Economic Sociology: an Introduction

經濟社會學專題：博藍尼

ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY SEMINAR:
KARL POLANYI AND HIS LEGACY

Department of Sociology, TunghaiUniversity

Spring, 2009

Wednesday: 9:10-12:00

Instructor:黃崇憲

Office Hours:Thursday 8:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. or by appointment

Phone: (04) 23590121 ext. 36313

Office: SS 539

E-mail:

Course Description

Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, The Great Transformation, offered a radical critique of how the market system has affected society and humanity since the industrial revolution. The main purpose of this course is devoted to a broader inquiry into the place and role of Karl Polanyi’s thought in contemporary economic sociology. More specifically, we’ll also engage an in-depth investigation on the central Polanyian thesis: that the market system threatens social life by the undue prominence it lends the economy in the organization of modern society. In doing so, this course brings together relevant literatures from neo-classical economics, economic anthropology, sociology and political economy to consider Polanyi's theories in the light of circumstances today, when the relationship between market and society has again become a focus of intense political and scientific debate. It will also demonstrate the relevance of Polanyi's ideas to various theoretical traditions in the social sciences and provides new perspectives on topics related to economic sociology.

The course format is a small graduate seminar. This provides an unparalleled opportunity to develop your understanding of economic sociology, through discussion of readings and ideas with your peers. However, the success of this format depends heavily on the commitment and participation of all involved. Thus, it is critical that you complete reading assignments and participate actively in class.

Class Citizenship

This course is designed as a discussion, research, and writing course. Lectures will form a small part of what we do in class. This is a participatory seminar. Please take time to read assignments carefully and thoughtfully. We will expect everyone to come to class prepared to summarize the main arguments in the readings and to discuss their strengths, weakness, the execution of the research, usefulness for theory building, and so on. I do NOT intend to lecture the class. In order to facilitate class discussion, we will begin each class right after the weekly presentation with a collective attempt to establish what the central arguments and the crucial issues of the readings are. Please always bring a copy of the reading so that you can consult it during our discussion. This way we can all, literally, be on the same page.

In a seminar course of this sort, it is my wish that I want the sessions and discussions to be as stimulating and exciting as possible, with a collegial and supportive atmosphere. Pedagogically, this seminar is dedicated to the proposition that knowledge is a collective product. This intellectual journey is intended to be collective; each participant (including me) is expected to contribute to our discussions and debates. Good seminars depend to a great extent on the seriousness of preparation by students. Let us all be good and responsible class citizens to make contributions as much as possible.

Requirements and Grading:

The requirements for this course are fourfold. You must fulfill all four of them; do not take this course if for whatever reason you cannot do so. All participants will be expected to: 1) take an active part in discussions (20%); 2) make at least three presentations on the readings to the seminar during the semester (20%); 3) prepare weekly issue memos on the week’s required readings (20%); 4) a final term paper or a critical journal (40%).

1)Active Participation in Discussion: remember and apply this aphorism of Wittgenstein: “Even to have expressed a false thought boldly and clearly is already to have gained a great deal.” So speak up and speak out! What each of you will get out of the course depends in good measure on how much you collectively put in. So, play a constructive role in discussion: offer your own ideas in small chunks instead of long monologues; draw out and ask for clarification of the opinions of others; pose issues and questions you may not know the answer to; learn to permit someone to disagree with you without feeling attacked; learn to express disagreement in ways that promote constructive discussion instead of polarization.

2)Seminar Presentations: Each week students will present that week’s readings and lead discussions. These presentations should be 25-30 minutes long for each and should try to establish a focused agenda for the discussion that follows. The point of the presentation is not to comprehensively summarize the readings, but to provide a critical evaluation, focusing on the strengths and weakness of the arguments/analyses, comparing different perspectives, and highlighting the most important issues and questions they raise as a way of launching the day’s discussion.

3) Weekly Issue Memo: to facilitate collective learning and avoid a situation of “pluralistic ignorance”, every week participants will submit issue-memo to the class as a whole by e-mail. I believe strongly that it is important for students to engage the week’s readings in written form prior to the seminar sessions. These weekly memos are intended to prepare the ground for good discussions by requiring participants to set out their initial responses to the readings which will improve the quality of the class discussion since students come to the sessions with an already thought-out agenda.

I refer to these short written comments as “issue memos”. They are not meant to be mini-papers on the readings; nor need they summarize the readings as such. Rather, they are meant to be a think-piece, reflecting your own intellectual engagement with the material: specifying what is obscure or confusing in the reading; taking up issue with some core idea or argument; exploring some interesting ramification of an idea in the reading. These memos do not have to deal with the most profound, abstract or grandiose arguments in the readings; the point is that they should reflect what you find most engaging, exciting or puzzling.

＊＊每週的issue memo，除了文本的核心摘要、讀後感、提問之外，還要針對該週讀本中所出現而自己不懂的entries提出附上說明。這需要尋找資料（可參考網路資料，但不要只有網路資料），並將這筆資料消化之後綜合。在memo中，這些詞彙可以以譯註的方式，附在memo中。

文本研讀整理與關鍵字詞釋義

1文本研讀整理：文本研讀整理之寫作要點除扼要闡述文本旨趣，尤應側重文本寫作構思、論述脈絡、方法策略，與閱讀後之批判質疑與獨立見解，以為課程中參與討論之基礎；文本研讀整理撰寫之字數約為1,500字。

2關鍵字詞釋義：每週上課時，由次週文本導言人依指定文本章節篇幅，擇取並彙整具備顯著意義之關鍵字詞，並於課程中分配予所有課程參與者。原則上每位課程參與者每週分配（至少）三個關鍵詞條目為該週作業。具體進行方式將於第一週上課，由任課教師提供運作模式；

次週文本導言人所匯集之關鍵字詞條目數目視文本內容以及修課人數而定，並於上課前一日將匯集之關鍵字詞條目傳寄予任課教師評閱確認；亦即每週導言人需於前一週將負責導言文本範圍內之關鍵字詞彙整提出，並分配予所有課程參與者；

課程參與者經分配獲得之關鍵字詞，請儘可能廣為參考各式百科全書、字辭典後，摘記該關鍵字詞之要義（皆請註明出處）；每個關鍵字詞釋義字數約為500字；關鍵字詞之撰寫樣式可參閱《知識的365堂課》（Noah D. Oppenheim, David S. Kidder著／蔡承志譯。臺北縣新店市：木馬文化，2008）之字詞條目。

3繳交時限：上述文本研讀整理與關鍵字詞釋義撰寫於同一Word檔案（第一部份為「文本研讀整理」，第二部份為「關鍵字詞釋義」），於各次討論課前一日（週二）以電子檔案傳寄至所有課程參與者，並於課程當日繳交書面紙本。

4檔案名稱格式：「memo-{xxxxxxxx八位數日期}-{姓名}」

範例（1）：「memo-20080925-XXX」

範例（2）：「memo-20080925-XXX-導言」

We will arrange to share these memos through e-mail, and the week’s presenters, if s/he likes, can use other students’ comments to prepare an agenda for discussion. In order for everyone to have time to read over other class participants’ comments, these will be imperatively due on e-mail NO LATER THANTUESDAY （the day before class）17:00. You are encouraged to read and to respond to each other’s issue memos both before and after the week’s meeting. These memos area real requirement, and failing to hand in memos will affect your grade. I will read through the memos to see if they are “serious”, but not grade them for “quality”. Since the point of this exercise is to enhance discussions, late memos will not be accepted. If you have to miss a seminar session for some reason, you are still required to prepare an issue memo for that session. Since I may not total the number of memos each student writes until the end of the semester, please keep copies to be sure of fulfilling the requirements. Students who submit memos should also be prepared to summarize/explain them in class.

4) Term Paper: the central assignment of this course is a crispy written, analytically rigorous term paper of no more than 15 pages (this limit is expressly designed to compel you to write with economy, precision and clarity). Students should meet with me to discuss their papers in week 8. A three-page proposal for the paper, with a set of questions, a bibliography, and some preliminary findings or evidence are to be submitted for approval by the instructor on or before Midterm. Students will present their work in progress in term-paper workshop in week 10, 22 April. Therefore, you may find it appropriate to begin thinking about term paper early in the course. Please feel free to discuss your ideas with me whenever you are ready to do so. Papers may be theoretical or reviews that work on one or more of the theoretical perspectives covered in the course. An empirical paper is also acceptable, but this will be more demanding since access to data may not be easy to obtain. The choice is up to each student. Guidelines for format of the paper are the Journal of Taiwanese Sociology guidelines. These guidelines are used in the hope that you will submit your term paper to the annual conference of Taiwanese Sociological Association. To help you develop your ideas and academic presentation skills, class section 10 will be devoted to presentations and discussions of student term papers. Papers connected to dissertation research are strongly recommended.

About Incompletes: Taking an incomplete is like going into debt with a loan shark. The day the deadline is past, interest starts accruing and the quality of paper you think you need to write grows exponentially. Most of the students I have given incompletes to in the past have taken much longer time and difficulties getting them done, and I have decided I must change my formerly lax policy. You are far better off doing the paper you can do now than trying to do the paper you wish you could do later. I am wiling to negotiate a deadline with you that accommodates your other obligations (e.g. grading responsibilities as a TA), but you must meet the deadline. If you realize you have defined your paper more broadly than you can execute, speak to me about narrowing the bounds of the paper, not about taking longer to do it.

Textbooks:

Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of OurTtime.With foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz ; introduction by Fred Block.Boston, MA :Beacon Press,

中譯：2004. 黃樹民，石佳音，廖立文譯。《鉅變：當代政治、經濟的起源》。台北：遠流。

＊簡體：2007. 馮鋼、劉陽譯。《大轉型：我們時代的政治與經濟起源》。杭州：浙江人民出版社。

Recommended Books:

Bugra, Ayse and Kaan Agartan. eds, 2007. Reading Karl Polanyi for the Twenty-First Century: Market Economy as a political Project. NY: Palgrave Macmilian.

Hann, Chris and Keith Hart. eds. 2009. Markets and Society: “The Great Transformation”

Today.Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Mendell, Marguerite and Daniel Salée. eds. 1991. The Legacy of Karl Polanyi : Market, State and Society at the End of the Twentieth century. New York : St. Martins Press.

Blyth, Mark.2002.Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

I am always happy to recommend additional readings tailored to your interests. Please see

me before or after class, or in office hours.

COURSE AGENDA AND WEEKLY THEMES

Week 1(2/18)Course Introduction

Week 2(2/25)Posing the Question: State or Market

Week 3(3/4) Introduction to The Great Transformation

Week 4(3/11)The Great Transformation (I)

Week 5(3/18)The Great Transformation (II)

Week 6(3/25)The Great Transformation (III)

Week 7(4/1) The Great Transformation (IV)

Week 8(4/8) The Great Transformation (V)

Week 9(4 /15)Midterm Exam (No Class)

Week 10(4/22)Term Paper Workshop

Week 11(4/29)The Great Transformation (VI)

Week 12(5/6)The Great Transformation (VII)

Week 13(5/13)The Great Transformation (VIII)

Week 14(5/20)Our Obsolete Market Mentality

Week 15(5/27) The Economy as Instituted Process

Week 16(6/3) The Legacy of Karl Polanyi

Week 17(6/10) Neo-Polayian Approach: Fred Block

Week 18(6/17)Final Exam (No Class)

SEMINAR SESSIONS & READING ASSIGNMENTS

Week 1.(2/18)Course Introduction

Week 2 (2/25)Posing the Question: State or Market

Background Reading:

Schwartz, Herman M. 2000. States versus. Markets: The Emergence of a Global Economy.. NY: Plagrave.

Core Reading:

Block, Fred L. 2003. “Karl Polanyi and the Writing of the Great Transformation. “Theory and Society 32 (3): 275-306.

影片觀賞：《世界經濟之戰》(Vol. 1-Vol. 2) （公視）

Suggested Reading:

Helleiner. 1995. “Great Transformations: A Polanyian Perspective on the Contemporary Global Financial Order,”Studies in Political Economy 48: 149-64.

Lacher, Hannes. 1999. “Embedded Liberalism, Disembedded Markets: Reconceptualising the Pax Americana,”New Political Economy 4, No. 3:343-60.

Lacher, Hannes. 1999. “The Politics of the Market: Re-reading Karl Polanyi, “Global Society 13, no. 3:313-26.

Week 3 (3/4)Introduction to The Great Transformation

Background Reading:

Humphreys, S. C. 1969, “History, Economics, and Anthropology: The Work of Karl Polanyi,”History and Theory 8, 165-212.

Stanfield, J. R. 1986. The economic thought of Karl Polanyi : lives and livelihood. London : Macmillan,

Kari Polanyi, Levitt. ed. 1990. The Life and work of Karl Polanyi : a celebration. Montréal ; New York : Black Rose Books,

Core Reading:

Block, Fred L. 2001. “Introduction” in The Great Transformation::The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, 2nd ed. Boston: Beacon Press. pp xviii-xxxviii

Stiglitz, Joseph. 2001. “foreword” inThe Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, 2nd ed. Boston: Beacon Press. Pp .vii-xvii

Suggested Reading:

Kenneth McRobbie. ed. 1994. Humanity, society, and commitment : On Karl Polanyi. Montréal ; New York : Black Rose Books.

Gregory Baum. 1996. Karl Polanyi on ethics and economics. Québec : McGill-Queen's University Press.

Week 4(3/11)The Great Transformation (I)

Core Reading:

Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of OurTtime.With foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz ; introduction by Fred Block.Boston, MA :Beacon Press. pp.1-32.
Ch.1 The Hundred Years’ Peace
Ch.2 Conservative Twenties, Revolutionary Thirties

Week 5(3/18)The Great Transformation (II)

Core Reading:

Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation:The Political and Economic Origins of OurTtime.With foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz ; introduction by Fred Block.Boston, MA :Beacon Press. pp.35-70.
Ch. 3 “Habitation versus Improvement”
Ch.4 Societies and Economic Systems
Ch.5 Evolution of the Market Pattern

Week 6(3/25)The Great Transformation (III)

Core Reading:

Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of OurTtime.With foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz ; introduction by Fred Block.Boston, MA :Beacon Press. pp.71-107.
Ch. 6 The Self-Regulting Market and the Fictitious Commodities; Labor, Land, and Money
Ch.7 Speenhamland, 1795
Ch. 8 Antecedents and Consequences.

Suggested Reading:

Week 7(4/1) The Great Transformation (IV)

Core Reading:

Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of OurTtime.With foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz ; introduction by Fred Block.Boston, MA :Beacon Press. pp.108-134.
Ch.9 Pauperism and Utopia
Ch.10 Political Economy and the Discovery of Society

Week 8 (4/8) The Great Transformation (V)

Core Reading:

Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of OurTtime.With foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz ; introduction by Fred Block.Boston, MA :Beacon Press. pp.136-170.
Ch. 12 Man, Nature, and Productive organization
Ch. 13 Birth of the Liberal Creed
Ch. 14 Birth of the Liberal Creed(Continued): Class Interest and Social Change

Week 9 (4 /15)Midterm Exam (No Class)

Week 10(4/22)Term-Paper Workshop.

＊本週繳交期末報告大綱

Week 11(4/29)The Great Transformation (VI)

Core Reading:

Week 12(5/6)The Great Transformation (VII)

Core Reading:

Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of OurTtime.With foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz ; introduction by Fred Block.Boston, MA :Beacon Press. pp. 201-228.
Ch.16 Market and Productive Organizsation
Ch. 17 Self-Regulation Impaired
Ch. 18 Disruptive Strains

Week 13 (5/13)The Great Transformation (VIII)

Core Reading:

Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of OurTtime.With foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz ; introduction by Fred Block. Boston, MA :Beacon Press. pp. 231-268.
Ch.19 Popular Government and Market Economy
Ch.20 History in the Grar of Social Change
Ch. 21 Freedomin a Complex Society

Week 14 (5/20)Our Obsolete Market Mentality

Core Reading:

Polanyi, Karl “Our Obsolete Market Mentality: Civilization Must Find a New Thought” Pattern.’ Commentary 3 (2): 109-117.

Suggested Reading:

North, Douglass C. 1977. “Markets and Other Allocation Systems in History: The Challenge of Karl Polanyi.” Journal of European Economic History 6: 703-1亦收在Richard Swedberg, ed., Economic Sociology. Cheltenham: E. Elgar Pub. Co., 1996。

Helm, June, Paul Bohannan and Marshall D. Sahlins,eds. 1985. Essays in economic anthropology : dedicated to the memory of Karl Polanyi. New York, N.Y. : AMS Press.

Week 15(5/27) The Economy as Instituted Process

Core Reading:

Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Economy as Instituted Process. Pp.31-50 in The Sociology of Economic Life, edited by Mark Granovetter and Richard Swedberg.Boulder: Westview Press.

Suggested Reading:

Barber, Bernard. 1993[1977]. “Absolutization of the Market: Some Notes on How We Got From There to Here.” in Constructing the Social System. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Pp. 217-234.

－ .1995. “All Economies are ‘Embedded’: The Career of a Concept, and Beyond.”Social Research 62 (2): 387–413.

Krippner Greta R. 2001 “The Elusive Market: Embeddedness and the Paradigm of Economic Sociology.”Theory and Society 30 (6): 775-810.

Krippner Greta R. and Anthony S. Alvarez 2007. “Embeddedness and the Intellectual Projects of Economic Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 33: 219-240.

Krippner Greta R., Mark Granovetter, Fred Block, Nicole Biggart, Tom Beamish, Youtien Hsing, Gillian Hart, Giovanni Arrighi, Margie Mendell, John Hall, Michael Burawoy, Steve Vogel, and Sean O'Riain. 2004. “Polanyi Symposium: A Conversation on Embeddedness.”Socio-Economic Review 2 (1): 109-135.

Jessop, Bob. 1997. “Regulationist and Autopoieticist Reflections on Polanyi's Account of Market Economies and the Market Society.” New Political Economy 6 (2): 213–32.

---- .2001. “The Social Embeddedness of the Economy and Its Implications for Economic Governance “(draft), published by the Department of Sociology, Lancaster University at:

Rizza, Roberto. 2006. “The Relationship between Economics and Sociology: The Contribution of Economic Sociology, Setting out from the Problem of Embeddedness.” International Review of Sociology 16 (1): 31-48.

Week 16 (6/3) The Legacy of Karl Polanyi

Background Reading:

Fligstein, Neil and. Luke Dauter. 2007. “The Sociology of Markets.” Annual Review of Sociology 33 (1):105-128.

Fourcade-Gourinchas, Marion. 2007.Theories of Markets and Theories of Society. American Behavioral Scientist 50(8):1015-1034.

Core Reading:

Block, Fred L. and Margaret R. Somers. 1984. “Beyond the Economistic Fallacy: The Holistic Social Science of Karl Polanyi.” n Vision and Method in Historical Sociology, edited by Theda Skocpo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 47-84 i