This paper integrates material and ideological conditions based on the market society and the market economy. From the chapter, Polanyi indicates the emergence of the market economy as the great transformation; due to industrial revolution and the development of market mechanism. The Great Transformation, Polanyi talks about historical stories that relate. First of all being the development or evolution of the market society. Secondly, the evolution of economic liberalism (the market economy).
From the readings, I have discovered that the society is dependent on the existence of the market. “Market economy implies a self-regulating system of markets” (Polanyi 43). This implies that the economy is being determines by the market prices. The
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As such, things became more structured and the market society developed. Based on the economic man, the economic man was brought up through a phrase made by Adam Smith. Adam Smith said upon man’s “propensity to barter, truck and exchange one thing for another” (Polanyi 43). Before, people saw themselves socially, in the sense that the economy was engulfed or overwhelmed in social relation of the society. But Polanyi’s view of the market society contradicts this as he views the market society in the sense that social relations are grounded or submerged in the economy. Polanyi talks about the market society saying that “the market society is a society regulated by the market” (Polanyi, 163). Adam Smith suggested, “the division of labor in the society was dependent upon the existence of the markets” (Polanyi 43). Polanyi did not agree with Adam Smith’s idea, as he was able to establish through historical and anthropological research that the system of economy was inclined by social means to back up the social claims, social standings, and social assets. “… he acts so as to safeguards his social standing, his social claims, his social assets” (Polanyi 46). As …show more content…
People had to really be hard working as a duty. They did not need to be rewarded physically as a form of motivation to work but they were intrinsically motivated. “This idea of hard work as a duty that carries its own intrinsic reward…” (Bendix 51). According to Werber, “it is an obligation which an individual is supposed to feel and does feel towards the content of his occupational activity, no matter in what it consist.” (Bendix 51). Weber was saying here that people should work as a means of personal contentment, because he wanted to and not because he was obligated to