Paul Medow, Nine Stages in the Development of K. Polanyi’s Thought

1. (1909 article) Marxist socialism is a misleading vision: the ideals of socialism will be betrayed by the working class: the result will be fascism.
2. (1923 article) Socialist prices must reflect social aspirations as well as utility.
3. (After the coming of Fascism) Fascism regards socialism as its enemy because socialism as an idea is a new manifestation of Christian aspirations.
4. (The Great Transformation) The idea of a self-regulating market system is a utopia.
5. (Commentary article, and addition to G.T.) The alternative view of industrial society must center on the recognition of the reality of power and the “reality of society” in a technological civilization, that is the everpresent possibility of eternal damnation. This, however, like the revelation of death and the revelation of the possibility of eternal damnation, must be a source of greater productiveness in the possibility of overcoming this prospect, which stems from the uncertainty of the limits involved.
6. (Trade and the Market) Instead of an approach to motivations in the analysis of the institutional basis of empirical economies, one should approach it through the concept of operational definitions of individual elements, but ultimately in terms of a substantive definition of the economy resting on the concept of instituted behaviour.
7. (“The New West”) The West must cease to identify itself with capitalism and (?) with power politics in the new world situation in which the aspirations of socialistically inclined new nations have become decisive. It must seek a modus vivendi with Russia and China and establish a new institutional basis for international trade. Only then will a possibility for survival be assured and a possibility for disseminating the positive elements in its heritage to other countries created.
8. (“Aristotle and Galbraith on Affluence”) The arrival of abundance in production makes possible the non-market financing of institutions corresponding to Aristotle’s concept of “the good life”, and also the establishment of markets for “inefficiency” at points at which efficiency conflicts with the requirement of personal freedom.
9. (“Non-market economics”) The general definition of the economy makes possible the formulation of general principles of economic analysis and also indicates requirements of ethical norms.

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Date: 1969
KPA: 30/08, 50.