Introduction [ xxxvii ]
cial injustice; he also calls for an expansion of civil liberties, stressing
that "in an established society, the right to nonconformity must be in-
stitutionally protected. The individual must be free to follow his con-
science without fear of the powers that happen to be entrusted with
administrative tasks in some of the fields of social life."
Polanyi ends the book with these eloquent words: "As long as
[man] is true to his task of creating more abundant freedom for all, he
need not fear that either power or planning will turn against him and
destroy the freedom he is building by their instrumentality. This is the
meaning of freedom in a complex society; it gives us all the certainty
that we need."
32
Of course, Polanyi's optimism about the immediate
post-World War II era was not justified by the actual course of events.
The coming of the Cold War meant that the New Deal was the end of
reform in the United States, not the beginning. Planned global eco-
nomic cooperation gave way relatively quickly to new initiatives to ex-
pand the global role of markets. To be sure, the considerable achieve-
ments of European social democratic governments, particularly in
Scandinavia, from the 1940s through the 1980s provides concrete evi-
dence that Polanyi's vision was both powerful and realistic. But in the
larger countries, Polanyi's vision was orphaned, and the opposing
views of market liberals like Hayek steadily gained strength, tri-
umphing in the 1980s and 1990s.
Yet now that the Cold War is history, Polanyi's initial optimism
might finally be vindicated. There is a possible alternative to the sce-
nario in which the unsustainability of market liberalism produces
economic crises and the reemergence of authoritarian and aggressive
regimes. The alternative is that ordinary people in nations around the
globe engage in a common effort to subordinate the economy to dem-
ocratic politics and rebuild the global economy on the basis of inter-
national cooperation. Indeed, there were clear signs in the last years of
the 1990s that such a transnational social movement to reshape the
global economy is now more than a theoretical possibility.
33
Activists
in both the developed and developing countries have organized mili-
32. Polanyi believes that a complex society requires the state to exercise a monop-
oly on violence: "Power and compulsion are part of that reality [of human society]; an
ideal that would ban them from society must be invalid."
33. See Peter Evans, "Fighting Marginalization with Transnational Networks:
Counter-Hegemonic Globalization," Contemporary Sociology 29 (January 2000): 230-
4i-
[ xxxviii ] Introduction
tant protests against the international institutions—the World Trade
Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World
Bank—that enforce the rules of neoliberalism. Groups around the
world have begun an intense global dialogue over the reconstruction
of the global financial order.
34
This nascent movement faces enormous obstacles; it will not be
easy to forge a durable alliance that reconciles the often conflicting in-
terests of people in the global South with those in the global North.
Furthermore, the more successful such a movement is, the more for-
midable will be the strategic challenges it faces. It remains highly un-
certain whether the global order can be reformed from below without
plunging the world economy into the kind of crisis that occurs when
investors panic. Nevertheless, it is of enormous significance that for
the first time in history, the governance structure of the global econ-
omy has become the central target of transnational social movement
activity.
This transnational movement is an indication of the continuing
vitality and practicality of Polanyi's vision. For Polanyi the deepest
flaw in market liberalism is that it subordinates human purposes to
the logic of an impersonal market mechanism. He argues instead that
human beings should use the instruments of democratic governance
to control and direct the economy to meet our individual and collec-
tive needs. Polanyi shows that the failure to take up this challenge pro-
duced enormous suffering in the past century. His prophecy for the
new century could not be clearer.
34. For a North American perspective on these discussions and a useful guide to
additional resources, see Sarah Anderson and John Cavanaugh, with Thea Lee, Field
Guide to the Global Economy (New York: New Press, 2000).
Note on the 2001 Edition
f T n preparing this revision of Karl Polanyi's The Great Transforma-
A. tion, several minor changes have been made to the 1957 edition of
Polanyi's text. First, the text incorporates small editing changes that
Polanyi made after the first U.S. edition went to press; these changes
had been introduced when the book was published by Gollancz in the
United Kingdom in 1945. Second, the "additional note" on the Poor
Law that appears at the end of the notes in the 1957 edition has been
moved to the appropriate place in the Notes on Sources. Third, some
proper names have been corrected and spelling and punctuation have
been updated. Finally, the text has been repaginated, so there is no
trace of pages 258A and 258B, which appeared in earlier U.S. editions.
F.B.
[ xxxix ]
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