Hi, and thanks for the question
This is distilled from a number of sources, with my references listed below.
Polanyi argued that free-market policies were pushing human society to
breaking point.
He said that those economic theorists pushing for free markets did not
understand that the market is, and has always been through history, an
institution moulded by the social habits of people, driven by the
pressures and strains of everyday life.
Polyani thought that these economists free trade policies were
distrastrous for the economy of countries, because the theories
assumed that human beings act solely for financial gain, or to avoid
financial loss.
Polyani believed that it was only society's reaction to protect itself
against the abuses of the free market ( what he called the second
prong of the "Double Movement") that stopped free market economies
from destroying themselves.
Hope that answers your question
willie-ga
Sources:
A summary of Polyani's 1944 book: The Great Transformation: The
Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
http://www.epuget.com/page.asp?pid=1133
History, Economics, and Anthropology: The Work of Karl Polanyi
http://www.compilerpress.atfreeweb.com/Anno%20Humphreys%20The%20Work%20of%20Karl%20Polanyi%20HT%201969%20a.htm
Polanyi on The Oddity Of An "Economic Society"
Excerpts from economic historian Karl Polanyi's classic 1947 essay
"Our Obsolete Market Mentality: Civilization must Find a New Thought
Pattern."
http://instruct.uwo.ca/anthro/025/polanyi.htm
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