{"product_id":"the-power-of-market-fundamentalism-karl-polanyis-critique","title":"The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi's Critique","description":"What is it about free-market ideas that give them tenacious staying power in the face of such manifest failures as persistent unemployment  widening inequality  and the severe financial crises that have stressed Western economies over the past forty years? Fred Block and Margaret Somers extend the work of the great political economist Karl Polanyi to explain why these ideas have revived from disrepute in the wake of the Great Depression and World War II  to become the dominant economic ideology of our time. Polanyi contends that the free market championed by market liberals never actually existed. While markets are essential to enable individual choice  they cannot be self-regulating because they require ongoing state action. Furthermore  they cannot by themselves provide such necessities of social existence as education  health care  social and personal security  and the right to earn a livelihood. When these public goods are subjected to market principles  social life is threatened and major crises ensue. Despite these theoretical flaws  market principles are powerfully seductive because they promise to diminish the role of politics in civic and social life. Because politics entails coercion and unsatisfying compromises among groups with deep conflicts  the wish to narrow its scope is understandable. But like Marxs theory that communism will lead to a \"withering away of the State \" the ideology that free markets can replace government is just as utopian and dangerous.","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44920523128885,"sku":"ByrdShop_0674050711","price":225.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/ByrdShop_0674050711.jpg?v=1768562614","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-power-of-market-fundamentalism-karl-polanyis-critique","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}