ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 (“The Origins of the Self-Regulating Market”) examines Polanyi’s conceptualization of the self-regulating market, his account of its origins, and a general overview of his historical method. I begin with his insight that capitalism, as a system of economic activity and a nexus of social relations and institutions, represented a qualitative break in human history. This has long been a matter of intense historiographical debate and I discuss his original contribution to the transition question. I explore the three factors that Polanyi identified as the distinctive elements of capitalism – the commodification of the critical aspects of social life (land, labor and money), competition, and the universalizing aspects of the market − and explore his account of the critical juncture of 1834, which witnessed the birth of the self-regulating market. In the middle section of the chapter, I offer an extensive scrutiny of the explanatory framework that he used to explain the rise of the self-regulating market: featuring technology, social power, the state/political power, contradictions of the preceding regime of political economy, and ideology as key factors. Finally, I undertake a broader overview of the conceptual and methodological implications of his framework.
