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This is not a reply to a specific comment on Polanyi's work, but a brief 
statement about it.  The debate has recognized his critical 
contributions to economic history and anthropology but has exhibited as 
well some of the principal misreadings. 
 
One should understand that as far as the Great Transformation into 
market industrial capitalism is concerned the claim is that a market 
system (system of markets) including products and factors (labor, money 
(caplital), and habitat (land) had never before existed as the primary 
mode of organizing an economy (material provisioning). 
 
Polanyi fully recognized that markets (and money) were historically 
common and important (emergence of Athenian grain trade) BUT (large but) 
never formed a unified system with a logic (= general equilibrium 
analysis) of its own. 
 
The self-regulating market system was an artificial creation as was not 
"natural); neither was there an innate tendency to "truck, barter, and 
exchange."  The myth of the anti-liberal conspiracy is that governments 
and social organizations and associations conspire to "intervene" or 
"obstruct" the natural play of self-interest and markets.  In fact, 
(Sachs take note) the market system was consciously, ideologically, and 
politically constructed. 
 
The ceding of control to the market system of work, money, and habitat 
is unsustainable due to countervailing forces of social protection such 
as regulation (ICC, FDA) and labor unions and social welfare programs. 
 
The chief substantive contribution is to recognize that in addition to 
the market (and market places - e.g. fairs) economic activity and 
exchange relations may take the forms of reciprocity, redistribution 
(Xmas tree, centralized taxes), and householding (mother feeding 
children). 
 
I see a close affinity with Coase and the NIE tradition in IO.  Even for 
capitalists markets are a poor way to organize exchange.  I have argued 
that the modern corporation is an added type of non-market exchange 
system where resources are taken out of the market so that they can be 
more effectively managed. 
 
If you look at the modern U.S. economy a great deal of our exchange 
takes place outside the market in governments, corporations, 
non-profits, and households.  We still have reciprocities within 
families, neighborhoods, and localities. 
 
Polanyi was not arguing by the way for a return to community;  in his 
chapter, freedom in a complex society, he looks forward to enhanced 
social protections with maximal personal liberties in something like the 
modern democractic welfare state. 
 
John Adams 
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