chapter 4
The Great Oscillation Historicism, Polanyi’s Double Movement, and Embedded Dynamics of Capitalism Cory Blad
Karl Polanyi’s work is far more than a single, albeit magisterial, book. That said, two of the most influential concepts in global political economic theory, embeddedness and the double movement, emerge from The Great Transformation as lasting indicators of the simple complexity of Polanyi’s historical analyses. The concept of embeddedness (and the mirror of disembeddedness that results from market liberalization) alone arguably bolstered the fields of economic anthropology (Polanyi 1957; Halperin 1984) and economic sociology (Arrighi 1994; Block and Somers 2014). His concept of the double movement, however, provides a distinct path toward understanding Polanyi’s contributions to not only historical political economy, but also the ways in which specific global political economic developments, such as the ideology of neoliberalism, can be understood in both contemporary and historical contexts. The double movement as unique in that it maps, and offers causal explanations for, both collective and regressive elements of global political economy in the postwar period. Giorgio Resta, in the posthumously published For a New West, argues that Polanyi’s sustained relevance is the product of his requisite demand that historical conditions and approaches be understood in comparative context (Polanyi 2014, 3). That is, concepts developed in the 1940s should be critically evaluated in any contemporary context based on those same contemporary conditions. This analytical testing requirement may appear obvious in a positivist sense, but taking Polanyi’s suggestion to heart opens an opportunity to understand how the double movement has retained substantial relevance as the ideological hegemonic context of the postwar shifted from demand-side, embedded liberal to supply-side neoliberal capitalism. Interestingly, the concept demonstrates remarkable flexibility in historical context, particularly when we are able to examine both the direct application (i.e., presence) and indirect circumvention (i.e., presumed absence) of the double movement dynamics. In other words, the double movement retains its explanatory capacities whether it structuring in the mechanical functioning of a respective political economic moment or perceived to be absent in those same machinations. The former
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004678064_006