From Ilona Duczyńska to George Dalton (4 April 1964)

From Karl Polanyi
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Text in English to type

[1] […]

Dear George,

[…] I cannot of course give any immanent criticism, such as Harry or Kari might, since I a not of the profession. So what through my mind in reading your paper is naturally of a personal and at some points of a weltanschaunlich kind, and it will be, I am afraid, quite unsystematic. Anyhow, call it, if you like, “personal knowledge”.

[…] A chief may under a big tree redistribute the catch or hunt; or in a modern kolkhoz the proceed comes back to the members in the form of the value of so many labour days. Your formulation seems to fit only something like a theocratic bureaucracy, or the citizen's paying taxes and receiving community services in return, but that is not “an economy”.

[…]

Part III. K.P. had a regular of policy making or policy [3] suggestions, almost akin to Marx's horror of utopian blueprints. The very …

In the introductory part: in the list of his loved authors, from whom he learnt, I miss Marx and Maine. Not as if had been a Marxist (Kari is right in her article when she says this bluntly; but he was not a Maine-ist either or a Weber-ist or for that matter, and other-ist. Yet his indebtedness to Marx and to Maine is very great indeed. Personally, I feel that in this list the name of Herskovits is redundant. Karl would have made all acknowledgements where they were due but he did not learn from Herskovits nor think of him with the reverence and love he kept for his heroes of the mind.

Letter Informations

KPA: 55/02, 1-3