Not Sure If I\u2019m OK With This.<\/p>\n
Adam Smith suggested that the division of labor in society was dependent upon the existence of markets, or, as he put it, upon man\u2019s \u201cpropensity to barter, truck and exchange one thing for another.\u201d This phrase was later to yield the concept of the Economic Man. In retrospect it can be said that no misreading of the past ever proved more prophetic of the future. For while up to Adam Smith\u2019s time that propensity had hardly shown up on a considerable scale in the life of any observed community, and had remained, at best, a subordinate feature of economic life, a hundred years later an industrial system was in full swing over the major part of the planet which, practically and theoretically, implied that the human race was swayed in all its economic activities, if not also in its political, intellectual, and spiritual pursuits, by that one particular propensity.1<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I do apologize for the lengthy quote right out of the gates but for me, this statement is critical.\u00a0 Critical in that it effectively dismantles much of what I have accepted as \u201cgospel-truth\u201d with regard to free markets and a market-economy, that man has always pursued personal gain through barter for gain.\u00a0 Essentially Polanyi is asserting that Smith and his ilk, by their misinterpretation of human history related to transactional relationships, shaped the global economy into the very system that they could most benefit from \u2014 market capitalism.\u00a0 And while they may not have fully reaped the benefits of their influential work, we live in the aftermath to this very day.<\/p>\n
As long as I have been old enough to consider the issue of financial gain, I have been numbered among the capitalists.\u00a0 Whether I was stealing flowers from old lady Cleveland\u2019s rose-bushes and selling to the neighbors or negotiating for a favorable per yard rate to trash out foreclosures, I have assumed that work for money, hours for dollars, an exchange<\/i> has always<\/i> been the way of things\u2026\u00a0 Apparently, I was misinformed.\u00a0 Polanyi\u2019s arguments are compelling.<\/p>\n
His reading of human history interprets man\u2019s economic behavior as inclined toward reciprocity rather than barter and gain, this is a different set of lenses through which to examine that economic behavior than I have ever worn.\u00a0 I have always embraced the view that since things are this way now, they must have always been this way, we have always been market-oriented whatever the market may be \u2014 goods, labor, land, whatever\u2026\u00a0 However, Polanyi argues convincingly that \u201cnever before our own time were markets more than accessories of economic life.\u201d2 \u00a0Man has not always been driven by the pursuit of gain, that seems to be a fairly recent development on the timeline of humanity\u2019s development\u00a0 So, how does that impact us today?\u00a0 Or, does it impact us at all?<\/p>\n
Is there something to be adjusted?\u00a0 Since we can see that man\u2019s primary motivation has not always been to secure a meaningful gain for himself, do we attempt to adjust back to a more \u201cprimitive\u201d mode of being?\u00a0 Does the fact that we are different now than we were 400 years ago argue for a return to the older, more ancient ways of being?\u00a0 If so, is it even possible?\u00a0 At the risk of sounding fatalistic, I have to say in my opinion, the answer to that question is no.\u00a0 We can\u2019t go back, we\u2019re too far gone. I\u2019m pretty settled on that.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What I\u2019m not so sure about is whether or not I\u2019m ok with that.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n1. Karl Polanyi. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time<\/i> (Beacon Press. Kindle Edition) 45-46.<\/p>\n
2. Ibid. 71.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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