Karl Polanyi about Instituted Process of Economic Democratization and Social Learning

Attachment

Mendell-En-NL14.pdf

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Description

This text will not focus on The Great Transformation but will deal with previous and following writings from Karl Polanyi where his emphasis is on the constitutive elements that define us as social beings and as agents of social change.

Polanyi’s critique of market liberalism is well known and increasingly adopted within mainstream thinking. Ideas do eventually have to catch up with reality. What is less often referred to are the principles that underlie his critique - the foundational principles that challenge both utilitarian and collectivist views of individuals. Polanyi’s writings both before and after the publication of The Great Transformation provide the basis for a methodology that we can only begin to explore. These writings, in a sense, foreground the powerful analysis and critique of market society in The Great Transformation, of systemic breakdown, as the separation of the economy from society calls for continuous intervention to ensure the survival of the system, and for what we may call instituted sub-systems or “liberatory alternatives” that are the result of a different conceptualization of humanity. These are alternatives that, for the time being, exist within the dominant system but are forcing change, however uneven this may be. Their emergence or visibility (many have existed for a long time) is now being documented extensively around the world.

Some experiences, such as the participatory budget in Porto Alegre or the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh are well known. These are often showcased to demonstrate the capacity of civil society to successfully initiate alternative socioeconomic strategies and institutions. The experiences and initiatives are so numerous that many analysts increasingly refer to the emergence of a parallel economy. Others speak of a citizens economy. Whether we address the growing social investment movement worldwide and its international networks, individual experiences such as Mondragon in Spain, the social economy and its supporting institutional context in the North and in the South, as well as new instruments, tools and practices such as fair trade, while these are, in many cases, fragmented and differentiated, they are increasingly networked internationally are influencing policy at national and supra-national levels, the European Union, for example. Many of these experiences emerged in the South; many of these have inspired alternative strategies in the North.

Author

Marguerite Mendell, June 2008. Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy, Canada