Karl Polanyi 1944

1. The first chapter in the book is about the market and its inner workings. The book briefly explains the idea of supply and demand, in which the price of a certain good or service will reach the point where all the demand is equivalent to the supply. However, the value of something is not determined by its necessity, but its desire within society, as seen by the difference in cost between a diamond and life giving water. Markets operate as they do because people try to maximize the amount of utility for themselves. Nevertheless, a strict rationalism model cannot be used for predicting all the occurrences of a market because of the ever changing behavior of people; thus economists must take precautions against

In sum, the market models can be “simply defined as a social system in which individuals pursue their own welfare by exchanging things with others whenever trades are mutually beneficial.” The polis “conjures up an entity small enough to have very simple forms of organization yet large enough to embody the essential elements of politics.”

This concept criticizes the market fundamentalism. Markets will always be controlled by norms, society, culture and morality. Polanyi means the idea of a self-regulating economy is a myth and the free market is a political creation. The state plays a huge role in managing markets such as money, land and labor. John M. Keynes agreed with Polanyi, it doesn’t exist some “invisible hand”. He argued for governmental regulation and that the state should be in the economy with the companies. The state should boost and help the economy when it’s bad and help the struggling

Beginning in the 1980s, political leaders believed that markets were bad for the economy. Although in the 1990s, there was a faith that presented a need for the markets and that they are the main help for the public. As of now, that faith is being challenged. The financial crisis evoked awareness that markets and morals have separated. It has become our job, as consumers, to find a way to rejoin them without any way of knowing how to.

We are living in market society, which is so different from previous societies. In market society, the whole of society is a system of self-regulating market (Polanyi 43). In order to make the market society function, people need to think and act in certain ways(Polanyi 68). For example, people in market society think that economic relations are much more important than interpersonal relations (Polanyi 44). Polanyi calls the emergence of market society “the great transformation”. My thesis statement is that the shift to market society is a

William Cronon states that “Kinship and personality rather than any alternative institutional structure organized power in Indian communities. Both within and between villages, elaborate kin networks endowed individuals with greater or lesser degrees of power” (Cronon, 59). Instead of working hard to make a profit on commodities by buying and selling to consumers, the Northeastern Indians would take

According to Max Weber, the economic and technological relationships that organized and most importantly grew out of the capitalistic production became fundamental forces in the society. This means that one has to adapt to the society that he/she was born into in regards to the division of labor, and the hierarchical social structure. When analyzed, this theory shows that it is difficult for one to envision a life that is alternative to what they were born into.

The main idea of “The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea” is to provide the reader with an understanding of gender roles and the accumulation of gender specific wealth, as well as, how that wealth is used to further social and political agendas within society. It is important to note that the Trobrianders are a matrilineal society. This has a major effect on how wealth is accumulated and distributed and also serves to reinforce family ties.

The rule of the market by liberating free enterprise or private enterprise resulted in greater openness to international trade and investment. Additionally, the rule of the market meant reducing wages by deunionizing workers and eliminating worker’s rights that had been won over many years. It also meant no more price control and the total freedom of movement for capital, goods, and services (Nylund, 2016). People were convinced that having an unregulated market was the best way to increase economic growth, which would ultimately benefit everyone. Although, the rule of the market was meant to have money “trickle-down” to the poor, it did not truly benefit the people at the bottom. The very wealthy would often keep the money they were making instead of letting it trickle down. To illustrate, the after-tax incomes in the U.S. between 1979 and 2006 rose by 256% for the top 1% of households, while they rose 21% for the middle fifth of households and 11% for the bottom fifth of households (Finn, Nybell & Shook, 2010). This means that the

The market today has become so important that society takes it as completely natural. From “The Economic Problem” Heilbroner describes three main solutions, with the market being one. Furthermore into the market, Polanyis book “The great Transformation” gives insight on how much society actually allows the market to dominate. To Polanyi a market society is seen as social relations embedded in the economy instead of the economy being embedded in social relations. Examining both of these books gives a great understanding on how life was without the market and how it came to be. Taking note of Rineharts work as well on how the workplace has drastically been changed by the market is key to analyzing the transformation as a whole. As a result

there is a great amount of variability in kinship rules and patterns around the world (O 'neil,2015).

Throughout the book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith uses the term “commercial society” rather than more accustomed words like “capitalism.” Smith explains what he means by this term,

The market model of economy, developed by Adam Smith entails a freely flowing economy that places little or not restriction on occupation allowing individuals utmost rights. America took on an ethos of a mixed economy of market and command that struck a successful economic equilibrium. American economy also changes with different periods of history. The Civil War had lit the spark of industrialization needed to enhance the American economy. Technology advanced by leaps and bounds and free labor was done away with to make room for Industrialization and Adam Smith’s market model of capitalism. Capitalism was a promoter of the entrepreneur and individual success. It was only natural that during this time of private interest the gap between rich and poor would be greatly widened and a state of disorder might arise. Capitalism was a new ideology and drastic labor problems and social disorder arose because Americans were simply adjusting to (and taking advantage of) the new system.

This is similar to the study of Kula trade in this week’s lecture, we analysed the system which works through the exchange of precious necklaces for goods. Clear in both examples was how important it was to have secured long-term relationships built on trust in order to be able to trade. In the example of Kula the featured family had not been involved in the trade for 25 years, and this meant that there were no trust relationships between this family and other Kula tribes. This is similar to an example in the case study where connections with one woman were completely cut as it was felt that she did not reciprocate in swaps. The lecture overall showed alternatives to the market economy, with the example of a gift economy. Yet, the combination of both show that whilst perhaps wealth gets divided more evenly, there are still inequalities and people who end up in better or worse situations then others and it is therefore flawed. The consequence of viewing these alternatives was that I thought about if these systems were in place instead of capitalism, how life would be different in terms of utility and general living standards. In my opinion a gift economy despite some benefits doesn’t allow for creativity and ingenuity in the same way as there are no incentives to innovate so perhaps poverty would be common and lifestyles more backwards, although this doesn’t necessarily mean utility would be lower as people may even be happier as their lives revolve around friendship and kinship as opposed to money. I would like to know what life was like before the creation of money and what life would be like without money, as I find it interesting to know how life can be organised without

Kinship has traditionally been one of the key topics in social and cultural anthropology. There are two primary reasons for this. First, although not all communities are constituted on the basis of kinship, all humans have a kinship as individuals and are related to other individuals through it. Second, for the sorts of “tribal,” classless, economically unspecialized societies that anthropologists have mostly — though no longer exclusively — studied, kinship has appeared to be the main or even sole form of social organization. These observations led various theoretical approaches, especially the schools of functionalism and structuralism within social anthropology, to focusing on how social groups are formed. They got interested in studying of how individuals are related to one another through kinship, and what kinds of mutual rights and duties they have as a result. (R. Parkin. Kinship)