Formal Economy, Substantive Economy, and Economism: A Critical Interpretation of Karl Polanyi’s Distinction

Philosophy of the Social Sciences 46 (5):473-497 (2016)
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Abstract

Polanyi analyzes the historical deployment of a “formal” economic science starting from the “market-scarcity-instrumental rationality triptych.” This triptych, and the knowledge associated with it, is shown to be more than merely a “substantial” economic science’s interest in the triptych “need-nature-institution.” While we must agree with Polanyi that economism is ill-suited to the first triptych, we hesitate to accept his suggested alternative, a heterogeneous mixture of naturalism and institutionalism, essentialism and historicism.

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Social Choice and Individual Values.Irving M. Copi - 1952 - Science and Society 16 (2):181-181.
Social Choice and Individual Values.Kenneth Joseph Arrow - 1951 - New York, NY, USA: Wiley: New York.
La prudence chez Aristote.Pierre Aubenque - 1963 - Paris,: Presses universitaires de France.

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