ABSTRACT
This chapter critically assesses Polanyi’s analysis of the market economy and market society, of the double movement of market self-regulation and societal self-protection, and also reflects on the potential of his analysis for the critique of neoliberalism. It evaluates the concepts of fictitious commodities, Polanyi’s contributions to moral economy, and their relevance to neoliberalism. Drawing on Marx and Gramsci as well as Polanyi, it identifies similarities between the liberal and neoliberal periods and considers the specific post-industrial context in which neoliberalism emerged, with the significance of financialization, digitalization, and increasing world market economy. This leads to the growing economization of everyday life and culture. The neoliberal double movement rejects the self-maximizing principle of market forces seeking the highest return to one or another of its commodified forms. Whether fragmented forms of resistance can be linked up to provide an effective challenge to the neoliberal transnational financial bloc, its finance-dominated accumulation regime and its “new normal” state form by exploiting their fragilities remains to be seen. This requires connecting economic and political power in ways that reflect the fusion of economic and political power realized in neoliberalism.
