Abstract
The economy is having increasingly problematic effects in the present age of anti-migrant, global politics. Fascist groups are responding to these economic developments in their politics of othering. The state is withering due to the recalcitrant onslaught of capitalism. It is in this context that we should appreciate Gareth Dale for providing this insightful reading of the intellectual journey of Karl Polanyi. Polanyi is routinely referred to in both academic work and popular culture, especially his analysis of the economy. Indeed, the book needs to be understood as part of this era of proliferated mass media(ated) constructions of the economy throughout the world. This book is a critically minded approach to Polanyi’s complex theoretical world and arrives at an open-ended conceptualisation within the grand rubric of political economy. It transcends the reductionist approaches that emerged after the autobiographical turn. On the other hand, it can be counted as a riveting history of Polanyi’s ideas. Dale maps the diverse and contradictory stakes of Polanyi, regarding the economy and society. The advent of this book happens in a critical juncture, where sociology is caught between cultural studies and its obsession with the limited understanding of a socially regulated economy. At the same time, sociologists are engaged in the new forms of reading related to class and economic exploitation; in the fashionable era of the linguistic turn. Leftist pluralism is also being projected as a counter view to the bloody flow of capitalism. Social movements have a tendency to distance themselves from earlier forms of classical theory. However, one striking and objective part of Dale’s approach is that Polanyi’s paradoxical intellectual positions are depicted in an original fashion. For instance, Polanyi’s critique of dominant Marxist and sociological frameworks is discussed in a cogent fashion. At the same time, Dale succinctly draws Polanyi’s soft leaning towards a hardcore, Stalinist line.
Polanyi’s intellectual departure from both the capitalist west and the Soviet east is also discussed as one of the striking facets of his intellectual path. This idea of the book oscillates between the return to Polanyi’s scholastic path and the current upsurge in academic interest in Polanyi’s works across the globe. Debates on Polanyi’s works are often neutralised in a depoliticised and career-oriented world of academic capitalism. As Pierre Bourdieu argued, certain privileged ideas are being circulated across the academic spaces in a pre-determined fashion. Marx has already discussed dominant ideas as the ideas of the dominant. Dale too is conscious of the contemporary trends that produce overrated readings of the works of scholars such as Polanyi. For instance, Polanyi’s much celebrated work The Great Transformation is re-read by Dale against the backdrop of the contemporary, global quest for social democracy and the alarming fluctuations in the market structure.
Interestingly, the romantic leftist character of The Great Transformation is discussed in a readable fashion. Polanyi’s approach to the leftist question is important in an intellectual world that is created through new ideas of open source, commons and so on. In other words, leftist and the new social movement–based blogosphere have gained pace across the cyber world. For instance, much scholarly work is being uploaded and circulated within the so-called ‘inclusive’ space of communicative capitalism. On one hand, this challenges the copyright regime. At the same time, it may hamper the specific nature of emerging scholars and their respective publications. Dale, however, offers this well-researched book on the theoretical premises of Polanyi. While discussing Polanyi’s work, Dale (2017) (in one of his recent interviews, with George Souvils in Salvage Quarterly), argues that ‘[i]n his analysis of the depredations and sufferings of market-ruled society, Polanyi draws on Marx’s theory of alienation but renders it romantic by tearing it out of its conceptual matrix’. Clarity thus differentiates the rare style of this particular author. The narrative situates the Polanyian personality and thought in the background of the invincible capital and state.
Dale’s interpretation of Polanyi’s scholasticism further delves into the consequences of para-state and democratic aspirations. Thus, this book offers an interesting account of the Polanyian analysis on the democratic socialist system within the category and practice of the state. This orients us towards having a comparative look at the diverse interpretations on the state and new forms of politics. In the aforementioned interview, Dale cites Tariq Ali’s opinion about Karl Polanyi. Ali described Polanyi as ‘the most gifted of the social democratic theorists’ (Ali, cited in Dale 2017). The ways in which a Polanyian reading of democracy and the state is foregounded in leftist articulations of the present era is commendable and such exercises mould us towards developing a genealogy of the social thought on the state. Thus, Dale further argues that such understanding of Polanyi’s analysis is productive to the contemporary discourse of social democracy. Socialist undercurrents in Polanyi’s writings are thus analysed to travel deeper into the broad-ranging Polanyian conceptualisations of the ideologies.
Those interested in theorising the link between society and the economy will benefit from Dale’s insightful account of Polanyi’s theoretical engagements with the socially constructed market. Larger questions of agency and structure are also considered while reflecting on questions of market exchange and state redistribution. The book is thought-provoking and guides us towards new ways of reading the Polanyian oeuvre. One of the significant dimensions of the book is that it positions Polanyian thought within the larger context of Central European political and intellectual assertions. It demonstrates the specificity of the intellectuals and the legacy of the cultural and political milieu of Central Europe. Broadly therefore, this book is an interesting aid to those readers who are curious about the labyrinth of social democracy. It also enlarges the dominant debates on economy and society. It constructs a Polanyian critique in an impeccable, scholarly way.