Podcast appearances and mentions of karl polyani

This month, we will have four special episodes hosted by our correspondent,Jeffrey Esptein. Today, he will talk author Jackson Winter about the 2001 edition of the Karl Polyani book, “The Great Transformation” Jackson is co-writer and editor for PEGS Institute, which is a project to demystify and explain some commonly misunderstood realities of the modern world. The Great Transformation is the centuries-long history of how our current rentier capitalism came to be, and what preceded it. It reveals that much of what we believe to be inevitable and unchangeable, or natural about our society is, in fact, a deliberate choice. Those who most benefit from this system (the rentiers, those who collect rent) would like nothing more than for the rest of us (those who pay rent) to believe this system and their unending greed to be natural, inevitable, unchangeable and, indeed, best for everyone. This is part 1 of 4 of Audio chapters8:20 - Jackson introduces himself10:13 - Journey to the book and other reading12:59 - First impressions17:12 - Interview postponed17:52 - Speenhamland20:38 - Unemployed versus unemployable26:43 - Speenhamland’s place in history31:11 - Threaten starvation – tame even the strongest beast (natural)32:46 - The problem is not the Industrial Revolution but self-gain (greed, hedonism)34:19 - "Anti-government"40:14 - Commodification43:23 - George W. Bush, Satanic mill44:06 - Commodification of labor47:49 - Every level commodities the level below (venting their frustrations)51:39 - Cultural hegemony, the Queen of England54:19 - Death to the few versus death to the manyCheck out our previous works with Jeffrey Epstein and follow him on twitter for the latest news on Monetary Theory. Get full access to Historic.ly at historicly.substack.com/subscribe

Today we present the second half of the interview with Darcia Narvaez, social scientist at Notre Dame and a specialist in childhood inculturation, attachment, and bonding issues. We start out this half of the interview with a discussion of what Karl Polyani called the "great transformation" of European society, involving the breakdown of the pre-modern order and its safeguards for a stable population by means of understandings about community use of land, perhaps resulting in the popularity of emigration to the New World by dispirited, dispossessed, and to some extent dangerous people. Several times Darcia disparages "hierarchy," understood in its general sense of social stratification, which she or other who have influenced her theorize to have caused huge social catastrophes, including the corruption of the Christian Church by its integration into the late Roman state and the collapse of populations and cultures in the New World on contact with the colonizers from Europe. Late in the podcast I ask her explicitly whether there is any benefit to civilization... let us know in the comments on Facebook or Podbean what you think about the answer! Darcia's claim is that humans are by nature more egalitarian than other animals. This goes right down to childrearing, where human children, born so completely needy, have an innate expectation that their requests for assistance will be met. She comments that there is a Native American word, "wetiko," that was used to describe an attitude thought of as akin to a sickness that characterized those who acted in an aggressive and exploitative way toward others. Whether or not premodern peoples were all more free of this, it's certainly a common feature of civilized peoples. The Old and New Testaments certainly testify to this, and the need to confront it with compassion and an egalitarian attitude. We discussed the specific example of the disease of the large organization, society, business, or government, in which those at the top are simply disconnected, both intellectually and morally, from those at the bottom. We mentioned subsidiarity, and might have mentioned clericalism... the social science of these concepts will hopefully be fodder for future podcasts.

Marc Steinberg is a professor of sociology at Smith College. His latest book, England’s Great Transformation: Law, Labor, and the Industrial Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a response to Karl Polyani’s vision of an emerging modern labor market in The Great Transformation. Steinberg complicates our understanding of changing power relations by examining how workers were contracted to their employers. The book is centered around three case studies of employers using draconian master-servant laws to control the labor force. Historically rigorous and sociologically imaginative, Steinberg’s analysis does true justice to the stories of his subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marc Steinberg is a professor of sociology at Smith College. His latest book, England’s Great Transformation: Law, Labor, and the Industrial Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a response to Karl Polyani’s vision of an emerging modern labor market in The Great Transformation. Steinberg complicates our understanding of changing power relations by examining how workers were contracted to their employers. The book is centered around three case studies of employers using draconian master-servant laws to control the labor force. Historically rigorous and sociologically imaginative, Steinberg’s analysis does true justice to the stories of his subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marc Steinberg is a professor of sociology at Smith College. His latest book, England’s Great Transformation: Law, Labor, and the Industrial Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a response to Karl Polyani’s vision of an emerging modern labor market in The Great Transformation. Steinberg complicates our understanding of changing power relations by examining how workers were contracted to their employers. The book is centered around three case studies of employers using draconian master-servant laws to control the labor force. Historically rigorous and sociologically imaginative, Steinberg’s analysis does true justice to the stories of his subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marc Steinberg is a professor of sociology at Smith College. His latest book, England’s Great Transformation: Law, Labor, and the Industrial Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a response to Karl Polyani’s vision of an emerging modern labor market in The Great Transformation. Steinberg complicates our understanding of changing power relations by examining how workers were contracted to their employers. The book is centered around three case studies of employers using draconian master-servant laws to control the labor force. Historically rigorous and sociologically imaginative, Steinberg’s analysis does true justice to the stories of his subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marc Steinberg is a professor of sociology at Smith College. His latest book, England’s Great Transformation: Law, Labor, and the Industrial Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a response to Karl Polyani’s vision of an emerging modern labor market in The Great Transformation. Steinberg complicates our understanding of changing power relations by examining how workers were contracted to their employers. The book is centered around three case studies of employers using draconian master-servant laws to control the labor force. Historically rigorous and sociologically imaginative, Steinberg’s analysis does true justice to the stories of his subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marc Steinberg is a professor of sociology at Smith College. His latest book, England’s Great Transformation: Law, Labor, and the Industrial Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2016) is a response to Karl Polyani’s vision of an emerging modern labor market in The Great Transformation. Steinberg complicates our understanding of changing power relations by examining how workers were contracted to their employers. The book is centered around three case studies of employers using draconian master-servant laws to control the labor force. Historically rigorous and sociologically imaginative, Steinberg’s analysis does true justice to the stories of his subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices