2.1.1.2. The four forms of social integration

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In his The Great Transformation Karl Polanyi (2001) identifies four principles of behaviour having shaped economic systems of societies throughout history: reciprocity, redistribution, householding and exchange. Reciprocity pertains to symmetrical economic relations in which individuals provide goods and services to each other based on custom, ensuring such transactions are mutually beneficial. Redistribution is the process when goods are collected in and redistributed from one centre based on rules. Householding refers to the practice of catering for the needs of one’s household. Finally, exchange is the process through which individuals exchange goods and services freely based on the value they represent.

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Polanyi argues that one of the four principles above has always constituted the basis of any form of social organisation. He identifies the rise of global capitalism with the triumph of exchange over other forms of social integration that were dominant in pre-capitalist societies. Although the other three mechanisms are present in capitalism as well, they only play a subsidiary role to exchange.

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Marketplaces existed before capitalist transformation began as places of exchange, however, people’s living conditions did not overwhelmingly depend on the exchange value of the products they could sell. When the principle of exchange became dominant and transformed humans and land, among other things, into commodities tradable on the market, it led to massive impoverishment and homelessness as the land people inhabited could be turned into more profitable agricultural use while livelihoods of humans became determined by the demand for their labour in industrial production. Such developments generated a countermovement, a political action of society aiming to set obstacles to commodification. Efforts to de-commodify labour and land resulted in the adoption of political measures to regulate the operation of the market and redistribute goods and services to ensure minimum living standards for those not possessing valuable commodities and are thus threatened most in market capitalism (Polanyi, 2001).

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In the early Polanyian interpretation, therefore, with the advance of capitalist transformation, householding and reciprocity as principles of social integration are losing significance while market exchange, and redistribution by the state are strengthening. Whereas the rising dominance of market exchange fosters commodification, growing redistribution increased de-commodification according to this interpretation.
 
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