The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
\nBy: Karl Polanyi<\/p>\n
The Industrial Revolution not only changed life in the way that business is done, but it changed our relationship with the land. Our relationship with the land is a reflection of our relationship with the poor. Before the industrial revolution it seems to me that life and work were intermingled. Work was something you did in order to eat and provide for your family. Work wasn\u2019t something that defined you and gave a sense of purpose and meaning in life. Meaning came from your relationships and families.<\/p>\n
Please don\u2019t get me wrong; I\u2019m not trying to romanticize the past. I realize that life was difficult and poverty is not the direct result of the industrial revolution but this event opened the door to life as we know it today\u2026 and today, there is a huge gap between the rich, the working poor, and the poor\u2026 and at the root of this gap is the idea that humans and land are disposable.<\/p>\n
What do we do when we\u2019ve stripped the land of everything that\u2019s good in it? We leave it bare and move on to another piece of land that we eventually destroy. What do we do with the poor and marginalized\u2026 what do we do with \u201cthe stranger and alien\u201d who doesn\u2019t fit into what we think is normal or beautiful, we push them to the margins of the city\u2026 or the slums\u2026 out of sight, out of mind. Sometimes we give them the land that we no longer want and expect a thank you in return.<\/p>\n
When the industrial revolution opened the door to this separation of work and life it changed our vocabulary in such a way that it distanced us from the earth and one another. Human activity was beginning to be thought of, as labor, nature turned to land and money, became a token of power. (p75) The change in vocabulary made it easier for us to take advantage of people and push to the fringes those who didn\u2019t fit our needs.<\/p>\n
In 1782 John M\u2019Farlane said, \u201cThe greatest number of poor is not to be found in barren countries or amid barbarous nations, but in those which are most fertile and the most civilized.\u201d (p109) His words ring true today. We look at places around the world like Honduras and Haiti\u2026 two places where poverty is queen, and we can think of many reasons why they are the way they are, but we fail to look in our own back yards and see the pain and injustice that is caused by poverty. This is because it\u2019s easier to fix others, than it is to fix ourselves. We love our affluence and comfort a lot more than we love people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe challenge facing the global community today is whether it can address these balances (rich and poor\/ hunger and fear) before it\u2019s too late.\u201d (xvii) We must figure out a way to bridge the gap, but \u201cregulations may take away someone\u2019s freedom, but in doing so they may enhance another\u2019s.\u201d (xvi) The questions is, am I willing to give up some of my freedom in order to enhance another\u2019s?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time By: Karl Polanyi The Industrial Revolution not only changed life in the way that business is done, but it changed our relationship with the land. Our relationship with the land is a reflection of our relationship with the poor. Before the industrial revolution it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"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-394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-polanyi","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394","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\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1719,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions\/1719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}