>Let us make our meaning more precise. No society could, naturally, live for
>any length of time unless it possessed an economy of some sort; but
>previously to our time no economy has ever existed that, even in principle,
>was controlled by markets. In spite of the chorus of academic incantations
>so persistent in the nineteenth century, gain and profit made on exchange
>never before played an important part in human economy. Though the
>institution of the market was fairly common since the later Stone Age, its
>role was no more than incidental to economic life.
>
>[p.43, Karl Polyani, THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION ]
>
I very much admire "The Great Transformation", but I think we should look a
little more deeply at what the foregoing passage implies. The fact that
earlier civilizations were not market driven does not say that they did not
have other institutions that were central to their economies. Slavery was
central to the economies of the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East.
Slavery existed alongside the market in America until the civil war and in
Brazil until the very end of the last century. The paying of tribute,
including human tribute, either given freely or taken by near continuous
warfare, was central to Mezzo American civilizations. Feudalism and vast
holdings of wealth by the church were the established order in medieval
Europe until trade and commerce began to slowly nudge them aside in the 11th
and 12th centuries.
The point I would make is that economies have to be powered by something -
that is, they have to have a dominant institution which enables them to
function. While it is true that, in the past, mankind was not subjected to
gain and profit as these now exist, it is also true that people were
exploited as beasts of burden who could be beaten or even killed at the whim
of their overlords. In comparison with the economic institutions of former
times, I would take the market any day.
Ed Weick
