From Felix Schafer to George Dalton (24 April 1973)

I do not think that “these (things) are more important than further exegesis on what Polanyi really meant and how his later writings ideas he had very early.” The literature on “exegesis” you mention I know. But it still stands as Ilona wrote in June last year to me in German: “The bridge from early Karl in Vienna to the later Karl is entirely unknown and nobody but you is able and called to show it. I know and appreciate Hugh’s work but – as you rightly point out – the gap us there.”

Indeed Siever’s when he talks about token money in Polanyi’s writings does not mention that the roots of Karl’s ideas on this subject lie in his socialist model of price formation. Nor does he tell us how was built the token money into economic analysis. Mrs. Humphreys deals largely with Karl as an economic historian. Her remarks about his Vienna time do not refer to the thoughts he worked out in my presence. Not to treat record them would mean to ignore part of Karl’s edifice of thought and to treat him like the second edition of Menger’s “Grundsätze”. Thus I will attempt to include these thoughts unobtrusively and in easy presentation into the memoir.”

References

KPA: 55/5, 5