Karl Polanyi’s environmental sociology: a primer

Drawing upon The Great Transformation (1944), we outline Karl Polanyi’s environmental sociology by providing a primer for emerging and other scholars with little exposure to this major work. While best known for his critique of laissez-faire/liberal economics, particularly reflecting upon the works of the Austrian School of Economics, we believe his unique and broad insights give particular grounding to environmental sociology itself. In addition to illustrating Polanyi’s more well-known concepts of economic substantivism, fictitious commodities and the double movement, we highlight Polanyi’s deeper argument for morality in society-environmental affairs. Polanyi offers a critique of the market that is not Marxian. Rather, he focuses explicitly on the unnaturalness and immorality of an economy that does not place the needs of full society and the environment at its centre. Hence, Polanyi does not reflect on the growth or the eventual collapse of capitalism, but rather the importance of an activist government and alternative forms of organizing that protects people, society and the environment. We include a brief discussion on how the current US politics and the Trump Administration’s actions illustrate some of Polanyi’s insights. We also apply Polanyian thinking to current research on the new sharing economy, connecting it with a theoretical foundation. To conclude, we present new lines of inquiry for environmental sociologists to consider.