The Age Demanded: The Rhetoric of Karl Polanyi
Formal acknowledgement of Karl Polanyi is rare. As J.R. Stanfield notes, Polanyi is "relatively neglected" [Stanfield 1986, pp. 20-1], even by heterodox economists. Yet informally many heterodox economists attribute to Polanyi's The Great Transformation a profound intellectual influence on their thinking. Why is Polanyi's influence recognized informally but ignored formally? Or, as a colleague has asked, why do Polanyi's emotions seem clear, but his reasoning cloudy? To address these questions, we must briefly identify Polanyi's work in its historical and rhetorical context. Polanyi saw the world events of the 1 920s and 1 930s as a scourge resulting from the self-regulating market's domination over modem society. For Polanyi, civilization was being transformed in crisis and required immediate, further transformational action. As Polanyi states early and clearly, "nineteenth century civilization has collapsed," creating a "cataclysm" that is nothing less than "the breakdown of our civilization" [Polanyi 1944, pp. 3-5]. Polanyi's language presents an image of the accelerated grimace of a civilization careening towards its own destruction. For Polanyi,