P.S.: My reading of Polanyi is that he notes that people will not stand for a society in which wealth is the only source of social power, and that people will especially demand that the use of the land—the shape of the built and non-built environment—the levels of individuals incomes, and most of all that the allocation of finance to keep the wheels of industry going must conform to non-economic social and sociological expectations and intuitions of what is appropriate. From one perspective this is market economic logic vs. social justice. From another perspective, we must never forget that often what people feel to be "social justice" is profoundly unjust: worse for you not to receive from the market the income you deserve is for you to watch others receive much larger incomes than they deserve. And I think Polanyi recognized that.
Thus I do not think Polanyi thought that "fascism... [had] nothing to do with racism, nationalism, conservatism". That the market was not validating keeping the Black man, keeping the Pole in his place, keeping women in the kitchen was a key part of the societal half of the part of Polanyi's double movement in which society tried to constrain and control the market.
Thank you Brad! I must admit, I am blown away with surprise that you actually read this! Very kind of you, and much appreciated.
I do not disagree with your reading of Polanyi (I hope that was clear above). That particular quote of mine you cited was, in retrospect, a slight embellishment of Polanyi's initial "fascism had as little to do with the Great War as with the Versailles treaty, with Junker militarism as with the Italian temperament". You are right to call me out on it! That said, surely you would agree that Polanyi finds oft-cited features - nationalism, conservatism, etc - as "symptoms", not components, of fascism (which is, I feel, against the grain of popular understanding). A few quotes come to mind:
"counterrevolution and revisionism... were easily confounded with fascism" (GT, 248)
"important signs [symptoms] were the spread of irrationalist philosophies, racialist aesthetics,..." (GT, 246)
"By accident only... was European fascism in the 1920's connected with national and counterrevolutionary tendencies. It was a case of symbiosis between movements of independent origin, which reinforced one another and created the impression of essential similarity, while being actually unrelated". (GT, 250)
Anyway, I am sure I have misread Polanyi here (or, at least, am blinded by only having read the Great Transformation). I would only say that although those discriminations you mentioned were, of course, a part of the double movement, they were not a part of fascism pure - for this Polanyi. Your book is what finally got me to read the Great Transformation (after starting Slouching, I realised ten pages in I had to stop and read Polanyi first!) So thank you for that also!
Thanks much! Yours, Brad DeLong
P.S.: My reading of Polanyi is that he notes that people will not stand for a society in which wealth is the only source of social power, and that people will especially demand that the use of the land—the shape of the built and non-built environment—the levels of individuals incomes, and most of all that the allocation of finance to keep the wheels of industry going must conform to non-economic social and sociological expectations and intuitions of what is appropriate. From one perspective this is market economic logic vs. social justice. From another perspective, we must never forget that often what people feel to be "social justice" is profoundly unjust: worse for you not to receive from the market the income you deserve is for you to watch others receive much larger incomes than they deserve. And I think Polanyi recognized that.
Thus I do not think Polanyi thought that "fascism... [had] nothing to do with racism, nationalism, conservatism". That the market was not validating keeping the Black man, keeping the Pole in his place, keeping women in the kitchen was a key part of the societal half of the part of Polanyi's double movement in which society tried to constrain and control the market.
And we do see all of that at work today...
Thank you Brad! I must admit, I am blown away with surprise that you actually read this! Very kind of you, and much appreciated.
I do not disagree with your reading of Polanyi (I hope that was clear above). That particular quote of mine you cited was, in retrospect, a slight embellishment of Polanyi's initial "fascism had as little to do with the Great War as with the Versailles treaty, with Junker militarism as with the Italian temperament". You are right to call me out on it! That said, surely you would agree that Polanyi finds oft-cited features - nationalism, conservatism, etc - as "symptoms", not components, of fascism (which is, I feel, against the grain of popular understanding). A few quotes come to mind:
"counterrevolution and revisionism... were easily confounded with fascism" (GT, 248)
"important signs [symptoms] were the spread of irrationalist philosophies, racialist aesthetics,..." (GT, 246)
"By accident only... was European fascism in the 1920's connected with national and counterrevolutionary tendencies. It was a case of symbiosis between movements of independent origin, which reinforced one another and created the impression of essential similarity, while being actually unrelated". (GT, 250)
Anyway, I am sure I have misread Polanyi here (or, at least, am blinded by only having read the Great Transformation). I would only say that although those discriminations you mentioned were, of course, a part of the double movement, they were not a part of fascism pure - for this Polanyi. Your book is what finally got me to read the Great Transformation (after starting Slouching, I realised ten pages in I had to stop and read Polanyi first!) So thank you for that also!