AN101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Karl Polanyi, Skid Row, Neoclassical Economics
Document Summary
Part of the discipline dealing with how humans make a living in different environments. Culture (knowledge and values) shapes our needs/wants and defines our economic practices and institutions dealing with their satisfaction. We need food, or we may want food . Economic system: patterns, processes, institutions involved in provisioning. Formalists apply neo-classical economic theory (industrial/market based societies) Scarcity (resources are limited but wants and needs are unlimited), choice making, rational calculation and maximizing wants/needs. Substantivists reject the application of the above to all economies that may operate under different principles. Consider ways in which humans interact with nature to satisfy their provisioning requirements. Constrained but not limited by ecology and available resources. Accompanied by particular social organization and institutions peculiar to each strategy. Holistic: economy and economic activities are indistinguishable from other spheres of life (non- capitalist economies) Phases of economic activity production, exchange/distribution, consumption are ideologically informed. Long-term growth which serves all people (present/future), protects environment.
