The Polanyian Paradox
Structural Violence and the Contradiction of Capitalism
The economist Karl Polanyi, in his best known work The Great Transformation (1957) posed the question as to whether a “self adjusting market” could exist for any length of time without “annihilating the human and natural substance of society,” (cited in Robbins, n.d.). The so-called “Polanyian Paradox,” quite simply asks whether the market system of economic production, loosely termed as “capitalism” and trade can perform on a global scale in an modern technological industrialized framework without causing irreparable harm to the natural environment nor the socially vulnerable, namely the poor and marginalized, and therefore disrupting the “social organization upon which it is based upon,” (Robbins, n.d.).
Signs of imminent crisis on a world-scale on multiple fronts call upon scholars to re-evaluate the paradigm in which the global community has been chosen to organize itself. The issue is particularly urgent as the violent social uprisings led by neo-fascists and religious fundamentalists in Middle East and Eastern Europe demonstrate unprecedented civic violence and population displacement such as in the cases of Syria, the Ukraine, Egypt, and not long ago Greece; to the economic downturn and widespread unemployment and underemployment in the USA and in certain parts of Canada and Western Europe being called by many a prelude to the next great depression. These sets of political-economic indicators bear the historical resemblance of the lead up to the great wars of the 20th century only in today’s context, the consequences stemming from the proliferation of nuclear weapons make the outbreak of inter-state armed conflict between the great powers unimaginably dangerous to the continued survival of the human species itself (see Noam Chomsky or Michel Chossudovsky).
Anthropologists have noted that within the context of the Western European liberal capitalist market democracy system power is exercised coercive means, which may explain the motivations behind the recurring strife, conflict, and wanton destruction and violence committed by states throughout modern historical era. Furthermore, it points to an important area for critical theorising in the 21st century as a methodology for designing an alternative system in the present and for the future, attempting to bypass and pre-empt the outcome of a global economic and ecological collapse scenario in the process.
The nation state, largely characterized by the centrality of commercial businesses within and partnered with the state was first conceived of by theorists such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke as a means of reconciling the rise of a new class of wealthy merchants and the declining old dynasties of monarch families who formerly maintained order over the European continent. The sovereign nation state became legitimated through Westphalian Treaty of 1648. It was implemented in the aftermath of a period of interstate and intrastate turmoil compelling elites to consign to the state authorization of use of force to protect its borders from invasion or against domestic insurgency so as to ensure protection of wealthy so-called “property owners,” hence establishing the regime of the rule of law (Sens, Stoett, 2011).
This new regime gave land entitlement to the wealthy elite, displacing peasants. Peasants were made dependent upon elites for access to land, and elites in-kind depended upon peasants for their labour on the land and labour for other commodities. (Robbins, 2002). Capitalism came to exist as an economic order based upon the principle of the accumulation of surplus wealth, through managed labour and international trading. However Capitalism came to be seen by certain canonical idealist philosophers like Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant, as a system that worked for the for the benefit of all mankind, with compelling reason. Capitalism as we understand it today didn’t emerge suddenly by invention or by force but rather through the “patterning” of social behaviour and social stratification as Polanyi initially theorized. The reification of the economic system we know of as Capitalism developed out of the relations of mutual dependency that emerged through generations of periods of conflict and cooperation among merchant investors “capitalist”, the employed labourer and above all the consumer, giving rise to the “society of perpetual growth,”(Robbins, 2002, p. 15).
Through Protestantism and Calvinism that later developed this notion was taken even further, that of wealth gained through labour within the capitalist economy was regarded as a sign of God’s favour. (Graham, Swift, Delaney, 2001). Henceforth imperialist and hegemonic tendencies of the old dynasties resumed with new vitality as expressed through the campaigns of colonial conquest and enslavement of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and parts of Asia, particularly India and East Asian countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines. Consequentially, indigenous peoples of the new found world in North America became the targets of genocidal mass murder. Similarly millions of Africans, Caribbean, Indians and East Asians subjected to centuries of bonded servitude and inhumane treatment done in the name of supplying labour and resources to the colonial powers and wealthy individuals (Robbins 2002).
Thomas Malthus, a former theologian who came to become a self-styled economist, purported to have discovered scientific claims to justify the punishment of poor and tribal communities. His views, combined with later misconceptions of Darwin’s theories on the evolution of species would form the framework for future efforts by certain elite institutions in setting policies aimed at controlling the the growth of populations of conquered peoples in destitution. Malthus explicitly advocated for the restriction of charity and government welfare, and furthermore suggested that indigent populations be forcibly contained within ghettos or reservations so that they could be denied of food and medical treatment. In some-instances governments reprehensibly attempted programs of forced sterilization. (Robbins, 2002) It is arguable that these programs and policies continue to be followed by certain political factions in both the developed and developing world.
Contemporary scholars in developmental economics, international law, human geography, and critical theory have been paying considerable respects to the problem of poverty in India and China in particular (see John Harris, Richard Robbins, Paul Farmer, Amartya Sen, Vandana Shiva, Akhil Gupta, or Partha Dasgupta). Harris, (2013) in particular, has tried to frame the crisis of poverty and population growth in India in the discourse of facilitating access to citizen rights (e.g. public health-care, child-care, education, meaningful and dignified employment with fair compensation, etc.), whereas the status-quo approach taken by the current bureaucracy has in general only addressed the problems from the perspective of supplying basic needs, (e.g. minimal food rationing, and income assistance).
Gupta, (cited in Harris, 2013) speculates that the state of India, through its negligence, could be responsible for the deaths of up to 2 million people per year. So-called ‘poverty-reduction strategies’ employed by status-quo bureaucracies, fail to “prioritize” the problem, but instead “normalise” or “depoliticise” the crisis, and generally take an “indifferent” attitude toward tackling the problems of poverty, homelessness, hunger and disease affecting what could be as high as 80% of the population by some measurements (Harriss, 2013). In this regard, the term “structural violence” has been gaining significance as a concept that explains how subtle and overt forms of “discrimination,” are prevalent in the language of economic analysis and prescriptions, as well as in government legislation, leading predictably to rapidly increasing disease and deaths from chronic illnesses (cancers, diabetes, heart diseases, HIV/AIDs, etc), directly tied to malnourishment poverty, and homelessness.
(Harris, 2013) Robbins (n.d.) and Fraser (2011) have each proposed revisiting Polanyi’s theories on capitalism, (as an updated explanation to Marx’s initial critique) as a unique cultural phenomenon from a critical and anthropological perspective. Both have claimed capitalism exists as a dominant ideology (i.e. hegemony) through centuries of violence and social engineering. It follows that the processes in place as precondition enabling capitalism to function, primarily the structure of the nation state and its mechanisms of coercion, the monetary system, the profit motivation, and so fourth, need to be brought to the “foreground,” (Fraser, 2011), for examination for the purposes of political, economic and structural reform. Robbins’s claim that the language of economics and the language of “capital accumulation” used by economists “ignores” and “obscures” the social, political, and cultural factors that are “central to the processes of economic expansion.”
For an equitable and sustainable world order to come in to being, advocates and critics should place high emphasis on examining the crisis’ we face from a cultural anthropological perspective in order to inform alternative models of economic exchange and democratic governance, setting a new course for the 21st century.
References
Fraser, N. (2011). “Marketization, Social Protection, Emancipation: Toward a Neo-Polanyian Conception of Capitalist Crisis.” in Calhoun, C., Derluguian, G., (eds). Business as Usual: The Roots of the Global Financial Meltdown. New York: New York University Press.
Graham, R., Swift, K., Delaney, R. (2001). Canadian Social Policy: An Introduction 2e. Toronto: Pearson Education.
Harris, J. (2013). “State of Injustice: The Indian State & Poverty.” Vancouver: School of International Studies, Simon Fraser University. Retrieved from https://www.fhs.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/internationalstudies/documents/swp/WP29.pdf March 2014.
Robbins, R. H., (2002). “The Nation State: Origins, History, Evolution and Function,” in Capitalism: Global Problems in the Culture of Capitalism 2e. Boston: Pearson Education.
Robbins, R. H., (n.d.) “Polanyi’s Paradox Revisited: A Proposal for Revisiting Capital Accumulation.” Retrieved from http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/richard.robbins/Stuff/polanyi.htm March 2014.
Sens, A., Stoett, P. (2011). “History and Global Politics: War and Peace,” in Global Politics: Origins, Currents, Directions. Toronto: Nelson Education.
(c) 2014
