ABSTRACT
Only in the twentieth century is it possible, for the first time, to speak of ‘world order’. Only during the Fordist phase of capitalist development did the great majority of humankind get integrated fully into global relations. As a result of the commodification of all spheres of life, or what Marx called the ‘real subsumption of labour and nature under capital’, nearly everywhere, all social relations are penetrated by the economic logic of capital valorization. Polanyi observed that ‘the human economy is usually embedded in social relations. The transition from this social form to a society which, quite perversely, is embedded in the economic system was an entirely new development’ (Polanyi 1957a: 135), which, we might add, reached maturity only during the Fordist mode of regulation.
