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[NOTE: The following four messages were posted on Eh.Res in response to my
cross-posting of the Polanyi messages. I have compiled them into one
message here.-- RBE]
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Part of what Polanyi was focusing on was the role of markets for LABOR,
not just commodities. In every society in which the main dividing line
was between free man and bonded man (slave or serf), the role of the labor
market in assigning status to individuals, and life-chances to families,
was minimal.
One can find examples in Ancient Greece, in Rome, in Florence, in
Muscovy, and throughout Japan, China, and Europe, of INDIVIDUALS who made
fortunes in commerce and rose in society. But one cannot find, prior to
the 19th century, any society in which the MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION'S
STATUS AND LIFE-CHANCES WERE DETERMINED BY THEIR SUCCESS IN A FREE MARKET
FOR LABOR. One has to find societies in which serfdom and slavery were
absent, in which hereditary nobles played no significant role, and in
which not only urban, but rural markets, were so developed that commercial
farmers predominated over peasants (who bought and sold regularly, of
course, but who did not depend mainly on labor markets for their income.)
So if, in reading Polanyi, one takes his assertion to mean that there was
never a society in which free labor was the dominant mode of acquiring an
income prior to, say, mid-to-late 19th century Britain, he was
unproblematically right.
There is a separate question of whether labor markets should be considered
the dominant factor in assessing whether MARKETS as such dominated the
economy, but for Polanyi (as well as for MI Finley and Karl Marx), labor
was the heart of the economy, and the dominance of free labor was THE
distinguishing feature of modern economies.
Regards,
Jack A. Goldstone
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Polanyi's [and Finley's] theses on no-market organization in TRADE AND
MARKETS IN THE EARLY EMPIRES have long since been totally disconfirmed by
one and all aracheological digs and analyses.
Interestingly enough, Polanyi himself seems to have seen the error of his
earlier ways when he wrote [published post-humously in 1975 and 1977, the
latter in the already cited LIVELYHOOD OF MAN] "throughout, the external
origin of trade is conpicuous; internal trade is largely derivative of
external trade....Acquisition of goods from a distance may be practiced
by a trader either from [status motive] ...or for the sake of gain
[]rpfit motive] .... There are many combinations of the two".
I submit that however that Polanyi's GREAT TRANSFORMATION has also been
disconfirmed. It never took place, asnd certainly not in or because of
Europe in the late 18th - 19th centuries. In fact, Europe was a late-comer
in all this commercialization, etc. which had long since reigned all over
Asia.
[NOTE: Frank's argument regarding the eurocentricism of economic history
was recently discussed in depth in a Eh.Res forum. -- RBE]
Micheal P: you better look again [and iu offer to send you edvidence].
but glad to find you off your accustomed PEN-L stamping grounds.
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I'm a complete outsider to this topic (I do trade theory and political
economy), but I read with interest the brief debate about whether there
was a real "market economy" in pre-modern times. Someone suggested that
although grain prices (for example) clearly fluctuated in the "market,"
market prices may not have reached very far into the economy since most
grain didn't pass through a cash process. The natural conclusion one
might draw from this argument is that the ratio of cash transactions to
non-cash spending gives some measure of the importance of the market.
I find this questionable on a number of levels. I can easily imagine a
situation in which the residual market (the cash sector) and the non-cash
sector (barter and home production/consumption) are intimately connected
in some sort of simultaneous equations process. In this reading, all
demands and all supplies affect, and are affected by, market prices. The
ratio of cash to non-cash transactions thus becomes an irrelevant
artifact. On the other hand, if pre-modern economies were extreme
examples of a dual-economy, then the ratio might be a more valuable
indicator of something. But this requires some implicit assumptions that
may not be tenable. In such an economy values (not prices) in the
hinterlands must be disconnected from prices in (urban) markets by more
than simple transportation costs. My gut-level intuition suggests this is
not the case in the mediterranean economy.
David H. Feldman
College of William and Mary
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Michael P. Lynch wrote:
> Aside from Moses Finley [no small aside], I know of no historian or
> economist who finds Polanyi's thesis credible.
In fact there are some (eg Matthew Johnson's, The Archaeology of
Capitalism, 1996) who would argue that even the high medieval economy was
socially driven. However, most scholars would emphasise the increasing
penetration of money in the economy of this period (e.g. R.S. Lopez, The
Commercial Revolution of the Middle ages, 950-1350, 1976). The idea that
the early medieval economy was not market-led has a long respectability-
see George Duby's reworking of Mauss (The Early Growth of the European
Economy: warriors and peasants from the seventh to tenth centuries,
1979). There are problems with Polanyi's thesis especially with his idea
of a transition from a socially embedded to a market economy. The idea of
a socially embedded economy is surely an important one but are not all
economies socially embedded to some degree. As the French marxist
historian Guy Bois has pointed out factories can't exist without a
conducive legal and political framework. Even in the modern economy gifts
(e.g. inheritance) play a major role in wealth creation. I think that a
study of the public building of modern Paris would be a poor guide to the
French economy, reflecting rather the ambitions of its Presidents, I
particularly like Barbara Rosenwein's idea of a spectrum from gift to
market economy rather than an abrupt transition with most economies having
elements of the 'other' within them. (see her: To be the Neighbour of St.
Paul: the social meaning of Cluny's property 909- 1049, 1989). Her study
of the Cluny charters suggests a jump along the spectrum in the 10th
century. Until this point land was given to cement social relationships,
rather than sold. However, by the year 1000 an inflationary land market
was emerging where land was bought and sold in order to build and sustain
power. The discovery of silver in the Harz Mts. of Saxony in the 960s and
subsequent rise in the availability of money, was probably a key element
in the precise chronology though it would be foolish to argue for a
monocausal explanation. The idea of an embedded economy found in the work
of Polanyi and Mauss remains a useful one. Nevertheless we don't have to
take on board every nuance of the Great Transformation.
Paul Courtney, Leicester, UK
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