Double Movement

The Double Movement is a concept originated by Karl Polanyi in his book The Great Transformation. The phrase refers to the dialectical process of marketization and push for social protection against that marketization. First, laissez-faire reformers seek to "disembed" the economy in order to establish what Polanyi calls a "market society" wherein all things are commodified, including what Polanyi terms "false commodities": land, labor, and money. Second, a reactionary "countermovement" arises whereby society attempts to re-embed the economy through the creation of social protections such as labor laws and tariffs. In Polanyi's view, these liberal reformers seek to subordinate society to the market economy, which is taken by these reformers to be self-regulating. To Polanyi, this is a utopian project, as economies are always embedded in societies.

See also

Substantivism

Further reading

• Block, F. "Polanyi’s Double Movement and the Reconstruction of Critical Theory", Revue Interventions économiques [Online], 38 | 2008, retrieved August 25, 2015. URL : http://interventionseconomiques.revues.org/274
• Dale, G. (2010). Karl Polanyi. Cambridge: Polity Press." Pp. 15-18, 58-62
• Farrell, H. (2014). "The free market is an impossible utopia: an interview with Fred Block and Margaret Somers." Washington Post, July 18, 2014. Retrieved August 25th, 2015. URL : https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/07/18/the-free-market-is-an-impossible-utopia/
• Kuttner, R. (2014). "Karl Polanyi Explains It All." The American Prospect, April 15h, 2014. Retrieved August 25th, 2015. URL : http://prospect.org/article/karl-polanyi-explains-it-all
• Polanyi, K. ([1944] 2001). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, 2nd ed. Foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz