Polanyi’s discovery of society and the digital phase of the industrial revolution

Abstract

Polanyi’s (1957 [1944]) The Great Transformation stands as a towering analysis of the industrial revolution and a powerful social warning against social and natural damage driven by the pursuit of maximal economic value. Polanyi envisioned that the ‘discovery of society’, due to its radical neglect during the industrial revolution, led to this new social knowledge resulting in the end of laissez-faire and the self-regulating market. Yet, the most recent phase of the industrial revolution, the digital phase, suggests that many of the same failures to manage industrial revolutions are occurring again. In particular, looking at the emerging digital economy through the prism of Polanyi’s social theory, this article argues that the changes driven by the digital economy, specifically in terms of the reshaping of attention and sociality and the increasing potential for ‘normal catastrophes’, suggests that Polanyi’s lesson of the destructive power of the self-regulating market is again being neglected.