Karl Polanyi In Vienna - The Contemporary Significance of The Great Transformation

Economics and everyday life: the genesis of Karl Polanyi’s thinking. Collected papers on The Great Transformation and a selection of tributes to Polanyi’s wife, to whom he dedicated that work. Includes archival material on the Polanyi’s life in Vienna. Karl Polanyi believed that the greatest threat to freedom was a poorly administered economy. His search for economic and political institutions which reconciled society’s need for freedom to develop a moral sense with the requirements of our complex technological civilisation, led him to believe in the possibility and necessity of an economics that was more existential and human-centred. Part One of Karl Polanyi in Vienna contains a selection of papers on re-reading The Great Transformation as presented at the Fifth Karl Polanyi International Conference in Vienna. International scholars explore pressing modern themes in the light of Polanyi’s thought, including globalisation, state privatisation, the crisis of democracy and the urgent need to relaunch development in the Third World. Part Two presents memories and tributes delivered to the Vienna conference on the life and work of Ilona Duczynska, Polanyi’s beloved wife.