Beyond the Great Transformation, a 'world life'
Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation is a farrago of confusions, absurdities, fallacies, and distorted attacks on the free market. The temptation is to engage in almost a line-by-line critique. I will abjure this to first set out some of the basic philosophic and economic flaws, before going into some of the detailed Continue Reading
Published in November 1938. Table of contents Introduction IX I. The ambiguity of Christianity 1 II. The Hebrew Consciousness 16 III. The Work of Jesus 1. The Mission to the Jews 42 2. The Discovery of the Personal 55 3. The Prophetic Understanding 83 4. The Interpretation of History 92 Continue Reading
I have recently read the Andrew Rigby’s biography of Dimitrije Mitrinović, that I had found in Academia.edu and had downloaded freely and legally in PDF format. To my knowledge, it is the only biography of Mitrinović, in English, and it was very interesting for me. As the text can also Continue Reading
In the Abraham Rotstein’s “Weekend Notes II”, dated 5 May 1956, the latter reports on the conversation he had with him and addresses, in his remarks, the question of the “trade cycle”: P[olanyi] had had trade cycle theory which later Hayek produced and was then shattered by Keynes. P.’s theory Continue Reading
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In his book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years, David Graeber quotes an article by a certain Rosemary Harris, from 1972, on “The History of Trade at Ikom, Eastern Nigeria”, published in the review Africa: journal of the International African Institute [vol. 42 (2) : 122-139]. Given that Rosemary Arnold was Continue Reading
(Simple working notes) Karl Polanyi wrote several texts about H. G. Wells, notably in Vienna in the Journal of Hungarian in Vienna [Bécsi Magyar Újsag]1 : Original Name Translated Name Date “H. G. Wells az eretnek fáraókról”* H.G. Wells, from the Heretics pharaohs 1922 “Uj Macchiavelli, Kipps és Tono-Bungay” The Continue Reading
Here a picture I found in György Litván’s biography of Oszkár Jászi [2006] A Twentieth-Century Prophet: Oscar Jászi. 1875-19571: I recognize, at the center, rumpled, the strange mother of Karl Polanyi, Cecilia Wohl. I suppose the father (Mihály) is the one just next to her, black-suited. On the right, I Continue Reading
A unique source: Kari Polanyi-Levitt According to Kari Polanyi-Levitt, her father, Karl Polanyi, wanted to call (or called in private) “Behemoth”, his manuscripts written between 1919 and 1922, from the name of a legendary biblical creature. It is, at least, what we can read in Jérôme Maucourant’s article “Polanyi, reader Continue Reading