Karl Polanyi

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Karl Polanyi
Memorial plaque for Karl Polanyi in Vorgartenstraße 203 in Vienna 2

Karl Paul Polanyi (born October 21, 1886 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; died April 23, 1964 in Pickering (Ontario) ) was a Hungarian-Austrian economic historian and economist and social scientist who became known for his deviations from traditional economic teaching theoretical position, which was characterized by the emphasis on the social and institutional embedding of market processes. The fruitful connection between economic theory and history, political science and cultural anthropology was reflected in numerous publications covering a wide range of topics.

His influential book The Great Transformation is counted among the major works in sociology . In addition, Polanyi also wrote important works on the origins of monetary economic forms .

Life

The life and work of Karl Polanyi took place in a time and environment which, with its decisive events, had a great influence on his scientific work and life. Born in Vienna, he studied law and philosophy in Budapest . He came from an intellectual and middle-class family environment, in which he and his siblings were influenced by his mother Cecile Wohl at an early age . Karl Polanyi is the older brother of Michael Polanyi .

At the university he was involved in left student groups and was actively involved in the socialist education of workers. After the defeat of the Hungarian Soviet Republic , he moved to Vienna and worked there as an editor for the magazine “ Der Österreichische Volkswirt ” and the German edition: “ Der Deutsche Volkswirt ”. He lived with his family in poor conditions, as he donated his salary to the numerous refugees; the family lived in the 2nd district , Vorgartenstrasse 203 , from 1924 to 1933. In 1934 his wife and daughter left Austria, as his daughter stated, in 1935 after he had lost his job and the fascist tendencies had increased significantly. He emigrated to Great Britain, where he was mainly active in workers' education.

In 1940 he came to the USA to complete The Great Transformation with a two-year grant from the Rockefeller Foundation from 1941 to 1943 . In 1947 Columbia University appointed him a visiting professorship, which he held until 1953. Until 1958 he led a research project on the economic aspects of institutions together with Conrad M. Arensberg . There was Trade and Market in the Early Empires . Then he worked in the field of anthropology. He died in Canada in 1964, where he was staying because his wife, an avowed socialist and former activist of the Hungarian Soviet Republic (1919), had not received a visa for the USA. His last work Dahomey and the Slave Trade was published posthumously in 1966.

Karl Polanyi and his wife Ilona Duczyńska (1897–1978) are the parents of the Canadian economist Kari Polanyi-Levitt (* 1923).

Fonts (selection)

  • Primitive, archaic and modern economies: Essays. Edited by George Dalton. Anchor, Garden City 1968.
  • Economy and Society . German by Heinrich Jelinek. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft stw 295, Frankfurt 1979, ISBN 3-518-27895-9 & ISBN 3-518-07895-X .
  • The Great Transformation: The political and economic origins of our time . Beacon, Boston 2001 [first edition 1944], ISBN 0-8070-5643-X .
    • German translation by Heinrich Jelinek: The Great Transformation. Political and economic origins of societies and economic systems. 8th edition. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, Frankfurt 1973, ISBN 3-518-27860-6 .
  • Chronicle of the Great Transformation: Articles and Essays (1920–1945). ed. by Michele Cangiani. 3 volumes. Metropolis, Marburg 2002–2005:
  • Karl Polanyi, Conrad M. Arensberg, HW Pearson (eds.): Trade and Markets in the Early Empires. The Free Press, Glenco 1957.
  • Karl Polanyi: Dahomey and the Slave Trade. UP of Washington, Seattle 1966.
  • Karl Polanyi: The Livelihood of Man. Studies in Social Discontinuity . Edited by Harry W. Pearson. New York, Academic Press. 1977.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Wolfgang Streeck in Dirk Kaesler , Ludgera Vogt (Hrsg.): Hauptwerke der Soziologie (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 396). Kröner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-520-39601-7 , pp. 359–361 as well as Carsten Klingemann in Sven Papcke and Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff (eds.): Key works of sociology : Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2001, p. 394– 396.
  2. ↑ Judith Szapor: An Outsider Twice Over: Cecile well Pollacsek, Salonist of Fin-de-Siecle Budapest . In: Judith Szapor (ed.): Jewish Intellectual Women in Central Europe 1860–2000: twelve biographical essays . Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2012 ISBN 978-0-7734-2933-8 , pp. 29-58
  3. ^ The thought leader from Vorgartenstraße , interview by Lukas Wieselberg with Kari Polanyi-Levitt, published on the ORF website, February 21, 2017
  4. ^ Karl Polanyi, Foreword to The Great Transformation
personal data
SURNAME Polanyi, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Polanyi, Karl Paul (full name); Polányi, Károly (Hungarian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian economist
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1964
Place of death Pickering , Canada