Kari Polanyi Levitt and Canadian Political Economy


Book Description

This book acts as a tribute to the legacy of the Canadian political economist Kari Polanyi Levitt, daughter of Karl Polanyi, one of the great economists of the 20th century. Polanyi Levitt’s life and work were devoted to understanding the scientific and political challenges that humanity faces and the incredible impacts of development, trade, and globalization in their diverse manifestations, including in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic. This book reflects on Polanyi Levitt’s conviction that the solution to contemporary challenges lies not in the development of sophisticated technologies, but in questioning how we want to live with each other and working to re-embed the economy in the wider social system. Ultimately, the book contends that Polanyi Levitt’s message is simple: humanity must rethink the way we live in this world our place in the universe, and our relationship with nature. Drawing on a 10-year research project encompassing interviews and literature review, this short volume introduces and celebrates Kari Polanyi Levitt's legacy and invites political economists to engage with her work.




Essays on the Theory of Plantation Economy


Book Description

This important book provides a fascinating insight into the conceptual under-pinnings of the theory of plantation economy initiated by Lloyd Best and Kari Levitt in the 1960s as a basis for analysing the nature of the Caribbean economy. While acknowledging an intellectual debt to Latin American structuralists and also to the work of Dudley Seers and William Demas, the authors develop an original and innovative analytical framework as a counter to more "universalist" models which failed to take account of the Caribbean reality. Their work identifies the main features of the plantation economy as a hinterland characterized by subordination and dependency on the dominant metropole. Distinguishing between hinterlands of conquest, settlement and exploitation, Best and Levitt analyse the rules that determine this complex relationship with the metropole. Their economic theories are presented against a background of the historical factors that gave rise to the "structural continuity" of Caribbean economies and which now impede meaningful structural transformation. Book jacket.




From the Great Transformation to the Great Financialization


Book Description

Four years into the unfolding of the most serious crisis since the 1930s, Karl Polanyi's prediction of the fateful consequences of unleashing the destructive power of unregulated market capitalism on peoples, nations, and the natural environment has assumed new urgency and relevance. Polanyi's insistence that 'the self-regulating market' must be made subordinate to democracy, otherwise society itself may be put at risk, is as true today as it was when Polanyi wrote. Written from the unique perspective of his daughter, From the Great Transformation to the Great Financialization is an essential contribution to our understanding of the evolution and contemporary significance of Karl Polanyi's work, and should be read against the background of the accelerating accumulation of global finance that created a series of financial crises in Latin America, Russia, Asia, and, eventually, the heartlands of capitalism itself.




Silent Surrender


Book Description

The Recolonization of Canada -- The Old Mercantilism and the New -- The Rise of the Nation State -- Regression to Dependence -- Who Decides? -- Metropolis and Hinterland -- The Harvest of Lengthening Dependence -- Appendix: The New Mercantilism of U.S. Direct Involvement.




Critical Development Theory


Book Description

In the late 20th century, there has been a rethinking of the whole concept of development, including a growing awareness of its gender, cultural and environmental dimensions, and the impact of globalization. The contributors to this volume seek to extend these debates to a more fundamental level, tackling such issues as the crisis of development as an intellectual and practical project, the need for a break with development as a Eurocentric concept, and the viability of alternative, non-Western forms of development. The contributors aim to transcend critiques of development which simply engage in a blanket dismissal of the whole enterprise and instead offer ways of re-engaging with reality that, despite globalization, is still a dimension of the late-20th century.




Economy and Society: Selected Writings


Book Description

Few figures are more crucial to understanding the upheavals of our contemporary era than Karl Polanyi. In a world riven by social and economic crises, from rising inequality to the decay of democratic institutions and profound technological disruption, Polanyi’s path-breaking account of the dynamics of market capitalism and his defence of society and nature against the dangerous tendencies of the market capitalist system are more relevant than ever. This book brings together Polanyi’s most important articles and essays to give a unique selection of his essential shorter writings, mixing classic texts with significant but previously little-known pieces. It highlights the coherence and richness of Polanyi’s theoretical and political approach, making it indispensable for understanding his overarching intellectual contribution. The volume includes his interwar writings, which deal with the world economic crisis and the socialist alternative to conservative and fascist developments; his reflection on political theory and the international situation after the war; and his comparative studies of economic institutions. Polanyi’s political writings are complemented and supported by the critique of economic determinism and what he termed ‘our obsolete market mentality’. This book is an invaluable companion to Polanyi’s masterpiece, The Great Transformation, and an essential resource for students and scholars of political economy, sociology, history and political philosophy.




Development in an Era of Neoliberal Globalization


Book Description

This book analyses the progress and failures of capitalist development against the backdrop of an increasingly globalised world economy organised on neoliberal principles. It brings together eminent writers on the political economy of international development such as Kari Polanyi-Levitt, Norman Girvan, Osvaldo Sunkel, Paul Bowles, Manfred Bienefeld and Walden Bellos, to examine from a critical perspective the contemporary dynamics of a system in crisis--issues of capitalist development and globalization within the neoliberal world order. The essays, written in tribute to Surendra Patel for his contribution to the field of development studies, cover subjects including the financial crisis of 2008, the regional dynamics of neoliberal globalization, democracy and development, the political economy of natural resource extraction, and the formation of a postneoliberal state oriented towards a new economic model. Drawing on an analysis of the development process in the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa and the Philippines, it considers the historical foundations that impact on economic growth and technological transformation, and evaluates the relationship between capital and the state, and the role of NGOs and social movements in the context of the debate on neoliberal globalization. Development in an Era of Neoliberal Globalization will be of interest to students and scholars of international politics and economic development, the political economy of globalisation, the sociology and politics of development, and developments in Latin America and the Caribbean.




For a New West


Book Description

At a recent meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, it was reported that a ghost was haunting the deliberations of the assembled global elite - that of the renowned social scientist and economic historian, Karl Polanyi. In his classic work, The Great Transformation, Polanyi documented the impact of the rise of market society on western civilization and captured better than anyone else the destructive effects of the economic, political and social crisis of the 1930s. Today, in the throes of another Great Recession, Polanyi’s work has gained a new significance. To understand the profound challenges faced by our democracies today, we need to revisit history and revisit his work. In this new collection of unpublished texts - lectures, draft essays and reports written between 1919 and 1958 - Polanyi examines the collapse of the liberal economic order and the demise of democracies in the inter-war years. He takes up again the fundamental question that preoccupied him throughout his work - the place of the economy in society - and aims to show how we might return to an economy anchored in society and its cultural, religious and political institutions. For anyone concerned about the danger to democracy and social life posed by the unleashing of capital from regulatory control and the dominance of the neoliberal ideologies of market fundamentalism, this important new volume by one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century is a must-read.




Reclaiming Democracy


Book Description

Contributors include Samir Amin (Third World Forum, Senegal), Lloyd Best (Trinidad and Tobago Institute of the West Indies), Duncan Cameron (University of Ottawa), Ursula Franklin (University of Toronto), Norman Girvan (University of West Indies), Denis Goulet (University of Notre Dame), Arvind Sharma (McGill University), Carolyn Sharp (Saint Paul's University), Mel Watkins (University of Toronto), and Michael Witter (University of the West Indies).




The Great Transformation


Book Description

'One of the most powerful books in the social sciences ever written. ... A must-read' Thomas Piketty 'The twentieth century's most prophetic critic of capitalism' Prospect Karl Polanyi's landmark 1944 work is one of the earliest and most powerful critiques of unregulated markets. Tracing the history of capitalism from the great transformation of the industrial revolution onwards, he shows that there has been nothing 'natural' about the market state. Instead of reducing human relations and our environment to mere commodities, the economy must always be embedded in civil society. Describing the 'avalanche of social dislocation' of his time, Polanyi's hugely influential work is a passionate call to protect our common humanity. 'Polanyi's vision for an alternative economy re-embedded in politics and social relations offers a refreshing alternative' Guardian 'Polanyi exposes the myth of the free market' Joseph Stiglitz With a new introduction by Gareth Dale