The Great Transformation examines the social and political changes that took place in England during the rise of the market economy. One of the primary conclusions Karl Polanyi makes, and something that differentiates him from Keynes and Hayek, is that the nation state and the newly formed market economy are not separate entities but are one object of human invention which he refers to as ‘the market society’. For Polanyi, this meant that any philosophy which sided with either market or state as the solution to our economic problems – for example, neo-liberalism on one hand or state socialism on the other – was likely to be simplistic.
Karl Polanyi narrates the historical development of the market society in The Great Transformation.