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Karl Polanyi

Karl Polanyi Biography

Economic historian

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“Enclosures have appropriately been called a revolution of the rich is against the poor. The lords and nobles were upsetting the social order, breaking down ancient law and custom, sometimes by means of violence, often by pressure and intimidation. They were literally robbing the poor of their share in the common, tearing down the houses which, by the hitherto unbreakable force of custom, the poor had long regarded as theirs and their heirs'. The fabric of society was being disrupted; desolate villages and the ruins of human dwellings testified to the fierceness with which the revolution raged, endangering the defenses of the country, wasting its towns, decimating its population, turning its overburdened soil into dust, harassing its people and turning them from decent husbandmen into a mob of beggars and thieves.”

PovertyEnclosures
Book:The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
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“Our thesis is that the idea of a self-adjusting market implied a stark utopia. Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness.”

MenHumansIdeasSelfNaturalInstitutionsDestroyedSubstanceWildernessLengthTransformedSurroundingsUtopiaStarksThesisAdjustingImplied
Book:The Great Transformation
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“There was nothing natural about laissez-faire; free markets could never have come into being merely by allowing things to take their course. Just as cotton manufactures were created by the help of protective tariffs, export bounties, and indirect wage subsidies, laissez-faire was enforced by the state.”

StatesHelpingCoursesNaturalAllowingFree MarketProtectiveBeing MeCottonIndirectBountySubsidiesLaissez FaireTariffs
Book:The Great Transformation
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