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Journal ArticleDOI

The Power of Market Fundamentalism Karl Polanyi’s Critique

05 Dec 2014-Thesis Eleven (SAGE Publications)-Vol. 125, Iss: 1, pp 157-161
About: This article is published in Thesis Eleven.The article was published on 2014-12-05. It has received 5 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Market fundamentalism & Power (social and political).
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on qualitative research on housing aspirations in Scotland, and contextualise the subject of housing aspirations within the context of housing affordability in the UK and Ireland.
Abstract: Drawing on qualitative research on housing aspirations in Scotland, the objectives of this article are threefold. Firstly, this article will contextualise the subject of housing aspirations within ...

49 citations


Cites background or methods from "The Power of Market Fundamentalism ..."

  • ...This has been examined from both a working-class (Allen, 2007; Cole and Furbey, 1994; Forrest and Murie, 1988; McKenzie, 2012, 2013, 2015; Paton, 2013, 2014), as well as a middle-class perspective (Butler and Robson, 2001, 2003a, 2003b; Paton, 2009; Savage et al., 2005; Watt, 2005)....

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  • ...…in Scotland.3 We believe that our arguments add further nuance to the sociological understanding of the relationship between housing and social class (Allen, 2007; Butler and Robson, 2001, 2003a, 2003b; Hamnett, 1984, 1987, 1989, 1994; Hamnett and Cross, 1998; Paton, 2009, 2013, 2014; Savage,…...

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  • ...The research literature on housing and social class has, in the last half century, expanded across a number of disciplines (Allen, 2007)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a feasible law for the social sciences asserting that we human beings are not commodities, assets, capital or resources, and that human work has properties that make it akin to quasi-service production, while machines can obtain the skills necessary to replace human work or perform novel tasks when previously intangible dimensions are turned tangible.
Abstract: This article proposes a feasible law for the social sciences asserting that we human beings are not commodities, assets, capital or resources. Mainstream economics and Marxism describe human participation in economic and societal production through a human-commodity framework. Intangible flow theory aims to replace that framework and interrelated conjectures as human capital, human assets and human resources. This theory is not exclusively applicable to capitalist/market organization forms. It suggests that (a) commodities are physical goods, and exhibit known characteristics differentiating them from human-related flows as service or knowledge flows; (b) human work has properties that make it akin to quasi-service production; (c) humans are not commodities, capital, assets or resources; (d) machines can obtain the skills necessary to replace human work or perform novel tasks when previously intangible dimensions are turned tangible (tangibilization); and (e) cash-flows generated or saved by those machine...

19 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that commodifying houses as financial assets exposed mortgage loan holders to price fluctuations originating in capital markets and elevated their risk of default, leading to a prolonged foreclosure crisis.
Abstract: The period of very high foreclosure rates sets the 2007–8 financial meltdown apart from similar banking crises fueled by asset price booms. Why did the 2007–8 meltdown lead to a prolonged foreclosure crisis? Through a theoretical perspective built on Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis, Polanyi’s ideas about adverse consequences of commodity fiction, financialization of homes, and institutional coupling, I argue that commodifying houses as financial assets exposed mortgage loan holders to price fluctuations originating in capital markets and elevated their risk of default. I show how increased exposure to price fluctuations followed from the tight coupling between U.S. housing and capital markets, a coupling that resulted directly from the rising preponderance of securitization in U.S. housing finance. I provide further evidence from countries where housing finance was tightly coupled with capital markets (Iceland and Ireland) to countries where housing finance did not rely dominantly on capital mar...

17 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Steven Lukes1

6 citations


Cites background from "The Power of Market Fundamentalism ..."

  • ...In this way, the traditional left project of rectifying inequality becomes conservative, defending the historic gains of the welfare state against the corrosive assumptions of market fundamentalism.(21) The concept and the project of social justice must be reclaimed from their dismissal by both Karl Marx and Friedrich Hayek....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explain the logic of bringing together the perspectives of Hyman Minsky and Karl Polanyi to analyze processes of financialization, which is a very different approach from ours.
Abstract: This introduction explains the logic of bringing together the perspectives of Hyman Minsky and Karl Polanyi to analyze processes of financialization. Although Minsky and Polanyi have very different...

5 citations


Additional excerpts

  • ...44(1) 3 –13 © 2015 SAGE Publications Reprints and permissions: sagepub....

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References
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Book
28 Mar 2001
TL;DR: In this paper, the key to the institutional system of the 19 century lay in the laws governing market economy, which was the fount and matrix of the system was the self-regulating market, and it was this innovation which gave rise to a specific civilization.
Abstract: But the fount and matrix of the system was the self-regulating market. It was this innovation which gave rise to a specific civilization. The gold standard was merely an attempt to extend the domestic market system to the international field; the balance of power system was a superstructure erected upon and, partly, worked through the gold standard; the liberal state was itself a creation of the self-regulating market. The key to the institutional system of the 19 century lay in the laws governing market economy. (p. 3).

8,514 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the notion d'embeddedness (inclusion) is criticised as a paradigme of l'economie sociale, considering that le concept has been utile pendant une decennie.
Abstract: L'article critique la notion d'embeddedness (inclusion) comme paradigme de l'economie sociale, considerant que si le concept a ete utile pendant une decennie, il conviendrait a present d'etudier la facon dont ce concept a ete developpe et utilise a l'interieur de la discipline de l'economie sociale

466 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The post-communist age calls for a Sociological Marxism that gives pride of place to society alongside but distinct from state and economy as discussed by the authors, which can be traced to the writings of...
Abstract: The postcommunist age calls for a Sociological Marxism that gives pride of place to society alongside but distinct from state and economy. This Sociological Marxism can be traced to the writings of...

364 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Great Transformation of Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, The Great Transformation, has been recognized as central for the field of economic sociology, but it has not been subject to the same theoretical scrutiny as other classic works in the field.
Abstract: Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, The Great Transformation, has been recognized as central for the field of economic sociology, but it has not been subject to the same theoretical scrutiny as other classic works in the field. This is a particular problem in that there are central tensions and complexities in Polanyi's argument. This article suggests that these tensions can be understood as a consequence of Polanyi's changing theoretical orientation. The basic outline of the book was developed in England in the late 1930s when Polanyi was working within a specific type of Marxist framework. However, as he was writing the book, he developed several new concepts, including fictitious commodities and the embedded economy, that led in new directions. Because circumstances did not give him the time to revise his manuscript, the book is marked by a tension between these different moments in his own theoretical development. The result is that Polanyi glimpses the concept of the always embedded market economy, but he does not name it or elaborate it.

325 citations

Book
21 Jun 2010
TL;DR: In this article, the economics and ethics of socialism are discussed and a critique of the conceptual framework of the oikos debate is made. But the debate scatters and dissolves and no dearth of countermovements.
Abstract: Preface. Abbreviations. Introduction. Karl Polanyi for the neoliberal age. Individual responsibility and the quest for community. Some systemically satanic features of capitalism. From civilizational breakdown to neoliberalism. Chapter 1: The economics and ethics of socialism. Responsibility and 'overview': the socialist accounting debate. Critique and rejoinder. The subjugation of moral ends to economic means. Towards a synthesis of Communism and Christianity. Chapter 2: The Great Transformation. The Liberal Century: contradictions of a golden age. Birth of the market economy. Malthus, Ricardo and Speenhamland. Marketization and its backwash. Disruptive strains and the end of elasticity. The originality of The Great Transformation. Some criticisms of the conceptual framework. Some criticisms of the historical argument. Chapter 3: The descent of Economic Man. From homo conomicus to homo communisticus. The debate over methods. From marginalism to formalism. Two meanings of economic. Mechanisms of integration. Inconsistencies and ambiguities. The formalist rejoinder. Marxist interpositions. The debate scatters and dissolves. Chapter 4: Trade, markets and money in archaic societies. Introduction: the oikos debate. 'Primitive' and archaic trade, markets and money. Ancient Mesopotamia: three theses. Mesopotamia: evaluation and critique. Trade and markets in Bronze and Iron Age Greece. Greece: evaluation and critique. West Africa: Dahomey, Whydah and Tivland. Dahomey and the Tiv: evaluation and critique. From Meso-America to rural India via the Berber Highlands. Conclusion. Chapter 5: 'Disembedded' and 'always embedded' economies. Embeddedness: a genealogy. Further adventures of a concept. Embeddedness and decommodification in the mid-twentieth century. Chapter 6: 'At the brink of a great transformation?' Neoliberalism and the countermovement today. Explaining the neoliberal ascendancy. Alternative futures: participatory planning and the mixed economy. No dearth of countermovements. Pendular forces. The Great Oscillation. In place of a conclusion: thoughts on the current predicament. Conclusion. A liberal anti-Communist? A Marxist? A Romantic? Tribute and critique. Notes. References. Index.

172 citations