1001Philosophers

Karl Polanyi Quotes on Politics

Karl Polanyi was a Hungarian-American economic historian, social theorist, and political philosopher. This page collects quotes attributed to Karl Polanyi on the topic of politics, drawn from across the philosopher's works.

Quotes

  • Attributed to Karl Polanyi:

    “The road to the free market was opened and kept open by an enormous increase in continuous, centrally organized and controlled interventionism.”

  • Attributed to Karl Polanyi:

    “Society is the way human beings hold together.”

  • Attributed to Karl Polanyi:

    “Labor, land, and money are essentially fictitious commodities.”

  • Attributed to Karl Polanyi:

    “The market has been the outcome of a conscious and often violent intervention on the part of government.”

  • Attributed to Karl Polanyi:

    “Power and economic value are a paradigm of social reality.”