Outline for a revision of The Great transformation (1961): Difference between revisions

From Karl Polanyi
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Line 7: Line 7:


=== 4. The rationalist bias in the social doctrine of Marxism ===
=== 4. The rationalist bias in the social doctrine of Marxism ===
A somewhat different cause explains the similar confusion between the partial norms of cause and effect analysis and man-centered ethical norms in the Marxist tradition. This is the triple merging be Hegel into a presumed single historical process of the sphere of political necessity, {{Page |n°=18}} discovered by Machiavelli, of the development through stages of national culture, discovered by Herder, and of the Judeo-Christian idea that God reveals himself though history. His striving to identify the historical process through which modern nations appear simultaneously with "necessary" chains of causality and the Jewish idea of history which centers on ethics resulted in the odious postulate that God manifests himself in necessity, that "what is necessary is good". By centering his own view of the historical process on social responses to evolving situation of conflict Marx only partly avoided the moral dilemma inherent in Hegel's position. For while it was on moral grounds that he denounced the dilemmas created by the social order of his time, it was, nevertheless, to the operation of economic necessity that he tied the future emergence of a more moral order. Through such a link with the moral world of the future the sphere of cause and effect relationships once again acquired an aura of inherent morality that served to vil once more the distinction between man-centered and functional norms. The resulting strengthening of the hope that in spite of ominous appearances, history does move towards messianic times was achieved only at the cost of rendering the economic process immune to moral criticism. At the same time Hegel's already diluted emphasis on the historical development of the cultural nation disappeared altogether from view.
A somewhat different cause explains the similar confusion between the partial norms of cause and effect analysis and man-centered ethical norms in the Marxist tradition. This is the triple merging by Hegel into a presumed single historical process of the sphere of political necessity, {{Page |n°=18}} discovered by Machiavelli, of the development through stages of national culture, discovered by Herder, and of the Judeo-Christian idea that God reveals himself though history. His striving to identify the historical process through which modern nations appear simultaneously with "necessary" chains of causality and the Jewish idea of history which centers on ethics resulted in the odious postulate that God manifests himself in necessity, that "what is necessary is good". By centering his own view of the historical process on social responses to evolving situation of conflict Marx only partly avoided the moral dilemma inherent in Hegel's position. For while it was on moral grounds that he denounced the dilemmas created by the social order of his time, it was, nevertheless, to the operation of economic necessity that he tied the future emergence of a more moral order. Through such a link with the moral world of the future the sphere of cause and effect relationships once again acquired an aura of inherent morality that served to veil once more the distinction between man-centered and functional norms. The resulting strengthening of the hope that in spite of ominous appearances, history does move towards messianic times was achieved only at the cost of rendering the economic process immune to moral criticism. At the same time Hegel's already diluted emphasis on the historical development of the cultural nation disappeared altogether from view.


== III. The Return to a non-atomistic Concept of Society ==
== III. The Return to a non-atomistic Concept of Society ==

Revision as of 14:59, 1 May 2020

I. The vanishing of the Nineteenth Century

II. The Rationalistic Bias of the Social Sciences of the West

1. The Greek approach to the analysis of society

2. The origins of the rationalist bias in European Thought

3. The rationalist bias in the social doctrines of the Enlightenment

[17]

4. The rationalist bias in the social doctrine of Marxism

A somewhat different cause explains the similar confusion between the partial norms of cause and effect analysis and man-centered ethical norms in the Marxist tradition. This is the triple merging by Hegel into a presumed single historical process of the sphere of political necessity, [18] discovered by Machiavelli, of the development through stages of national culture, discovered by Herder, and of the Judeo-Christian idea that God reveals himself though history. His striving to identify the historical process through which modern nations appear simultaneously with "necessary" chains of causality and the Jewish idea of history which centers on ethics resulted in the odious postulate that God manifests himself in necessity, that "what is necessary is good". By centering his own view of the historical process on social responses to evolving situation of conflict Marx only partly avoided the moral dilemma inherent in Hegel's position. For while it was on moral grounds that he denounced the dilemmas created by the social order of his time, it was, nevertheless, to the operation of economic necessity that he tied the future emergence of a more moral order. Through such a link with the moral world of the future the sphere of cause and effect relationships once again acquired an aura of inherent morality that served to veil once more the distinction between man-centered and functional norms. The resulting strengthening of the hope that in spite of ominous appearances, history does move towards messianic times was achieved only at the cost of rendering the economic process immune to moral criticism. At the same time Hegel's already diluted emphasis on the historical development of the cultural nation disappeared altogether from view.

III. The Return to a non-atomistic Concept of Society

1. Early attempts to formulate a non-atomistic concept of society

  • a. The concept of the ‘oikos’ and the debate on primitivism
  • b. The concept of social embeddedness

2. Economic anthropology and the discovery of the institutional basis of social embeddedness

3. The non-atomistic Concept of Society

  • a. Rights and obligations deriving from functional responsibilities
  • b. Rights and obligations deriving from ethically-oriented interpersonal relationships
    • 1) The dilemma of personal relations and the two ethics
    • 2) The expansion of the sphere of internal ethics
      • a) the limitation of mutual aid through a division of functions
      • b) the use of internal ethics for external relationships
    • 3) Personal religions and the redirection of personal ethics into impersonal functional channels (redistribution)
    • 4) The secularization of social relationships
  • c. The relations of rights to duties: two concepts of social justice
  • d. The role of equivalencies in the economic process

4. The social conception of man

IV. The Emergence of socially disembedded Economies in the West

1. The socially embedded or market-regulated economy

2. Machine production and the establishment of the nineteenth century order

3. The market ideology of liberalism

4. The market system and economic development

5. The gold standard and the world market economy

6. Peace

V. The Self-protection of Society and the Great Transformation

1. The conflicts created by the disembedding of the economy as a source of social change

2. Liberal ideology and the economic paralysis of the political sphere

3. The socio-economic strains create by social and national protectionism

4. The general crisis of society in the 1930’s

5. Fascism, socialism, and the New Deal

6. Liberal ideology and the causes of the Second World War

VI. The Great Transformation after the Second World War

VII. The Need for a New West

VIII. Science, Technology and Socialism

IX. The Liberal Threat to Personal Freedom

Appendix

A. On Pre-industrial societies

B. On Marxism

C. The Mathematics of Social Costs

D. The planning of International Trade

Document's Informations

Reference:
Author: Paul Medow
KPA: 24/01, 8 (General plan, detail in all the archive)