Reclaiming humanity: the social theory of Karl Polanyi

This dissertation examines Karl Polanyi's social theory, which underlies his critique of the market economy, and argues that this theory is founded on an understanding of a human being as the unity of individuality and sociality and as a "moral" being characterized by freedom. However, the market system, which is organized on the basis of the three "fictitious commodities," namely labor, land, and money, generates a "dehumanization" process within which these characteristics are negated. This dehumanization results from the "commodification" of life itself and signifies the separation of human beings from their natural surroundings, from each other and even from their own capacities and powers. The emphasis on this process, it is argued, is the uniting element of Polanyi's thought with that of Marx. Since the result of such a process is the disintegration of the society, it is natural for human beings to protect the social fabric against the market, as emphasized in Polanyi's notion of the "double movement," which is formed by the extension of the market and society's "self-protection" and which gives the capitalist society its unstable character. However, it is argued that the success of this protective countermovement against dehumanization depends on conscious resistance to the "market mentality" dominating every aspect of life in a capitalist society, which in turn requires the emphasis on the "species" character of human beings, that is, on freedom and on the unity of individuality and sociality.