著者

Michele Cangiani

出版者

The Japanease Society for the History of Economic Thought

雑誌

経済学史研究 (ISSN:18803164)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.48, no.1, pp.1-15, 2006-06-30 (Released:2010-08-05)

参考文献数

27

被引用文献数

1

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Polanyi's wide-range comparative outlook consists in considering any given social system as the result of historical evolution and as a whole. The economy appears then as a process, specifically instituted within each social system. These methodological assumptions are in contrast with those of economics, to the extent that the latter embrace both individualism and ahistorical generalizations, i. e. a non-institutional characterisation of economic activity.The analysis of the “market system” as an “economically” instituted economy, and of the “market society” as a society in which the economic system becomes differentiated, autonomous and dominant, enables Polanyi to explain the “economistic fallacy” with reference to its real basis. Thus, the generalization of such categories as “rational choice” and “scarcity” reveals as fallacious, to the extent that it discards their institutional peculiarity; moreover, an authentically general, a “substantive” concept of “economy” is needed. Polanyi opposes it to the “formal” concept, and interprets, for instance, Carl Menger's long engagement in revising his Grundsätze as a tentative of distinguishing a more general meaning from the “economizing” meaning of “economic.”The article carries on Polanyi's suggestions about the motives and results of Menger's revision of his book of 1871. The problem of situating both Menger's work and Polanyi's interpretation within the history of economics is also dealt with, with particular reference to the inter-war theoretical and methodological opposition between institutional and conventional-neoclassical tendencies.