A Call For Radical Imagination
European Straits #2
How chaos in fin-de-siècle Vienna inspired Karl Polanyi
At the turn of the 20th century, Vienna was marked by the contradictions of the failing Austro-Hungarian Empire: it produced the greatest thinkers and radical artists of the time—Freud, Schumpeter, Hayek, Klimt, Schönberg—but also the destructive forces that would bring Austria-born Hitler to annihilate millions of Jews. Born in Vienna three years before Hitler, liberal economist Karl Polanyi witnessed firsthand the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian civilization.
DISCOVER HOW Karl Polanyi’s life mirrored the tensions and changes of his time
READ ABOUT the fertile contradictions of fin-de-siècle Vienna
How we are going through a similar period of transformation today
Karl Polanyi’s masterpiece The Great Transformation, published in 1944, provides a precious blueprint for all techno-economic transitions. The one between the 19th century economy and the Fordist economy led to a devastating break between laissez-faire and democracy. All gr…