the karl polanyi research network

"The outstanding discovery of recent historical and anthropological research is that man's economy, as a rule, is submerged in his social relationships. He does not act so as to safeguard his individual interest in the possession of material goods; he acts so as to safeguard his social standing, his social claims, his social assets."
(Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, 1944)

Polanyi Forum

New Book
Erik Ringmar, Surviving Capitalism: How we learned to live with the market and remained almost human (London: Anthem Books, 2005)
crisis states research centre
Go to Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy

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The Karl Polanyi Research Network is hosted by the Crisis States Research Centre based at the Development Studies Institute at the London School of Economics. We support the work of the Karl Polanyi Institute. Our aim is to disseminate research inspired by Polanyi's work and to promote debate of Polanyi's ideas and their implications for understanding processes of social, economic and political change in the modern world.

We invite interested individuals to join the Karl Polanyi Forum, where you can post research papers, essays and react to papers sent by others. 

We also invite you to send notices concerning upcoming conferences or seminars, recent publications, or other activities related to the work and ideas of Karl Polanyi.

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"While Polanyi saw the state as essential to imposing the 'unnatural' relationships required by market society he also saw the state as essential to making the 'process of economic improvement' 'socially bearable'."
(James Putzel, 'Politics, the State and the Impulse for Social Protection')

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Last modified: 11 May 2006