Using Karl Polanyi's analysis of the separation of politics and the economy, the book argues that the market economy is not a spontaneous process, but a 'political project' realized through institutional change where labour, land, money, and currently knowledge are commodities. The contributions explore the impact of this commodification process.
1 Suppressing the Double Movement to Secure the Dictatorship of Finance by Manfred Bienefeld 13
2 The 1970s and After: The Political Economy of Inflation and the Crisis of Social Democracy by Pat Devine 33
3 The Slight Transformation: Contesting the Legacy of Karl Polanyi by Hannes Lacher 49
4 Labor Recommodification in the Global Transformation by Guy Standing 67
5 The Right to Work, Way of Social Exclusion? Basic Income as a Guarantee to the Right to Work by Jose Luis Rey Perez 95
6 Knowledge as a Fictitious Commodity: Insights and Limits of a Polanyian Perspective by Bob Jessop 115
7 Commercialization of Science in a Neoliberal World by Gurol Irzik 135
8 Intellectual Property: Commodification and Its Discontents by Virginia Brown-Keyder 155
9 Polanyi's Concept of Double Movement and Politics in the Contemporary Market Society by Ayse Bugra 173
10 Reforming East Asian Labor Systems: China, Korea, and Thailand by Frederic C. Deyo and Kaan Agartan 191
11 The Strong Embrace of Weak Actors: Explaining Social Support for Economic Liberalization through the Case Study of Small Business Associations in the European Union by Kevin Young 219
12 Corporate Social Responsibility and Market Society: Credit and Banking Inclusion in Brazil by Maria Alejandra Caporale Madi and Jose Ricardo Barbosa Goncalves 235