Article,
From Polanyi to Pollyanna: The False Optimism of Global Labor Studies
Global Labour Journal, 1 (2): 301–313 (May 2010)
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15173/glj.v1i2.1079
Abstract
This essay is divided into two parts – two readings of Polanyi. The first part is a critique of optimistic renderings of Polanyi, especially renderings that appeal to and search for laborist counter-movements to market fundamentalism. As background I begin with some recent classics with an optimistic bent before turning to a longer treatment of Grounding Globalization, an award-winning book from South Africa. The second part of the essay is intended as an alternative, more pessimistic, reading of Polanyi. Locating his analysis of fictitious commodities in historical perspective, I seek to understand the peculiar nature of contemporary marketization and thereby problematize the possibility of global counter-movement, especially one centered on labor. The essay follows on the heels of the excellent articles in the first issue of the Global Labour Journal that dwell on the obstacles to labor protest in India and China.
