Embedding Polanyi's Market Society

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Abstract
Karl Polanyi remains one of the most trenchant critics of neoclassical economics. His “embeddedness” thesis, which holds that all economic activities and institutions are enmeshed in social relations and institutions, offers a sound theoretical basis for economic sociology. Nonetheless, he fails to embed the market concept. This theoretical lacuna manifests itself in his classic account of the rise of market society in England, The Great Transformation ([1944] 1957), where he neglects to consider institutional diversity and discontinuities in English commercial development. Polanyi's embeddedness thesis can be taken to its logical conclusion; that is, even the market can be embedded. “Markets” can be treated as social networks or organizations constituted by traders. I offer as an empirical illustration a brief case study of the rise of “market society” in England.

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