\u201cThe Great Transformation,\u201d written by Karl Polanyi and published in 1944, traces the history of the free market economic system. It also criticizes its ideological foundation. Milton Friedman would use its pages either for starting a fire or to line the litter box.<\/p>\n
The best part of the book is the history lesson he takes the reader on in the areas of sociology and economics. He returns to the 1700\u2019s and the Industrial Revolution and continues through the philosophical underpinnings that supported the free market system in the nineteenth century. He finishes this section of the book by tracing events that led up to the first and second world wars. This is interesting history, especially relevant today because of the criticisms that are being thrown at American Capitalism. Today we hear vitriolic assessments that capitalism only makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer. Shameless greed is celebrated and gross injustice is inevitable. I have no doubt that if Polanyi were alive today, he would join in this popular chorus.<\/p>\n
The history he traces gives the reader enough back story of how we got here (here being the 1940\u2019s) to understand the arguments that he makes against the free market system. The lion\u2019s share of my criticism is not against this brief history, but against his conclusions about economics and human behavior as it relates to the market system. A market is a place or a network of people who come together to transact business\u2014to buy and sell goods and services based on price, quality, quantity, etc. Because he does not think these human networks can be self-regulating if left to their own natural functions, he argues that the state needs to control them. He argues that this limits the damage that can be done to people and the macro-economy of a nation. At the same time, state control of a limited market system holds up the greater good of the society such as justice and equality. It is an old anthem of those who disagree with Adam Smith\u2019s Invisible Hand<\/em>, and an anthem I grow tired listening to. I employed my Inspectional Reading<\/em> techniques learned from Adler and Van Doren on this section of the book. I’ve heard these tired arguments many times before, and so has Clark, as attested to in his dissertation.<\/p>\n The book stands as a stark contrast to ideas put forth by Max Weber in his book, \u201cThe Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.\u201d These are important ideas discussed with ramifications that effect the development of an entire country, for good or ill. The arc of history not only bends towards justice (MLK) but it also bends towards free market economics. Of course there needs to be intelligent regulation involved, but the core of the free-market system proves time and again the victor for unleashing the power of the creativity and capability of the individual. Since the 1940\u2019s, when Polanyi wrote his book, former socialist\/communist countries that were strictly Marxist\/Engels in their economics changed their melody by employing at least some measure of free market systems. The amount of “free” that goes into a country’s market system can be debated vigorously. Government involvement with their business and industry will vary greatly but that’s OK. Even siblings can look very different from each other. Not every country has to employ an exact replica of American Capitalism. Principles are the lesson.<\/p>\n These big picture ideas require slow thinking, of the variety that Daniel Kahneman espouses. There is too much at stake if a government gets this wrong. But if a government gets this right, and it allows their people to work, create, and build–then freedom, justice, and economic flourishing will result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThe Great Transformation,\u201d written by Karl Polanyi and published in 1944, traces the history of the free market economic system. It also criticizes its ideological foundation. Milton Friedman would use its pages either for starting a fire or to line the litter box. The best part of the book is the history lesson he takes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-28302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-polanyi","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28302"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28391,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28302\/revisions\/28391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}