Karl Polanyi (1886–1964)

I really didn't like this book, mostly because I felt that it was poorly formulated and based on a lot of incomplete examples. Every time Polanyi tried to prove something he'd give 4 examples of random indigenous populations in which the event occurred. All of his examples seemed like exceptions rather than base cases for a rule, and his strange statements like "previously to our time (the 1940s/Industrial Revolution period in general) no economy has ever existed that, even in principle, was controlled by markets" made me question if we were even living in the same world. Because of this I wasn't able to accept any of his statements, even when they seemed logical, and the book generally fell flat.… (plus d'informations)

"Todo o trabalho de Karl Polanyi se desenvolveu na convicção de que o sistema de mercado ocidental tinha usurpado as funções específicas e a integridade da sociedade humana, convertendo em absolutos os valores económicos e fazendo do homem e da natureza meros utensílios. Desafiou o axioma liberal de que a liberdade e a justiça estavam intrinsecamente ligados à ordem do mercado. Defrontou também o determinismo económico, um dos axiomas básicos da outra ortodoxia do séc. XIX, o marxismo."… (plus d'informations)