Engl.: “Karl Polanyi – The economy as a part of human cultural activity”) of the film by Ilan Ziv (“Der Kapitalismus” – “Capitalism”), which aired on the French/German public TV station Arte.

      Polanyi, Karl (1944/2001): The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press.

      ‘MANY GRAZE ON POLANYI’S PASTURE’

      The works of Karl Polanyi in German- and English-language media over the past five years.

       ARMIN THURNHER

      Many texts, including those featuring in this volume, suggest that the financial crisis of 2008 placed Polanyi’s work back in the limelight. There is some truth to such a notion. Yet, how Polanyi’s renaissance came about is rather different in the German- and English-speaking worlds. While in the UK and the United States, the left actually debates Polanyi and important newspapers and magazines with a serious audience address and discuss the man and his work, in Germany and Austria there is some coverage in newspapers, whereas journals and magazines hardly ever mention him at all. Correspondingly, neither Der Spiegel nor magazines such as Profil, Weltwoche or Brand eins mentioned the name Karl Polanyi once over the past five years. There were two mentions in Die Zeit, but no substantial article on the subject. It is exclusively publications specialising in politics, like the Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, that have featured lengthy pieces on Polanyi or ideas based on his work. Some of these were from the Anglo-Saxon world, authored, for example, by Robert Reich or Nancy Fraser, the latter of whom is discussed in more detail in this volume.

      Polanyi’s magnum opus, The Great Transformation, appeared in 1944, and it took another 33 years before it was published in German. Only very few people outside of economic expert circles were familiar with the name Polanyi. If nothing else, at least that has changed completely. Today, he is frequently cited en passent, so to speak, as political scientist Ulrich Brand recently did in an interview with the Austrian paper Falter. ‘How far does degrowth have to go?’, was the question, to which Brand responded:

       ‘To say it with Karl Polanyi: we need to initiate the social-political and intellectual countermovement against a continuing ignorant consumption of natural resources, which are taken for granted, and an imperial lifestyle. That will allow for learning processes which I have already observed among some of my students: they don’t even want to have a car anymore, nor do some of them want to get on a plane anymore. All they want is a good life. This might give us a clearer picture of the outlook: a growing part of society wants this alternative lifestyle.’ (Falter, 1 May 2018).

      In 2009, the renowned paper Die Zeit, with its academic middle-class readership, wrote that if one believed the ideas of the ‘forgotten economist (sic) Karl Polanyi’, one had to recognise the fact that ‘industrial civilisation may well lead to the ruin of humankind’ (16 July). Polanyi was only mentioned in one other instance, namely as an admonisher of ‘climate change, economic and financial crises’ (Die Zeit, 15 September 2011). The few weekly papers that did not ignore Polanyi, include the Wirtschaftswoche. ‘Today you have students attending advanced seminars in economics who have not read Adam Smith or Friedrich August von Hayek. They don’t know who Francois Quesnay or Carl Menger were, nor what Albert O. Hirschman or Karl Polanyi stand for.’ (12 October 2018)

      Readers of daily newspapers were slightly better off in this respect. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung was indeed correct to write, in 2016: ‘Schumpeter, Galbraith, Hayek and Friedman may have achieved equally high-profile publicity as Keynes or Piketty. However, this is not the case with Karl Polanyi, Tibor Scitovsky, Albert O. Hirschman and Peter L. Berger’ (29 September). And yet, Austrian broadsheet newspapers have surprisingly contributed to the Polanyi renaissance quite considerably. In Die Presse of 15 November 2016, social and economic historian Ernst Langthaler contextualised his detailed article on The Great Transformation with current affairs, namely the rise of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. ‘What sounds like an op-ed article on Donald Trump’s victory during the US presidential elections was essentially conceived, said and written down more than 70 years ago. In his 1944 book The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi addressed one of the most pressing questions of his time: the rise of fascism which – together with communism – earned the 20th century the title of the “Age of Extremes” (Eric Hobsbawm), writes Langthaler, without, however, classifying Trump as a fascist. He considers him to be a national populist, whose success can, however, be explained with Polanyi’s category of countermovement.

      Der Standard is another paper that sporadically quotes Polanyi, e.g. in