Hungarian social theorist Karl Polanyi is best known for his exploration of the collapse of liberal institutions that occurred between 1914 and 1945. His book, The Great Transformation, traces the catastrophes of those decades to the globalisation of market liberalism.
In his view, the attempt by liberal social engineers to establish a “self-regulated” market system was bound to tear the social fabric, provoking responses that would undermine the operation of the system itself.
