Federico Caffè shows an unremitting interest in institutional economics. This article traces the source of this attitude to his affinity with ‘mainstream’ institutionalists. Like them, Caffè is aware of the historical-institutional nature and the open-system character of the economic...

A fundamental principle of Karl Polanyi's institutional outlook is that any economic system has to be considered as a whole and as a historically specific social organization. This principle implies a comparative method and a critique of conventional economics. Besides, the problem of the...

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...