Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation has had enormous influence since its publication in 1944. In form, this influence has been salutary: Polanyi targets one of the main weaknesses of modern economics. But in substance, Polanyi's influence has been baneful. Mirroring the methodological blindness he criticizes, Polanyi insists on the all‐or‐nothing existence/ nonexistence of laissez faire—and on its all‐or‐nothing goodness/badness.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Mark Blyth's rebuttal to our constructive critique of Polanyi “blithely” takes for granted the accuracy of Polanyi's now‐outdated historiography of capitalism—by means of a loose, overly expansive definition of capitalism that question‐beggingly equates it with modernity. Blyth emphasizes the need to view markets as “socially embedded,” with which we agree—but he appears not to take account of the individual self‐interest that is thus embedded. Similarly, he asserts a priori the role of ideas in history, in parallel to the economists he (...) condemns (unfairly) for reading ideas out of history a priori. All of this poorly serves the cause of extracting Polanyi's welcome emphasis on social embeddedness and on the empirical from the ideological and methodological certitudes and errors in which The Great Transformation placed them. (shrink)