About the Institute

Karl Polanyi’s historical analysis of the relationship between the economy and society provides an important foundation for the growing commitment to ethical, environmental, and social issues that should drive economic activity and foster socio-economic development. One of his main arguments is that, in capitalism the economy is “disembedded” from society, resulting in a conflict of “habitat versus improvement.” His ideas contribute to the development of critical approaches in theory, action, and policy that are more representative of modern complex social realities, and to the construction of a socially rooted, historical and institutional heterodox economics that effectively challenges mainstream theory and the limitations of its underlying hypotheses.  Polanyi’s influence continues to grow across disciplines; his work has become a key reference for academics and students in the social sciences, humanities, among legal scholars, scientists, policy makers, and activists in the North and in the South.