Michael Polanyi’s vision of government and economics
Résumé
This paper gives an interpretation of Michael Polanyi’s vision of government and economics as spanning
between Hayek and Keynes. The influence of Hayek is manifested by the opposition to central
planning and the defence of self-organization as a superior mechanism for coordinating individual
plans, while the one of Keynes is evidenced in the strong support for government interventionism in
order to dampen economic fluctuations, fight unemployment and limit income inequalities. Polanyi
blended these two influences and provided an idiosyncratic approach of government and economics,
which has until recently been underrated in the literature. Our aim in this paper is to show that, by
considering Polanyi’s mixed vision of the market economy as embedded in his broader pursuits into
the nature of knowledge and liberalism one can find coherence which otherwise cannot be found.