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''The Great Transformation'' is a book by Karl Polanyi, a Hungarian-American political economist. First published in 1944, it deals with the social and political upheavals that took place in England during the rise of the market economy. Polanyi contends that the modern market economy and the modern nation-state should be understood not as discrete elements but as the single human invention he calls the "Market Society". A distinguishing characteristic of the "Market Society" is that humanity's economic mentalities were changed. Prior to the great transformation, people based their economies on reciprocity and redistribution and were not rational utility maximizers.〔Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', p. 47〕 After the great transformation, people became more economically rational, behaving as neoclassical economic theory would predict.〔Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', p. 41〕 The creation of capitalist institutions not only changed laws but also fundamentally altered humankind's economic mentalities, such that prior to the great transformation, markets played a very minor role in human affairs and were not even capable of setting prices because of their diminutive size.〔Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', p. 43〕 It was only after the creation of new market institutions and industrialization that the myth of humanity's propensity to barter and trade became widespread in an effort to mold human nature to fit the new market based economic institutions.〔Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', p. 44〕 Polanyi thus proposes an alternative ethnographic approach called "substantivism", in opposition to "formalism", both terms coined by Polanyi. == General argument == Polanyi argued that the development of the modern state went hand in hand with the development of modern market economies and that these two changes were inextricably linked in history. Essential to the change from a premodern economy to a market economy was the altering of human economic mentalities away from a non-utility maximizing mindset to one more recognizable to modern economists.〔Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', p. 41〕 Prior to the great transformation, markets had a very limited role in society and were confined almost entirely to long distance trade.〔Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', p. 56〕 As Polanyi wrote, "the same bias which made Adam Smith's generation view primeval man as bent on barter and truck induced their successors to disavow all interest in early man, as he was now known not to have indulged in those laudable passions."〔Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', p. 45〕 The great transformation was begun by the powerful modern state, which was needed to push changes in social structure and human nature that allowed for a competitive capitalist economy. For Polanyi, these changes implied the destruction of the basic social order that had reigned because of pre-modern human nature and that had existed throughout all earlier history. Central to the change was that factors of production like land and labor would now be sold on the market at market determined prices instead of allocated according to tradition, redistribution, or reciprocity.〔Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', p. 41〕 He emphasized the greatness of the transformation because it was both a change of human institutions and human nature. His empirical case in large part relied upon analysis of the Speenhamland laws, which he saw not only as the last attempt of the squirearchy to preserve the traditional system of production and social order but also a self-defensive measure on the part of society that mitigated the disruption of the most violent period of economic change. Polanyi also remarks that the pre-modern economies of China, the Incan Empire, the Indian Empires, Babylon, Greece, and the various kingdoms of Africa operated on principles of reciprocity and redistribution with a very limited role for markets, especially in settling prices or allocating the factors of production.〔Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', pp. 52-53〕 The book also presented his belief that market society is unsustainable because it is fatally destructive to human nature and the natural contexts it inhabits. Polanyi attempted to turn the tables on the orthodox liberal account of the rise of capitalism by arguing that “laissez-faire was planned”, whereas social protectionism was a spontaneous reaction to the social dislocation imposed by an unrestrained free market. He argues that the construction of a "self-regulating" market necessitates the separation of society into economic and political realms. Polanyi does not deny that the self-regulating market has brought "unheard of material wealth", but he suggests that this is too narrow a focus. The market, once it considers land, labor and money as "fictitious commodities" (fictitious because each possesses qualities that are not expressed in the formal rationality of the market), and including them "means to subordinate the substance of society itself to the laws of the market."〔Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', p. 71 (see also the entirety of Chapter 6).〕 This, he argues, results in massive social dislocation, and spontaneous moves by society to protect itself. In effect, Polanyi argues that once the free market attempts to separate itself from the fabric of society, social protectionism is society's natural response, which he calls the "double movement." Polanyi did not see economics as a subject closed off from other fields of enquiry, indeed he saw economic and social problems as inherently linked. He ended his work with a prediction of a socialist society, noting, "after a century of blind 'improvement', man is restoring his 'habitation.'"〔Polanyi, ''The Great Transformation'', p. 257〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Great Transformation (book)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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