Social theory as critique of political economy

13The framework and arguments that we shall develop in this volume draw, selectively, on classical – modernist – social theory, and in particular on the work of one of its last representatives: the Hungarian economic historian Karl Polanyi. In this chapter, via a close reading of Polanyi’s arguments, particularly as set out in The Great Transformation, first published in 1944, we outline the broad perspective to be developed and filled out in subsequent chapters.