Embeddedness, redistribution and double dependence: Polányi-reception reconsidered

Abstract

This paper is a contribution to the reception of Polányi in the West and the East, more precisely, about the impact Polányi's views had on American and Hungarian economic sociology, which are the contact points between the two, and what research perspectives they offer. It concentrates on the perception of embeddedness and redistribution, leaving aside other views unless they are conducive to the comprehension of certain conceptual connections. It is argued that although new economic sociology contributed to deeper understanding of socio-economic processes, Polányi's substantive theory also remained important. His approach of putting emphasis on political and cultural aspects of embeddedness enables us to compare economic systems and describe the diverging motives of actors in mixed economies. Polányi's intellectual impact started in the sixties in Hungary, that is, in the period of market reforms. This may seem at the first glance paradoxical, but one of the reasons that it could happen was that Polányi was not an enemy of markets in general, as is often believed. What he heavily criticized was the uncontrolled commodification of land, labor, and money. Another reason for his intellectual impact was that the Polányian forms of integration did provide tools for analysis of state socialist and post-socialist processes. The current Hungarian developments can be interpreted in Polányian terms as regulatory attempts on the markets of fictitious commodities. I argue however, that these attempts under the conditions of double dependence do have significant side effects.