Great transformations: economic ideas and institutional change in the twentieth century

TLDR

This book extends Karl Polanyi’s analysis of economic and political change, framing the 1930s and 1970s institutional shifts as part of a single dynamic process. Blyth applies Polanyi’s double‑movement framework to the 1930s and 1970s, showing that labor’s push for state‑mediated market embedding in the 1930s was countered in the 1970s by business’s effort to dismantle those constraints. The book shows that economic ideas are pivotal in enabling institutional change, offering new insights into how uncertainty, ideas, and interests interact to shape the conditions under which such change occurs.

Abstract

This book picks up where Karl Polanyi's study of economic and political change left off. Building upon Polanyi's conception of the double movement, Blyth analyzes the two periods of deep seated institutional change that characterized the twentieth century: the 1930s and the 1970s. Blyth views both sets of changes as part of the same dynamic. In the 1930s labor reacted against the exigencies of the market and demanded state action to mitigate the market's effects by 'embedding liberalism.' In the 1970s, those who benefited least from such 'embedding' institutions, namely business, reacted against these constraints and sought to overturn that institutional order. Blyth demonstrates the critical role economic ideas played in making institutional change possible. Great Transformations rethinks the relationship between uncertainty, ideas, and interests, achieving profound new insights on how, and under what conditions, institutional change takes place.