Abstract
This chapter argues for the relevance and fruitfulness of Karl Polanyi’s concept of ‘embeddedness’ for analysing societal integration on the level of social relations as well as on the level of social systems.1 It is argued that ‘embeddedness’ is the key theoretical concept in Polanyi’s classic work The Great Transformation (1944) (Block and Somers 1984: 47). Standard criticisms of Polanyi’s work say that his theories romanticize pre-market economies, and that his work is tainted by a moralizing anti-market mentality. These critiques underplay the analytical contributions of Polanyi and overemphasize the moral and political controversies surrounding his work (Olofsson 1995).
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© 1999 Gunnar Olofsson
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Olofsson, G. (1999). Embeddedness and Integration. In: Gough, I., Olofsson, G. (eds) Capitalism and Social Cohesion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230379138_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230379138_3
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