Unknown author · Public domain

Argued in The Great Transformation (1944) that free markets are not a natural state of affairs but a historical invention, and that societies always respond to marketization with a countermovement demanding social protection — his "double movement," which became a foundation of economic sociology and the later economic democracy movement. Polanyi applied the same lens to ancient economies, arguing they were embedded in society and culture rather than governed by market logic. He fled Hungary for Vienna in 1919 after a right-wing regime seized power, then fled Vienna for London in 1933 as fascism spread.