ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 (“Contradictions and Crisis within the Double Movement”) explores Polanyi’s account of how an international market system was established, his conceptual argument about the centrality of contradictions to social change, and the way in which these systemic tensions eventually culminate in the cataclysm of World War 1 and European fascism. In the first section, I explore the internationalization of the double movement, with special attention paid to the creation of the new social relations of the international system and his account of the relationship between the double movement and imperialism. I then examine the centrality of contradictions to his discussion of the double movement, explore how these impaired the international economy and chart how they precipitated a widespread social and political crisis. In the final section, I offer a forensic examination of his empirical arguments regarding the causal link between the breakdown of the double movement and the massive historical transformations of World War 1 and the rise of fascism.
