Recommendations from our site
“Polanyi writes this book in 1944, just as it seems the Allies are about to win the war. He’s not too happy. He’s glad that communism is checked and fascism is dead, but there is a wistfulness in him. He’s not a modern social democrat. If he could go back to a state of nature, a pre-industrial society, he probably would, and you have to read him with that in mind. But what he tells us is that this brave new world of the 1940s – the Beveridge report and the foundation of the welfare state in Britain etc – rests upon these paradoxes whereby you have to intervene to keep the machine stable, but the more you intervene, the more unstable you make it.” Read more...
The best books on How the World’s Political Economy Works
Mark Blyth, Political Scientist
“It makes a rather important point, that the economy has always been embedded in society, and when we try to disembed it from society and treat it like an independent institution, then we’re really going to run into trouble.” Read more...
The best books on Globalisation
Dani Rodrik, Economist
