Polanyian perspectives on capitalisms after socialism

Abstract

The chapter presents the building blocks of a Polanyi-inspired analytical framework of the varied paths of post-socialist capitalism in good times and bad. Instead of looking for total similarities, it considers Polanyi’s work as a rich source of reference points, analogies and contrasts to better understand the birth, stabilization, and recent turbulences of nascent market societies. The trajectories of East Central European capitalism are followed through three phases: the early-to-mid-1990s, marked by what the authors term a “neoliberal moment” and the transformational recession; the new social orders’ “democratic moment” and brief golden age roughly from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s; and the return of hard times after 2008 with the global financial crisis and Great Recession, heralding what seems to be a “nationalist moment”.