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When Karl Polanyi, in a letter of 1934, gave an account of 'the inner development' of his thought, he divided it into two periods. The first was his early life in Hungary, until 1919, the second was the fifteen years that followed, in Viennese exile. This book begins with a survey of Karl Polanyi's early life, and a summary overview of his engagement in emigre politics during his spells in Austria, Britain and North America. He became a central figure in its radical counter-culture, the members of which were to exert an influence upon twentieth-century thought. Polanyi's practical activities initially focused upon the Galilei Circle, a freemason-funded organisation of students and young intellectuals. The first part of the book talks about how ritual and superstition encompassed his everyday life. It discusses Mach's examination of the ideas concerning the so-called 'bodily' and 'spiritual' worlds; explaining why they are as they are, and elaborating useful concepts and rules. The next part explains history: the capitalist system will turn socialism into a state religion, just as the Roman Empire took over Christianity. Karl Kautsky's latest work presents a poignant picture of the disorderly retreat of Marxist socialism. The book looks at the Crossman intervention that is expected to weaken Winston Churchill's intellectual influence upon British foreign policy, and thereby hopefully open the way towards a better understanding, around the world, of the new, socialist Britain. Representative samples of his correspondence from these three periods are included in the final part of this book.
Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) returned to public discourse in the 1990s, when the Soviet Union imploded and globalization erupted. Best known for The Great Transformation, Polanyi’s wide-ranging thought anticipated twenty-first-century civilizational challenges of ecological collapse, social disintegration and international conflict, and warned that the unbridled domination of market capitalism would engender nationalist protective counter-movements. In Karl Polanyi and Twenty-First-Century Capitalism, Radhika Desai and Kari Polanyi Levitt bring together prominent and new thinkers in the field to extend the boundaries of our understanding of Polanyi's life and work. Kari Polanyi Levitt's opening essay situates Polanyi in the past century shaped by Keynes and Hayek, and explores how and why his ideas may shape the twenty-first century. Her analysis of his Bennington Lectures, which pre-dated and anticipated The Great Transformation, demonstrates how Central European his thought and chief concerns were. The next several contributions clarify, for the first time in Polanyi scholarship, the meaning of money as a fictitious commodity. Other contributions resolve difficulties in understanding the building blocks of Polanyi's thought: fictitious commodities, the double movement, the United States' exceptional development, the reality of society and socialism as freedom in a complex society. The volume culminates in explorations of how Polanyi has influenced, and can be used to develop, ideas in a number of fields, whether income inequality, world-systems theory or comparative political economy. Contributors: Fred Block, Michael Brie, Radhika Desai, Michael Hudson, Hannes Lacher, Kari Polanyi Levitt, Chikako Nakayama, Jamie Peck, Abraham Rotstein, Margaret Somers, Claus Thomasberger, Oscar Ugarteche Galarza.
2 The return of Karl Polanyi: from the Bennington Lectures to our present age of transformation Kari Polanyi Levitt Introduction: the return of Karl Polanyi to critical discourse European intellectuals of the generation of Keynes (b. 1883), Polanyi (b. 1886) and Hayek (b. 1899) were socially conditioned to assume responsibility for the welfare of society. They shared the experience of the collapse of the nineteenth-century liberal order. They understood the power of ideas. If full employment, rising real wages and social security financed by progressive income
11 Karl Polanyi as a precursor of worldsystems theorists: an investigation of the theoretical lineage to Giovanni Arrighi Chikako Nakayama This chapter investigates the theoretical borrowings made by Giovanni Arrighi, one of the world-systems theorists, from the main work of Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (hereinafter TGT), published in 1944. The theoretical borrowings appear in Arrighi’s later work including The Long Twentieth Century published in 1994, Adam Smith in Beijing published in 2007, several articles from the 1990s and his collaborative works
in the manner that you believe to be most suitable. With love and regards, Karl Polanyi. 3 Polanyi is probably referring to the annual 15 March commemoration of the 1848 revolution. 216 Correspondence Letter to Maria Lukacs, Dresden, 25 October 1911 My Lady, Yesterday we buried Leo [Popper], and the burial crowned his sad life with irony. It was a confusing, cold, unprepared, even rather hostile act. It was a telephonic burial. There was an usher in the distance, and eight to ten people milling around, with no idea as to what was about to transpire. Suddenly
Introduction Gareth Dale When Karl Polanyi, in a letter of 1934, gave an account of ‘the inner development’ of his thought, he divided it into two periods. The first was his early life in Hungary, until 1919, the second was the fifteen years that followed, in Viennese exile. ‘Although nearly all my published writing falls into this second period,’ he observed, the literary and pedagogical work accomplished ‘in the first, the Hungarian period, forms the real background of my life and thought.’1 This will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Polanyi’s life
your old and eternal man for not being able to say more today – for more would not be more loving or better – and let him 13 ‘Szózat a Galilei Kör ifjúságához’ (1919). The original text is in Karl Polanyi, Fasizmus, demokrácia, ipari társadalom (Gondolat Kiadó, 1986), 180–6. 14 The national day of Hungary, in celebration of the 1848 Revolution. Oration to the youth of the Galilei Circle 75 go in peace. The older brother of your young hearts now beats as if a youth and wishes that he would never be torn away from you; from the youth, the truth, the revolution
This part of the book contains texts on the topic of political ideas and ideologies, translated from the original Hungarian by Adam Fabry: The crisis of our ideologides (Nézeteink válsága), The test of socialism (A szocializmus próbája), Law and violence (Jog és erőszak), Civil war (Polgárháború), Believing and unbelieving politics (Hivö és hitetlen politika), The constitution of socialist Britain (szocialista Nagybritánnia alkotmánya), H. G. Wells, the socialist (H. G. Wells, a szocialista), Karl Kautsky and democracy (Karl Kautsky és a demokrácia), Guild socialism, (A gildszocializmus), Guild and state (Gild és állam), and The historical background of the social revolutionaries (A szociálforradalmárok pörének történelmi háttere).
This part of the book contains texts on the topic of world politics and the philosophy of history, translated from the original Hungarian by Adam Fabry: The clowns of world peace (A világbéke Dummer August-jai), New era (Új idöszámitás), Against fear (A félelem ellen), The question of war and peace in Geneva (Háború és béke kérdése Genfben), Uncle Polly (Polly bácsi), The rebirth of democracy (A demokrácia feltámadása), Titanic journalism (Titáni publicisztika), H. G. Wells on salvaging civilisation (H. G. Wells a civilizáció megmentéséről), The defenders of race in Berlin (A berlini fajvédők), Whites, blacks and browns (Fehérek, feketék, barnák), and The emergence of the Crossman opposition (A Crossman ellenzék felvonulása).
This part of the book contains texts on the topic of Hungarian politics, translated from the original Hungarian by Adam Fabry: Radical bourgeois politics (Radikális polgári politika), Magyar hegemony and the nationalities (A magyar hegemonia és a nemzetiségek), Bourgeois radicals, socialists and the established opposition (Polgári radikálisok, szocialisták és törtenelmi ellenzék), The programme and goals of radicalism: an address to the general assembly of the Radical Party (A Radikalizmus Programmja és Célja, held in Szeged, 1 December 1918), Radical Party and the bourgeois party (Radikális párt és Polgári párt), Manual and intellectual labour (Fizikai és szellemi munka), The Galilei Circle: a balance sheet (A Galilei Kör mérlege), Concealed foreign rule and socialist economics (Leplezett küluralom és szocialista közgazdaság).