By: gfesadmin on February 9, 2013
… but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. (Galatians 5:13) The question of the last post will be the beginning of the new. At the end of my first look at Karl Polanyi’s epochal book “The Great Transformation” I asked: What is a freedom worth…
By: gfesadmin on February 8, 2013
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By: gfesadmin on February 8, 2013
Flow with the culture is the subliminal message tagged in our minds by advertisement everywhere. However, there are some things about today’s culture that I am not too sure if I am totally on board with its approach like retribution. Basically, retribution takes place in America through taxation when funds are divided out indirectly through…
By: gfesadmin on February 7, 2013
I have spent two full days with over 100 grass roots frontline church planters in the city of Patna in Bihar. They came from five regions of the State and radius of about 300 Kilometers from the rural areas where they are ministering. Bihar has been historically known as the Graveyard of Missionaries where many…
By: Joy Mindo on February 7, 2013
This week, the CEO of Coca Cola company made a statement that capitalism must evolve. The way the market economy has been developed over the centuries has not changed. The poor are still being affected by the policies of the lassie faire. This book was written when Africa was being colonized by European powers.…
By: gfesadmin on February 7, 2013
I am 63 years old and in all those years I have never heard so much of Abraham Lincoln as I have in the last decade. From both sides of the political spectrum, candidates and incumbents alike have called upon Lincoln’s shadow in hopes of justification for their views and/or policies. It is sometimes amusing…
By: gfesadmin on February 7, 2013
In 2005 during the height of the real estate boom here in the states, my wife and I found ourselves looking for a home. With seminary coming to an end and two ministry job offers hanging in the air a move was inevitable. Our first option was taking a Sr. Pastor role at a church…
By: gfesadmin on February 7, 2013
Polanyi and the Environment Karl Polanyi’s “Great Transformation” is a critique of the, supposed, free market system. He argues that free markets aren’t free or natural, and they don’t protect those without power. His arguments were centered on economics but his logic also extends to the natural environment. Polanyi writes, The economic argument could be…
By: gfesadmin on February 6, 2013
I am reading again The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi. What Polanyi analyzes is the idea of a free market. He states bluntly that there is no such thing as a free market. Every free market economy has had to have government legislation to protect citizens from its weakness. There are labor laws to protect…
By: gfesadmin on February 6, 2013
The movie Babel, Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu touches on the theme of a globalized connected world, where the innocuous (and even generous) sale of a rifle has radical ramifications for all involved across continents and cultures. Here the affluent of the first world suffer, but are able to pull themselves free by the nature…
By: gfesadmin on February 6, 2013
A couple Sundays ago I visited a large church where a young speaker spoke to thousands on the “supremacy of the gospel.” He spoke about his own living situation as an American missionary in North Africa. His family lives in an area where his children have to watch out for raw sewage in the streets…
By: gfesadmin on February 6, 2013
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By: gfesadmin on February 4, 2013
#dminlgp #polanyi #lgp2 The Political and Economic Origins of our Time by Karl Polanyi (Forward, Introduction and Chapter 1-10) This is the second book I have read during the course of my studies at GFES which has transformed my thinking and has given great perspectives of life and society. One such book was ‘A Secular…
By: gfesadmin on February 4, 2013
Karl Polanyi’s “The Great Transformation” is a clairvoyant call for India today as capitalism wields its power promising a better future. Although still nascent in comparison to western economies, the obvious social repercussions of free market capitalism for India cannot be ignored and the country must heed politically to enhance social change before it caves…
By: gfesadmin on February 3, 2013
Everything is abuzz around me as I wait to board a flight out of a very posh terminal at the Bangalore airport in southern India. This terminal would compare to any other modern airports in the western world or even surpass them in quality, ambiance and service. Just a little over a decade ago it was impossible…
By: gfesadmin on February 2, 2013
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By: gfesadmin on February 1, 2013
Reciprocity in this context is a word used in what Karl Polanyi deems as a market society where goods are traded. It is defined as the exchange of goods and services without keeping track of their exact value, but often with the expectation that their exact value will balance out over time. An example of…
By: gfesadmin on February 1, 2013
For a long time, I have been a fan of Star Trek. Through the many television renditions of the enduring story of “to boldly go where no man has gone before,” there is a constant theme – that of the future (at least on the part of the Federation) being an orderly place, a partially…
By: gfesadmin on January 31, 2013
Karl Polanyi, in the epic sweep of his work The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, sets forth an extremely timely reading of modern world history, even though he was writing in the 1940s. Polanyi’s central thesis is that the rise of democracy, the industrial revolution, capitalism, liberal economic policy and…
By: gfesadmin on January 31, 2013
“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” I Timothy 6:10 KJV What we once held as sacred – water, air, trees, children, animals, etc., we have now turned into commodities for profit. At…
