The Market Society: Polanyi

Question 1

What were economies based on before the Industrial Revolution?

Answer 1

reciprocity, redistribution, and householding.

Economy was part of social life.

Question 2

Polanyi: reciprocity

Answer 2

Mutual aid

Question 3

Polanyi: Redistribution

Answer 3

centralization of resources that are then allotted to all members of a community. It also includes redistribution for rituals, feasts, and gifts.

Question 4

Polanyi: Householding

Answer 4

production for one’s own use

Question 5

What is the great transformation for Polanyi?

Answer 5

The dependence of society on the economy. Society has become an accessory to the economy, whereas before the market economy, the economy was an accessory to society.

Question 6

What are the main elements of the market economy?

Answer 6

labor, land, and money.

Question 7

fictitious commodities

Answer 7

Commodities (land, labor, and money) that in reality cannot be commodities, but whose fiction sustains the market economy

1. land is nature
2. labor is human beings
3. money is a token for exchange

Question 8

Polanyi: commodity

Answer 8

some thing produced for sale

Question 9

What contradiction does Polanyi reveal about laissez-faire economy?

Answer 9

Despite the fact that the ideal was an intervention-free economy that is self-regulating, laissez-faire economy required more government intervention instead of less.
Laissez-faire is not natural but artificial.

Question 10

What has prevented the wild growth of the market economy?

Answer 10

A society’s instinct of self-protection