Early neoliberals prefigured Polanyi by demanding the economy be re-embedded in society.

Evidence

Prefiguring Karl Polanyi’s analy­sis of market fundamentalism in The ­Great Transformation, Rüstow said at the Lipp­mann Colloquium that “the market had become a domain of atomization” and the belief that the market “operates by itself” was a “theologico-­rational error.” One-­sided focus on efficiency, profit, and productivity had led to a so­cio­log­i­cally damaging isolation and the degeneration of morality as the individual became detached from all community. In a cruel paradox, the experience of being severed from all social ties and set adrift in the world “appears from the point of view of the market economy as liberation from friction and extra-­economic drag.” Without using the term “embeddedness” itself, Rüstow and Röpke effectively argued that the economy must be re-­embedded in society. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 286

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to Polanyi’s Great Transformation; notable that the same anti-market-fundamentalism thesis appears on both the left (Polanyi) and the emerging neoliberal right (Rüstow/Röpke). — connects to: Two rival readings of Polanyi’s double movement differ on reform versus revolution; Data colonialism extends Polanyi’s fictional commodities to turn reality into tracked behavior — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 740; Early neoliberals shared Polanyi’s conviction that economies must be embedded — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 403

Broader Connections

• Early neoliberals shared Polanyi’s conviction that economies must be embedded #corroborates (1.00) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 403