Kari Levitt-Polanyi: “The Great Transformation – past and future”

In 1944 Karl Polanyi published The Great Transformation, a groundbreaking analysis of the political and economic origins of our time. Polanyi, a Hungarian-Austrian socio-economist, has inspired an interdisciplinary analysis which embeds economic dynamics in society and nature. His reflections have led to a critical appraisal of the social costs of markets as well as a deeper understanding of the current civilizational crisis induced by climate change. Less attention has been given so far to his insights on the political consequences of market fundamentalism in the 1930s.

In dialogue with Andreas Novy, Head of the Institute for Multi-Level Governance and Development, Kari Levitt-Polanyi will talk about her personal experiences in inter-war Vienna as well as the socio-economic and political background in which Karl Polanyi elaborated The Great Transformation. Thereby, she will contextualize his thinking and propose some more general learnings for the ongoing transformations of the 21st century.

Kari Levitt-Polanyi, daughter of Karl Polanyi and Ilona Duczynska, child of Red Vienna, Canadian citizen, development economist, honorary president of the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy at Concordia University, honoured in 2008 by the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize, Progressive Economics Forum.

A joint event of the Institute for Multi-Level Governance and Development and the WU-Competence Center for Sustainability at WU https://www.wu.ac.at/mlgd/ | http://www.wu.ac.at/sustainabilitycenter

Please register by May 19th at: polanyi@wu.ac.at