Polanyi on institutions and money

Jérôme Maucourant ()
Additional contact information
Jérôme Maucourant: CALW - Centre Auguste et Léon Walras - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: The purpose of this contribution is to suggest an interpretation of the substantivist thought initiated by Karl Polanyi. An approach such as this is concerned with « historical economics », in the sense that substantive concepts are the result not of a retrospective projection of modern bias but of an attempt to apprehend universal categories of economic analysis in order to clarify the true particularities of different economic systems1. The point is to show that the coherence of institutionalist thought founded by economists such as Mitchell, Commons and Veblen are in agreement the reflexions of Karl Polanyi who thinks of money as an institution that embeds the economy into social relationships. In this analytical framework, stripping money of its institutional character and trying to reduce it to a commodity is bound to create chaos. It is important to note that, rather than focusing on facts, the paper concerns the history of ideas. Certainly, Polanyi's writings on ancient economy can no longer be wholly accepted, if the evolution of the work of historians is seriously taken into account. But this is not the real issue according to Duncan, Tandy (1994 : 23)2. The history of ideas is the history of problems, which can suggest new interpretations that do not depend substantially on facts. It is interesting to remark that Ian Morris's (1994 : 54) attempt to combine Finley's thesis and Polanyi's insights constitutes a recent attempt to escape from the fallacy of the primitivism/modernism dichotomy3; such a solution has surely been an objective of Polanyi.

Keywords: Money; Polanyi; Institutions; Veblen; Commons; Mitchell; Substantivism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00558710
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Adaman, Fikret; Devine, Pat. Economy and society : money, capitalism and transition, Black Rose Books, pp.150-171, 2001, Critical Perspectives on Historic Issues

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-00558710/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00558710

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().