Perspectives and Limitations of Karl Polanyi’s Legacy. Review Article of The Routledge Handbook on Karl Polanyi (2024) by Michele Cangiani and Claus Thomasberger (eds.)

Abstract The Routledge Handbook on Karl Polanyi ( Cangian & Thomasberger, 2024) is a substantial volume of over 400 pages, with 33 authors, that touches many aspects of Polanyi’s life and work. The book focuses on two themes: first, Polanyi’s contributions to modern social sciences and second—more fully explored—his political philosophy. This review shall primarily focus on the first, mostly analytical aspect of Polanyi’s work, particularly regarding the comparative analysis of pre-market and market economies. From the Handbook, we expected a deeper confrontation of Polanyi’s analytical core, particularly with the Classical and Marxian economic heritage and, in this regard, a more open discussion of some limits of Polanyi in view of a constructive integration of different critical approaches in social sciences. We will often propose a comparison between Polanyi and the modern retrieval of the surplus approach in the perspective of a positive combination of economic and institutional analysis alternative to mainstream New Institutional Economics.