Table Of ContentA LIFE ON THE LEFT
GARETH DALE
Karl Polanyi
Kar l
Po lanyi
A LIFE ON THE LEFT
GARETH DA LE
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup . columbia . edu
Copyright © 2016 Columbia University Press
Paperback edition, 2018
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Dale, Gareth, author.
Karl Polanyi : a life on the left / Gareth Dale.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-17608-8 (cloth : alk. paper)—
ISBN 978-0-231-17609-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)—
ISBN 978-0-231-54148-0 (e-book)
1. Polanyi, Karl, 1886–1964. 2. Economists— Hungary—
Biography. 3. Economics— History. I. Title.
HB102.P64D348 2016
330.15’42092— dc23
[B] 2015029465
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid- free paper.
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
Cover illustration: Tim Bower
Cover design: Jordan Wannemacher
CONTENTS
Acknowl edgments(cid:6)vii
INTRODUCTION(cid:2)1
one IN THE EAST- WEST SALON(cid:2)11
two BEARING THE CROSS OF WAR(cid:2)41
three TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF RED VIENNA(cid:2)73
four CHALLENGES AND RESPONSES(cid:2)113
five THE CATACLYSM AND ITS ORIGINS(cid:2)157
six “INJUSTICES AND INHUMANITIES”(cid:2)199
seven THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF EXISTENCE(cid:2)239
epilogue A LOST WORLD OF SOCIALISM(cid:2)281
Notes(cid:6)289
Index(cid:6)371
ACKNOWL EDGMENTS
I
n researching the life and work of Karl Polanyi I have benefi ted
from the goodwill of many people, notably members of Polanyi’s
family, his friends, and former students. To Kari Polanyi- Levitt in
par tic u lar, I express my gratitude for her willingness to sit through
interview after interview, in Montreal (fi ve times in 2006 and 2008) and
by telephone (on seven occasions in 2007–2009), with innumerable
e- mail and telephone follow- ups (2006–2015). Other interviewees who
kindly agreed to answer questions include Don Grant (in London,
May 15, 2009, with additional material provided in 2013 and 2015),
Immanuel Wallerstein (at the appropriately named East- West Hotel in
Moscow, September 12, 2009), Istvan Meszaros (in London, December
12, 2010), Abe Rotstein (by telephone, May 16, 2009), Robert Halasz (by
e- mail, September 28, 2011), Jean Richards (by telephone, August 17,
2011), Mihály Simai (in Montreal, December 11, 2008), Gregory Baum
(by telephone, January 11, 2009), and Anne Chapman (by telephone,
July 19, 2009). Anne was among the warmest and most charming
people whose acquaintance I made while researching this book, and it
was with sorrow that I learned of her passing in 2010.
I was fortunate, in addition, to gain access to a number of archives
that contain a wealth of unpublished texts— including memoirs,
correspondence, essay fragments, book notes, and eyewitness accounts,
by Polanyi himself, by his wife Ilona Duczynska, and by his students,
friends, and acquaintances. A substantial portion of sources consulted
were originally in German and Hungarian. The large majority of
translations from German sources, published and unpublished, are my
own. Translations and summaries of Hungarian texts were almost all
provided by Adam Fabry, with some by Kinga Sata. This was no easy
task, given Polanyi’s scrawl. Even his medical doctor (of all people!) im-
plored him to write more legibly, and I have abiding memories of poring
over his correspondence, word by spidery word, alongside Adam and a
S magnifying glass.1 To him especially, and to Dr. Sata, I am boundlessly
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E grateful, and likewise to the bodies that funded their labor: the Nuffi eld
M
G Foundation and the Amiel- Melburne Trust. Thanks are also due to
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L E my hosts in Montréal, Mathieu and Frédérique Denis, and to Brunel
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University’s Business School, its School of Social Sciences, and the
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K Lippman-M iliband Trust, which funded my sojourns in Montréal in,
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A respectively, 2006, 2008, and 2010. Research trips to Chicago, Budapest,
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and Vienna, as well as visits to Montréal and New York in 2014, fortu-
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V itously branched from other engagements that were funded by the British
Acad emy, the University of Vienna, McGill University, Université de
Montréal, and the “Tanácsköztársaság: Ninetieth Anniversary” confer-
ence in Budapest.
In writing this book I have been assisted by numerous people. As a
background infl uence, I thank my parents for having introduced me to
several of the principal narratives and milieux explored in this book:
Jews and communists of Mitteleuropa; and, in Britain, Quaker social-
ists and social demo crats in their vari ous stripes. More immediately, I
am grateful to a series of friends and acquaintances who read draft
chapters and excerpts. Through their comments and criticisms they
have signifi cantly improved its empirical accuracy and the coherence of
its argument. My greatest debts are to Kari Polanyi- Levitt, Chris Hann,
and John Hall, each of whom combed through the entire manuscript. I am
grateful to Don Grant, Thomas Uebel, John O’Neill, and Sander Gilman,
who commented on a chapter each, and to Ruth Danon, Dan Tompkins,
Marty Moleski, Stephen White, Perry Anderson, Tibor Frank, Judit
Szapor, and Matthew Grimley, who lent a hand on points of detail.
The archives I utilized were the Karl Polanyi Archive (Concordia
University, Montréal); the Michael Polanyi Papers (Regenstein Library,
University of Chicago); the Polanyi Family Papers (Országos Széchenyi
Könyvtár, Budapest), the archive of the Society for the Protection of
Science and Learning (Bodleian Library, Oxford University), and three
sets of papers at the Butler Library of Columbia University: those per-
taining to Karl Polanyi, Oscar Jaszi, and Robert Merton. In references,
the archive’s name is abbreviated, with numbers denoting container
and folder. For example, KPA-23–9 refers to folder 9 in container 23 at
the Karl Polanyi Archive. The other archives are abbreviated as MPP,
PFP, SPSL, KPP, OJP and RMP. I thank the archivists at all fi ve reposi- S
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tories for their assistance, in par tic ul ar Ana Gomez at the Karl Polanyi E
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Institute. The abundance of source materials has been a boon but the G
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attempt to weave from it a faithful portrayal inevitably encounters L E
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problems of se lection and of the fragmentary nature of evidence, the O
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subjectivity of witnesses and of authorial interpretation, and the hazard K
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that by tracing successive layers of the palimpsest, and by giving promi- A
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nence to par tic u lar statements and phrases, one may accord them a
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permanence greater than their authors might have intended. Given the
lively current interest in Polanyi’s life and work, we can be hopeful that
any errors of reference will be rapidly brought to light and diff erences of
interpretation will be debated.
Fi nally, a note on orthography is required. Names of Hungarians
who gained recognition in the Anglosphere appear in anglicized form.
For all others, the Hungarian is used.
