Capitalism From Karl Polanyi to Susan Strange: A Social and a Political Policymaking Dilemma

This article examines Karl Polanyi and Susan Strange’s criticism of the global financial system. Although both scholars are from different historical periods, both challenge the social and political consequences of an increasingly market-driven global order. Polanyi’s analysis in his book The Great Transformation traces the emergence of the self-regulating market and the transformation of human society and the subordination of the social to economic imperatives. Strange a contemporary scholar of late twentieth-century also criticizes the financial globalization, and exercises critique to the destabilizing consequences of autonomous and speculative financial markets. While Strange presumes a parallel with a casino, Polanyi sees a transformation of society under capitalism. This article brings the two perspectives into dialogue to identify continuities and differences in their critiques of capitalism in different historical periods.