Karl Polanyi's demanding vision of freedom and democracy seems far from the reality of our times and current ideologies. However, a deeper analysis reveals the ability of his political philosophy not only to find a solution of the paradox of liberty in spite of social constraints, indeed through...

How can we explain why Karl Polanyi's book <i>The Great Transformation</i> is more relevant today than ever before? The central thesis of the paper is that Polanyi's analysis is groundbreaking because it goes far beyond the interpretation of the civilization of the nineteenth century. By focusing on...