Western Capitalism in Transition. Global Processes, Local Challenges

In this introduction we draw an interpretative framework of the dynamic of capitalism based on Karl Polanyi’s theory of the embeddedness of the ‘economic’ in the ‘social’. We argue that changes in capitalist societies are characterised by a dynamic double movement. During periods of predominance for market-driven mechanisms in the allocation of resources, economic relations tend to dis-embed from their social foundations, meaning that the logic of economic behaviour is separated from its roots. This separation is not sustainable in the long run, and in causing various negative consequences, it triggers a counter-movement that gives momentum to a phase of re-embeddedness of economic activities into a stronger societal steering framework. It is within this double movement that we think we can understand how socio-economic tensions arise, how capitalism is transformed, and how social change is produced.