Summary of Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 The key to the institutional system of the nineteenth century was the laws governing market economy. The idea of a self-adjusting market implied a stark utopia, and it was impossible for such an institution to exist for any length of time without destroying the human and natural substance of society.

#2 The book explores the cause of the cataclysm, which was the collapse of the international system. The balance-of-power system could not ensure peace once the world economy had failed. The origins of this system lie in the social and technological upheaval from which the idea of a self-regulating market system sprang in Western Europe.

#3 The triumph of pragmatic pacifism was not the result of an absence of grave causes for conflict. Throughout the first part of the century, civil wars, revolutionary and antirevolutionary interventions, were the order of the day.

#4 The balance of power, which was traditionally used to maintain independence among states, was instead used to maintain peace between them. The action of the same principle safeguarded for over two hundred years the sovereignty of the states forming Europe at the time of the Treaty of Münster and Westphalia in 1648.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669379072

IRB Media

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Insights on Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The key to the institutional system of the nineteenth century was the laws governing market economy. The idea of a self-adjusting market implied a stark utopia, and it was impossible for such an institution to exist for any length of time without destroying the human and natural substance of society.

#2

The book explores the cause of the cataclysm, which was the collapse of the international system. The balance-of-power system could not ensure peace once the world economy had failed. The origins of this system lie in the social and technological upheaval from which the idea of a self-regulating market system sprang in Western Europe.

#3

The triumph of pragmatic pacifism was not the result of an absence of grave causes for conflict. Throughout the first part of the century, civil wars, revolutionary and antirevolutionary interventions, were the order of the day.

#4

The balance of power, which was traditionally used to maintain independence among states, was instead used to maintain peace between them. The action of the same principle safeguarded for over two hundred years the sovereignty of the states forming Europe at the time of the Treaty of Münster and Westphalia in 1648.

#5

The balance-of-power system prevents wars between nations that fail to anticipate the realignment of powers that would result from their attempts to change the status quo. However, it can’t prevent wars between nations that want to change the status quo.

#6

The balance of power system was used to avoid war, but it could not prevent the flow of life from being controlled at its source. The system was unable to act upon the internal factors that caused imbalance, so it was unable to eliminate the causes of war.

#7

The Concert of Europe, which succeeded the Holy Alliance, was a loose federation not comparable in coherence to Metternich’s masterpiece. It could only be called together rarely, and its jealousies allowed a wide latitude for intrigue, crosscurrents, and diplomatic sabotage.

#8

The Rothschilds were a family that invested in the global economy. They were not pacifists, and had made their fortune financing wars. They were the ones who were tasked with maintaining the requisites of general peace in the midst of the revolutionary transformation of the peoples of the planet.

#9

Haute finance was not designed to be an instrument of peace, but it was accidental. The law of availability caused it to serve that function. The motive of haute finance was gain, and to attain it, it was necessary to keep in with the governments whose end was power and conquest.

#10

Power had precedence over profit. Political rivalry between France and Germany did not prevent them from engaging in noncommittal transactions with each other. The governments continued to veto any move that might increase the potential enemy’s power.

#11

Finance, as a channel of influence, was able to moderate the ambitions and intrigues of the great and small powers. It was also able to moderate the policies of many