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EHS Abstract Submission
(c) 1997 EH.Net
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Name: H|seyin Vzel
Email: ozel@lidya.cc.hun.edu.tr
Institution: Hacettepe University
Co-author:
Title: Reclaiming Humanity: The Social Theory of Karl Polanyi
Type of work: E
Internet Address
of abstracted work:
By mail:
H|seyin Vzel
Department of Economics
Hacettepe University,
06532 Beytepe, Ankara - TURKEY
Language: English
Abstract:
This dissertation examines Karl Polanyi's social theory,
which underlies his critique of the market economy, and
argues that this theory is founded on an understanding
of a human being as the unity of individuality and sociality
and as a moral being characterized by freedom. However,
the market system, which is organized on the basis of the
three fictitious commodities, namely labor, land, and money,
generates a dehumanization process within which these
characteristics are negated. This dehumanization results
from the commodification of life itself and signifies the
separation of human beings from their natural surroundings,
from each other and even from their own capacities and powers.
The emphasis on this process, it is argued, is the uniting
element of Polanyi's thought with that of Marx. Since the
result of such a process is the disintegration of the society,
it is natural for human beings to protect the social fabric
against the market, as emphasized in Polanyi's notion
of the "double movement," which is formed by the extension
of the market and society's "self-protection" and which gives
the capitalist society its unstable character.
However, it is argued that the success of this protective
countermovement against dehumanization depends on conscious
resistance to the "market mentality" dominating every aspects
of life in a capitalist society, which in turn requires the
emphasis on the "species" character of human beings, that is,
on freedom and on the unity of individuality and sociality.
Bibliography: Ph. D. dissertation, The University of Utah, August 1997
Subject: B25
Geographical Area: 4
Country/Region: Turkey
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