Financial Crises and Countermovements: Comparing the Times and Attitudes of Marriner Eccles (1930s) and Mario Draghi (2010s)

Abstract

In The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi (1886–1964) argued that ‘for a century the dynamics of modern society was governed by a double movement: the market expanded continuously, but this movement was met by a countermovement checking the expansion in definite directions. Vital though such a countermovement was for the protection of society, in the last analysis it was incomparable with the self-regulation of the market and thus with the market system itself’.¹ In the eyes of Polanyi, the forces promoting laissez-faire have been met by a countermovement attempting at protecting society and the commonwealth. As Fred Block puts it, ‘What we think of as market societies or “capitalism” is the product of both of these movements; it is an uneasy and fluid hybrid that reflects the shifting balance of power between these contending forces’.²

But the emerging regimes of fascism, socialism, and the New Deal were similar only in discarding laissez-faire principles.

Polanyi 1944, p. 244