“Human” Rights in the Age of Globalization

Hüseyin Özel*

Department of Economics

Hacettepe University 06532 Beytepe - Ankara

Phone: +90 (312) 297 86 72 e-mail: ozel@hacettepe.edu.tr

Paper presented at the �International Conference on Human Rights in Turkey and the World

in the Light of Fifty-Years Experience� 1-3 October, 1998, Ankara

* This paper is drawn from a manuscript in progress entitled �Some Contradictions of

the Capitalist Society: Lessons from Karl Polanyi and Karl Marx,� an earlier version of which was presented at the URPE meeting in the Allied Social Science Association convention, January 6, 1997, New Orleans, U.S.A.

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The starting point of the present paper is a very important analysis, conducted by

Mümtaz Soysal, of the Charter of Paris with respect to human rights (Soysal 1995). According to

him, this document has two important contradictions in this regard: First, the emphasis in the

document over the idea of the �rights� of national or ethnic minorities contradicts the very idea

of the �universality�of human rights. Second, the fact that the idea of basic rights and freedoms is

connected to a specific social-economic system, namely, the market system, and, therefore, that

human rights are considered as a �tool� in achieving a market economy is an ideological choice

which cannot again be compatible with the �universality� of human rights. The present paper is

an attempt at arguing that these two contradictions of the document in question may actually

reflect some real tendencies that can be found in the working of the market system itself,

especially in its �global� phase. The conceptual framework of the paper rests heavily upon Karl

Polanyi�s analysis of the market system. Using this framework, I argue specifically that the

market system, with the mode of thinking that it dictates, namely, the �market mentality� as Karl

Polanyi calls it, is characterized by what I call a �dehumanization� process, which follows from

the creation of �fictitious commodities,� namely, labor, land and money, and deprives human

beings of the very qualities that characterize them by �atomizing� the individuals and thus

violating their quality of being a �social animal.� Such a �dehumanization� process through

which human beings are reduced to mere means for each other to achieve their ends within the

market is believed to be incompatible with the idea of �human� rights at a very basic level.

Therefore, in the first section, Karl Polanyi�s analysis of the market system is presented

and a conceptual framework based on this analysis is developed. In this section the emphasis will

be on the three institutional tendencies created by the system, namely the separation of the

�economic� sphere from the �political� sphere, the �denial� of the �reality of society,� which

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follows from this institutional separation, and, the �double movement,� an important mechanism

which makes the �market society� inherently unstable. In the second section, after briefly

examining the important features of the �globalization� process prevalent in the contemporary

market system, these three features are used to derive some implications regarding human rights,

which are believed to be significant especially in this �global� phase of the system.

1. Karl Polanyi’s Analysis of the Market System

1.1. Fictitious Commodities and the Institutionalization of the Market Economy

1.1.1. Fictitious Commodities Karl Polanyi�s The Great Transformation, which attempts at exploring the causes of the

fascist experience during the 1930s and �40s, rests upon a critique of the �market economy�

itself; according to him, �in order to comprehend German fascism, we must revert to Ricardian

England� (GT, 30), for fascism, this �great transformation,� was the direct result of the market

system which has been established in the nineteenth century. Polanyi argues in the book that it is

impossible to form an economic system according to the prescriptions given by the utilitarian

outlook concerning human societies, which is based upon the �invisible hand� paradigm and its

basic ingredient, the principle of laissez-faire. According to Polanyi, such a �self-regulating�

economic system, to be established on the basis on the motives of individual gain and the fear of

starvation is �in the very nature of things impossible� (GT, 269). For it violates man�s �vital

unity� not only with his fellow human beings but also with nature, and, therefore, destroys both

human and natural substance of the society, for it makes the society subordinate to the market

institution. For this reason, this system had to be disintegrated as the result of �the measures

which society adopted in order not to be, in its turn, annihilated by the action of the self-

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regulating market� (GT, 249).

This self-regulating market economy of the nineteenth century was characterized by two

related features: the creation of the �commodity fictions,� which gave rise to a separate

�economic� sphere for the first time in human history, and the reflection of this institutional

separation in people�s minds, �the market mentality,� or more accurately, economic determinism.

The market economy is a unique and peculiar economic system in the human history; never

before capitalism has the economic sphere been institutionally separated from the rest of the

society, in the specific sense that the economic system functions according to its own �laws.�

Considering the distinction he made between �embedded� and �disembedded� conditions of the

economy in relation to society, it is easy to see the peculiarity of this nineteenth century society.

Before the market system, the �economic� sphere, or the market, is embedded into social

relations and consequently it is not possible to distinguish between the market as a self-

regulating, independent institution and other social relations. In these societies, the elements of

the economy, or economic transactions, are always subject to essentially non-economic

considerations such as social status, political or religious motives. In other words, the term

�economic life� has no obvious meaning in these societies (TMEE, 70). On the other hand, the

disembedded, �market economy� is characterized by an independent economic sphere, which

stands apart from the society, more particularly from the political and governmental system. In

this system, no factor such as blood-ties, legal, or religious considerations other than the motive

of gain and the fear of hunger plays essential role (TMEE, 68). Such an economic system, or

�the� market, referring to a self-regulating market system in which each individual market is

connected to the other and sets its own price without any outside intervention, must be free from

all political considerations. In other words, the whole of economic life is to be governed by the

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market prices in such an economy (GT, 43). Thus, the institutional separation of the economic

and political spheres is a key to understand this society, for a �self-regulating market demands

nothing less than the institutional separation of society into an economic and political sphere.

Such a dichotomy is, in effect, merely the restatement, from the point of view of society as a

whole, of the existence of a self-regulating market� (GT, 71).

Nevertheless, this institutional separation of the economic sphere from the political is

actually a result, rather than being the essential characteristic of the market system: what gave

rise to this distinct sphere was, according to Polanyi, the creation of the �fictitious commodities�,

that is, labor, land and money, all of which must be subjected to sale in the market in order for

the market economy to function, even though they are not produced in the same sense as the

production of the other, genuine commodities.

However, creation of markets for them is of important consequences for the society,

because what the term �raw materials,� referring to land as a �factor of production,� indicate is

nothing but nature itself, whereas what we call labor is the whole of the human life activity. This

also means that, for the sake of continuous production, all the transactions concerning production

must be money transactions, which requires the introduction of a medium of exchange into every

stage of production (GT, 41, 74-75). The result is, therefore, the three fictitious commodities,

which are not commodities in empirical sense: they are not produced for sale; in fact, they are not

�produced� in the strictest sense at all:

Labor is only another name for a human activity which goes with the life itself, which in its turn is not produced for sale, but for entirely different reasons, nor can that activity be detached from the rest of life, be stored or mobilized; land is only another name for nature, which is not produced by man; actual money, finally is merely as token of purchasing power which, as a rule, is not produced at all, but comes into being through the mechanism of banking or state finance. None of them is produced for sale. (GT, 72-73)

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But their treatment as commodities means that the entire society has become subordinate

to the market. Under such a system human beings for their own survival need to buy

commodities on the market with the incomes they earn by selling other commodities they could

offer for sale, including their own labor power and natural environment, land. (BED, 97) In other

words, the desire of gain and the fear of starvation are the universal motives, for these two

motives are the main drives for human beings to earn incomes, in a market economy. That is to

say, Polanyi argues, since no human community can exist without a functioning productive

apparatus, and in the market economy this productive apparatus is under the sovereignty of the

market, the embodiment of the economic sphere in a distinct and separate one has the effect of

making the �rest� of society dependent upon that sphere (OMM, 111). This market society, the

society which is �embedded� in, or becomes subordinate to, the market economy (LM, 9)1, was

an �economic society� in the full sense of the term: Not only are the social classes identical with

�supply� and �demand� for the markets for labor, land and capital, but all institutions existing in

the society, including family, organization of science and education, and of religion and arts, in

short every aspect of life, must conform to the requirements of the market (BED, 100).

However, such a process of commodification according to Polanyi would eventually lead

to the destruction of the social fabric, for it made the entire human existence subordinate to the

demands of the market system, this �gargantuan automaton� (GT, 217). Yet, the real danger that

the creation of commodity fictions, especially labor power, poses for the society is far from

being economic; its essential danger lies in disrupting individuals� lives, if not in the

�annihilation� of the society. The most significant aspect of this institutional change, above all

creation of the labor market, is the separation of man from his own life activity itself, as was

mentioned above: what we call �labor� is nothing but the whole human activity which cannot be

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separated from life. To put this activity under the rule of the market, by making it subject to the

fear of hunger, then, will mean nothing less than the breaking down of the �totality� of the life

itself. Under such an institutional setting, human life activity is now broken down into specific

compartments, such as economic, political, religious, etc., and only the �economic� motives,

namely the fear of hunger and hope of gain, are allowed to govern individuals� lives. In other

words, the whole life activity is now �commodified.�2 Yet, this means no less than the separation

of man not only from his own life activity, but also, even more importantly, from his own

�agency,� the power that characterize a human being.3 Such a process, in turn, would

immediately lead to a drastic change in the whole existence of man, for �in disposing of a man�s

labor power the system would, incidentally, dispose of the physical, psychological, and moral

entity �man� attached to that tag� (GT, 73).4

The most immediate effect of the commodification of labor, according to Polanyi, is the

dissolution of the society into the �atoms,� each of which only behaves in accordance with the

motive of profit and the fear of starvation irrespective of the other members of the society. This,

as a result of the freedom of contract principle, would in practice mean that the noncontractual

organization of kinship, neighborhood, profession, and creed, the traits that characterize early,

�precapitalistic� forms of society, �were to be liquidated since they claimed the allegiance of the

individual and thus restrained his freedom� (GT, 163). That is to say, labor contract is the

manifestation of the �freedom� from the social bond, which actually protects human beings from

destruction, for it is the presence of this bond which makes the threat of starvation in the

�primitive� societies nonexistent.5 On the other hand, regarding the other fictitious commodity,

land, it should be emphasized that this process of disintegration of the society is also a process of

separation of human life activity from the natural setting within which it takes place, for it is

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reduced to a commodity. For Polanyi, the economic function is only one of many vital functions

of land. �It invests man�s life with stability; it is the site of his habitation; it is a condition of his

physical safety; it is the landscape and the seasons. We might as well imagine his being born

without hands and feet as carrying on his life without land� (GT, 178). Therefore, �an

individualized treatment of the land� (GT, 179), another requirement in the institutionalization of

the market system, basically meant the separation of human life from its natural surrounding, a

fact includes even the physical separation of the �habitat� of human beings (BED, 97).

1.1.2. �Dehumanization� Now, in the light of this discussion, it is possible to argue that for Polanyi, what these two

steps, commodification of labor and land, together characterizes is a �dehumanization� process;

under capitalism, human beings are forced to live through a �perverse� life within which they are

deprived of the very qualities that make them human beings, or to use Rotstein�s (1990: 100) apt

metaphor, market system represents the artificial, externalized embodiment of the individual or

the �blind and dark alter ego.� The institutional structure of the market economy forces human

beings to live through a separate, fragmented life; under this system, in other words, the �totality�

of human existence breaks down, a process which should be conceived within two steps; first,

creation of the commodity fictions leads to the breakdown both of the totality of human life

activity into �economic� and �non-economic� spheres, and of the unity between man and his own

powers he exerts within this life activity in the case of commodification of labor power, and

breakdown of the unity of man with the nature in the case of the commodification of land.

Secondly, the institutional separation of the economic, this �disembedded economy�, which is the

result of these two commodity fictions, leads to the transformation of the notion of the human

condition; that is, human beings in capitalism are now characterized as guided by two

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�economic� motives, the hope of profit or the fear of hunger. All other motives, no matter how

essential they are in understanding what a human being is, are reduced to the level of

insignificance in everyday life through being enveloped within the term �ideal�: �man�s vital

unity� has been split into a ��real� man, bent on material values, and his ideal better self� (OMM,

116). This is nothing but the manifestation of the separation of economics from politics, or

actually from morality or ethics. (Lind 1994: 147).

Yet, to put it another way, this is nothing but the violation of the very sociality of human

beings. The market mechanism transformed the very substance of human economy, by

transforming both �man�s ultimate dependence on nature and his fellows for the means of his

survival� for it put this dependence under the rule of the market (LM, 8), which transforms the

individual into a mere �atom.� In other words, the disembedded market economy makes the rule

of the �changelesness of man as a social being� (GT, 46) obsolete for it inevitably leads to the

dissolution of the society itself by forcing man to behave like a homo oeconomicus.

It is clear that Polanyi�s argument depends critically upon the distinction between the

general and historically specific aspects of human existence. For him, in every form of society

except for the market economy, economic transactions in the sense of provisioning material

needs, no matter how essential they are for the survival of human beings, are subordinate to the

social institutions, that is, �man�s economy, as a rule, is submerged in his social relationships�

(GT, 46; BED, 99). In other words, according to Polanyi, the �human condition� is not primarily

given by the �economic� motives. Although the economic factor underlies all social life, it �no

more gives rise to definite incentives than the equally universal law of gravitation�, for �the

pangs of hunger are not automatically translated into an incentive to produce. Production is not

an individual, but a collective affair.... With man, the political animal, everything is given not by

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natural, but by social circumstance. What made the 19th century think of hunger and gain as

�economic� was simply the organization of production under a market economy� (OMM, 111). In

other words, where the nineteenth century, if not the twentieth century, liberal thinking went

wrong was its failure to distinguish between historically specific and general aspects of the

human existence, the consequence of which is ubiquitous economic determinism. This

�economistic fallacy,� i.e., identification of �economic phenomena� with �market phenomena�

(TMEE, 270 and LM, 20), or the extrapolation of the categories that are prevalent in the market

system to other societies and/or other times, which has always been the hallmark of the liberal

thinking, is therefore merely a product of capitalism. For Polanyi, although the market institution

was fairly common in the human history, �previously to our time no economy has ever existed

that, even in principle, was controlled by markets.� (GT, 43) Even more important than this is

that for Polanyi, it is not the existence of economic motives which �defines� human beings; in

this respect, he simply follows Aristotle in the proposition that human beings are political, i.e.

social animals.6

1.2. The Institutional Features of the “Market Society”

1.2.1. The�Political�vs. the�Economic�and the Atomization Process It was mentioned above that the first requirement to institutionalize a self-regulating

market system is to destroy the old institutions and the bonds of society so that threat of hunger

becomes an individual phenomena forcing human beings to sell their labor power in the market.

The implications of such a process in respect of human lives are profound. For example, the very

distinction between �labor time� and �leisure time� is a product of the market economy in the

sense that it presupposes the category of wage labor. But what we call �leisure� is nothing but the

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individual�s life activity other than working. Within this life activity human beings are expected

to affirm their own humanity, i.e., it is directed to realization of their own potentialities.

However, under the market system, all the activities that human beings engage do not count

�useful� if they are not helpful for them to make their livelihood, no matter how fulfilling for an

individual they are. In other words, in this system, the skills, abilities, and creative capacities of

human beings or in general the human qualities on which work is based, become detached from

their persons, a condition for labor�s functioning as a commodity (Pappenheim 1959: 96), and

leisure time itself is reduced to a time span within which the labor power expanded in production

is continuously reproduced. That is to say, leisure time too is to be characterized by its function:

the reproduction of labor power (Neumann 1944: 428).

From a social theoretical point of view, the most immediate effect of the creation of the

commodity fictions is the atomization of the individual: individual, through her being reduced to

the �bearer� of labor power, becomes just a �cog,� or a functional unit whose only function is to

reproduce market-type, exchange relations. This �reification,� which is also reinforced by the

mechanization and �rationalization� of production process reducing individuals into mere

�appendages� of machines, even increasingly dominates their consciousness (Lukács 1971: 93).

The result of this process is the emergence of the �reified mind,� which sees commodity form

and its �laws� as natural and eternal. (Lukács 1971: 98); that is, the abstraction of the �rational

economic man,� Homo oeconomicus, becomes a reality; individual transforms into a functioning

component of a system, and therefore as such must be equipped with essential features

indispensable for running the system. Here, as Karel Kosík (1976: 52) argues, it is essential to

understand that it is the reality which reduces man into an abstraction:

Entering the realm of economics, man is transformed. The moment he enters into economic relations, he is drawn, �irrespective of his will and consciousness� into

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situations and lawlike relations in which he functions as the homo oeconomicus, in which he exists and realizes himself only to the extent to which he fulfills the role of the economic man.

The immediate corollary of this atomization is, of course, the �market mentality� with its

postulate, the notion of economic �rationality�: Once a human being is reduced to an �individual

in the market� (LM, 29), i.e., to Homo Oeconomicus, it was now easy to argue that �economic�

action �was �natural� to man and was, therefore, self-explanatory� (LM, 14). That is to say, from

now on, the term �economic� could safely be identified with the market activity.

Then, it is no wonder that �the delusion of economic determinism� (OMM, 114) had to

dominate our minds within the market society, which is nothing but an �accessory� of the

economic system (GT, 75). The result of this institutional setting is the dichotomy between the

�material� and the �ideal�: In this society all �economic� behavior is conducted on the basis of

only two motives, the fear of starvation and the hope of profit, and all other motives, which are

usually considered to be the typical motives affecting everyday lives of human beings, such as

honor, pride, solidarity, moral duties and obligations, are regarded as irrelevant to the everyday

activities, and forced to gain a rare and esoteric nature, summed up by the word �ideal,� since

they cannot be relied upon to conduct in the production process. (BED, 100-101). From this time

onwards, argues Polanyi,

man was believed to consist of two components, one more akin to hunger and gain, the other to honor and power. the one was �material�, the other �ideal�; the one �economic�, the other �non-economic�; the one �rational�, the other �non-rational�. The utilitarians went so far as to identify the two sets of terms, thus endowing the �economic� side of man�s character with the aura of rationality. He who would have refused to imagine that he was acting for gain alone was thus considered not only immoral, but also mad. (OMM, 114)

Yet, it is important to emphasize once again that this �dualistic fallacy� (BED, 102) is not

simply an illusion; it is nothing but the reflection of the existence of a separate and distinct

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economic system from the rest of the society, itself based upon hunger and profit motives. That is

to say, this fallacy was a direct consequence of the fact that �under market economy human

society itself was organised on dualistic lines, everyday life being handed over to the material,

with Sundays reserved for the ideal� (BED, 101). In short, though it is quite arbitrary, this

distinction nevertheless has been institutionalized in the market society (OMM, 115).

1.2.2. The �Double Movement�

Although it has ben argued above that Polanyi centers his critique of capitalism around

the �dehumanizing� aspect of the market system, it would be an error to suppose that Polanyi�s

critique is limited merely to this process, for he also provides a mechanism to explain the

�collapse� of the market society. Polanyi�s main argument is that since the creation of commodity

fictions and its result, subordination of the society to the market, actually forms a threat for the

society as a whole, it is quite natural for people to protect the social fabric against the market, for

otherwise it will disintegrate. In other words, the market society is characterized by a �double

movement,� which has been at work from the very start: Against the social �breakdown� caused

by the extension of the market relations into every sphere of life is a protective countermovement

regarding the fictitious commodities. However, it is the existence of these two conflicting

tendencies operating in the capitalist society which makes this society inherently unstable. The

reason for this is that the protective countermovement eventually impairs the working of the self-

regulating market, which, in turn, creates political tensions, especially between classes, further

obstructing the functioning of the market. The protectionist movement, being a direct, and

necessarily political, intervention into the working of the self-regulating market, makes it

increasingly difficult to maintain the institutional separation of the economic and the political

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spheres upon which the market system is founded. Since this difficulty further intensifies the

tensions already existing in the society, the result would be instability, or even the �collapse� of

the society, if not the whole civilization, as the fascist period has shown. For it can be argued that

fascism was merely a �solution� for capitalism to function by reestablishing the economic-

political separation with blatant force. In other words, Polanyi�s critique is directed to the

invisible hand paradigm of the social order: market society is inherently unstable because of the

antagonistic elements in the organization of the market system, which manifest themselves as the

conflicts between social classes or groups. According to Polanyi, the double movement

can be personified as the action of two organizing principles in society, each of them setting itself specific institutional aims, having the support of definite social forces and using its own distinctive methods. The one was the principle of economic liberalism, aiming at the establishment of a self-regulating market, relying on the support of the trading lasses, and using largely laissez-faire and free trade as its methods; the other was the principle of social protection aiming at the conservation of man and nature as well as productive organization, relying on the varying support of those most immediately affected by the deleterious action of the market �primarily, but not exclusively, the working and the landed classes� and using protective legislation, restrictive associations, and other instruments of intervention as its methods. (GT, 132-33)

The double movement should be conceived at two distinct yet related levels: the class

level, for the social classes, above all the working class, are the causal agents who actually carry

out the protective countermovement, and the institutional level, for the protectionist

countermovement caused the strains in the institutional structure of the market system, which

eventually led to the catastrophe. These two angles, the interaction between the institutional

strains inherent in the market system and the conflict of classes, are essential in understanding the

catastrophe (GT, 134).

In order to understand the institutional strains that had arisen in the organization of the

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market system as a result of the protectionist countermovement, we should consider the four

distinct institutional spheres, two economic and two political, on the basis of which the market

system is built: Domestic economy, with its main institution, the market; Domestic politics,

with the �Liberal state�; International Economics, with The Gold Standard, and the International

politics, with The Balance of Power System. And the disruptive strains are, according to the

institutional spheres they belong, unemployment, tension of classes, pressures on exchange rates

and the imperialist rivalries, respectively (GT, 209). All of these conditions characterize the

crisis of the capitalist �world order,� the result of which would have been the �collapse� of the

system out of which fascism came as a �solution.� Nevertheless, according to Polanyi, it must be

emphasized that these conditions themselves �were set by the �double movement� (GT, 214). In

other words, the protective movement against the extension of the market, which had

immediately begun as soon as the market system was instituted, caused these strains. In this

regard, Polanyi identifies two factors as the sources of these disruptive strains: First, the conflict

between international and national spheres within the market system, for the functioning of the

system required the gold standard and the balance of power at the international level which both

demand that the domestic economy and politics must be at the their service, thereby negating the

popular and nationalist considerations, and, second, even more important, the institutional

separation of the economic and political, for the tensions between the social classes created in the

market sphere sooner or later had to be transferred to the political, which in turn creates further

problems in the market.

However, such a double movement is not necessarily limited to a simple clash between

the classes in the society, even though both of these movements were conducted mainly by

classes and the principles they represent, even when these principles are not compatible, from

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time to time, with their immediate �interests.� And it is the existence of this struggle between the

classes and its effect on the economic sphere, the market, which makes capitalist society

inherently unstable. But there is a double, or indeed circular, process at work here: since these

classes themselves and their conflicts emanate from the economic sphere within a capitalist

society, conflicts between them will necessarily have social dimensions, that is, they will spread

throughout the society, even if these conflicts may be economic in character, and this in turn

creates further disruptive effects on the economic sphere whose impairment will intensify the

tensions existing in the society. That is to say, �since society was made to conform to the needs

of the market mechanism, imperfections in the functioning of that mechanism created cumulative

strains in the body social� (GT, 201). In other words, the process of double movement will tend

to break the institutional separation of the economic and political upon which the market system

is built. The result of such a process would be the dissolution of the social fabric and the attempt

to reestablish this institutional separation require eradication of every form of social opposition

against the market, by any necessary means, including the use of force as the fascist period has

shown.

In each form of protection, be it the protection regarding labor or land, the result would

always be the same: First, impairment of the market because of the protectionist intervention,

then tensions between classes which requires political means and struggle, and then further

impairment. Thus, the crisis of the capitalist world order at the time was inevitable:

the strain sprang from the zone of the market; from there it spread to the political sphere, thus comprising the whole of society. But within the single nations the tension remained latent as long as the world economy continued to function. Only when the last of the surviving institutions, the gold standard, dissolved was the stress within the nation released. (GT, 219)7

Such a domestic tension would immediately spread to the international level and thus

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threatening the international political order and the peace. Beginning with the Wall Street slump,

Britain and then USA went off gold, and then the three powers, Germany, Italy and Japan,

�rebelled against the status quo and sabotaged the crumbling institutions of peace. At the same

time the factual organization of the world economy refused to function.� The Gold standard was

at least temporarily put out of action by its the British and the American; foreign debts were

repudiated; capital markets and world trade dwindled away. In short, �the political and the

economic system of the planet disintegrated conjointly� (GT, 244). But it should not be forgotten

that the real cause of the collapse stems from the market institution, for protectionism created

monopolistic tendencies and thus hampering the adjustments of markets, which in turn led to

further social tensions. Here Polanyi emphasizes that

whatever the market in question �labor, land, or money� the strain would transcend the economic zone and the balance would have to be restored by political means. Nevertheless, the institutional separation of the political from the economic sphere was constitutive to market society and had to be maintained whatever the tension involved. This was the other source of disruptive strain (GT, 218).

The outcome of such a disruptive strain was, of course, fascism within which individuals

are denied from even the most basic human rights, even including, many times, the right to exist.

2. The Double Movement and Globalization

2.1. The Reproduction of the Market Society and the Double Movement

2.1.1. The �Discovery� and the �Breakdown� of Society What the notion of the double movement suggests is that the two contradictory tendencies

existing in the market society, extension of the market and reaction against it, also indicates that

there exists a tension in this society between the �communal� traits and the �societal� traits that

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human beings possess, or, to put it in a terminology inherited from Ferdinand Tönnies, between

the Gemeinschaft properties and the Gesellschaft properties.

Although the creation of the three fictitious commodities has a dissolving effect on the

social bond, it is also true that with the advance of capitalism the individual becomes more and

more dependent to other human beings at the same time because of the increasing social

character of production. According to Polanyi, the �knowledge� of society, �came to us through

living in an industrial society� and it is �the constitutive element in modern man�s

consciousness� (GT, 258A).8 In other words, historical process of commodification, i.e. the

expansion of the market, is also a process that characterizes the transition from �community� to

�society,� or transition from �Gemeinschaft� to �Gesellschaft.� According to Tönnies,

Gemeinschaft, whose purest form prevails within the family, characterized by the unity of

individuals whereas Gesellschaft is characterized by the separation between them (Tönnies 1988:

64-5). On the other hand, regarding minds of individuals living in these two forms of human

aggregates, closely associated with this distinction is another one between �natural will�

(Wesenwille), which carries the conditions of Gemeinschaft, and �rational will� (Kürwille),

which develops Gesellschaft. Natural will (or sometimes translated as �integral will�), as the

natural disposition of human beings, is characterized by the spontaneous expression of their

drives and desires, whereas �rational will,� which does not have the spontaneity and

impulsiveness of the natural will, basically expresses rational calculation (Tönnies 1988: 103-5).

In other words, rational will, as the very name suggests, reflects the will of the self-interested

individual, or the Homo Oeconomicus who tries to reach his end by employing the available ends.

Here the significance of rational will is that it divorces means and ends, both in personal relations

and in works. It even makes human beings as means for each other (Pappenheim 1959: 73).

18

Now, what is important for our purposes is that, although Tönnies uses these four

categories as �ideal types,� or, in his own characterization, as �normal types� (1988: 274), he

also makes it clear that on essential points Gesellschaft, with its main ingredient rational will, is

identical to capitalist or �bourgeois society� (p. 76), because the Gesellschaft is characterized

essentially by the dominance of exchange relations. But above all, it is the existence of labor

power as commodity which distinguishes Gesellschaft: For Tönnies, the three acts that describe

Gesellschaft are (1) the purchase of labor; (2) the employment of labor; (3) the sale of labor in the

form of value elements of the products. Consequently, Gesellschaft is constituted mainly by two

classes: the capitalist and the working class (Tönnies 1988: 100-1). But such a dualistic structure,

according to him, can only �follows from the premise of commerce. That holds, however, only on

condition that commerce is limited to that purely fictitious, unnatural commodity created by

human will, which is labor power� (Tönnies 1988: 101; emphasis mine). In short, Gesellschaft

presupposes wage labor, or labor power as commodity.

Therefore, it appears that there are two significant aspects of Gesellschaft, or the �market

society�: First, the development of the �rational,� self-interested individual, who is nothing but

an atom in the society and for whom other individuals appear as particular means and, therefore,

the bonds between human beings are supplanted by useful associations, formed by particularized

individuals (Pappenheim 1959: 81). But secondly, and even more important than this, the very

category of individual in the modern sense appears with Gesellschaft.

A person in Gemeinschaft belongs to a whole that makes his life meaningful; such a

community is characterized, as can be seen Eric Fromm�s description of the Medieval society

(1941: 40-41), by the sense of security, solidarity, the subordination of economic to human needs,

the directness and concreteness of human relations. But though the individual is not alone and

19

isolated, this community is also characterized by the lack of individual freedom. In other words,

in such communities, individuals are not �species-being� in the real sense, for their very

individuality are denied. On the other hand, in Gesellschaft, individual freedom and individuality

seems to become dominant. According to Tönnies, the transition to Gesellschaft implies �a

dissolution of all those ties which bind the individual through his natural will and apart from his

rational will. For these ties restrict his personal freedom of movement, the salableness of his

property, the change of his attitudes, and their adaptation to the findings of science� (1988: 234).

Hence, despite its destructive effects upon the social connectedness in a Gemeinschaft-like

society, market society also creates the preconditions of �free� human beings, or of the

possibility of realizing their own potentialities. What makes this possible is actually the

development of the industry, with the increasing social character of production which came with

the �machine age,� to use Polanyi�s expression. At the same time, social production, through

cooperation and also exchange, though strips human beings from their individuality, also

develops their species-consciousness (Tönnies 1974: 90). In other words, through making

individuals realize their dependence on each other, that process make them aware of the �reality

of society.� This �discovery of society,� somewhat paradoxically, is an important ingredient of

the �market society� proper. Therefore, regarding the fate of the individual, we have two

tendencies that work against each other in a market society: while emancipation from the ties that

bind individual makes him more and more independent, self-reliant and critical, increasing

alienation makes him more isolated, alone and afraid (Fromm 1941: 104).

According to Polanyi, this distinction is �fundamental to the understanding of modern

society� (TMEE, 68). In fact, this contrast between �Gemeinschaft� and �Gesellschaft� is actually

the most significant aspect of Polanyi�s critique of the �market society�; whereas the market

20

society is characterized by the impersonal and indirect social relations, �precapitalist� societies

are characterized by solidarity and connectedness. Yet, this does not change the fact that in those

societies communal and external relations are in stark contrast: �solidarity here, enmity there, rule

the day. �They� are the objects of hostility, degradation, and enslavement, �we� belong together.�

(LM, 59) Therefore, Polanyi seems to share Tönnies�s vision about the double tendency within

the market society: while the possibilities of realizing and developing the potentialities of the

individual has increased, capitalism also destroys the very sociality of the human beings by

depriving them of the direct, personal relationships with other individuals, unmediated by

exchange or money, another �fictitious commodity,� which reduces them into abstract, functional

units. In other words, with the market system, the reality of society is both recognized for the first

time, and denied because of the perverse existence of human beings under this system which

violates the rule of the �changelessness of man as a social being.� The reason for this is that this

society is only an �economic society,� which �had emerged as distinct from the political state�

(GT, 115-16). This fact, the transition to �Gesellschaft� has some important implications

regarding the work of the double movement.

2.1.2. The Meaning of the Double Movement Although the creation of the fictitious commodities and its corollary, the institutional

separation between the economic and the political spheres, is to be maintained at all cost in order

for the market system to function, the protective countermovement tends to break this

institutional separation and thus pose a contradiction in the working of the system.

This protective movement, of which the state appears as a representative, is actually part

of a more general process: against the social �breakdown� caused by the extension of the market,

according to Polanyi is the �self-protection� of society, or more accurately, the resistance to the

21

commodification process carried out by different classes and organizations within the society to

the extension of the market into every aspect of life, that is, to the fictitious commodities (GT,

76). However, the protective movement is not restricted to the economic sphere; it actually

reflects a social, or institutional, tendency to resist to, or to rebel against, the �inhumane�

conditions of the market system. Briefly, since the characteristics of community constitutes the

�human� aspect of the human existence, and since these characteristics are violated in the market

society, it should not be surprising that human beings in the society will resist this violation by

trying to affirm their sociality, or their feeling of connectedness. This point is of great

significance in understanding Polanyi. For example, he declares:

But the true nature of man rebels against Capitalism. Human relationships are the reality of society. In spite of the division of labour they must be immediate, i.e. personal. The means of production must be controlled by the community. The human society will be real, for it will be humane: a relationship of persons. (Polanyi 1935: 375-76)

In other words, the true meaning of the double movement is the struggle between those

forces that represent the �disembedded� economy and those that represent the attempt to

�reembed� it into the society. In fact, an essential aspect of the double movement is the activities

of the state; the state from the very start of the market system played an important role: not only

did the state actively participated to the establishment of the market system., it also carried the

banner of the protective countermovement regarding the fictitious commodities. Historically

speaking, the state had always played an essential role in both promoting and restricting the

working of the market. Then, it can be asserted that although the state in a market society is a

convenient way to protect and enforce the institutional separation of the economic from the

political, the same state also has to protect the very society from the destructive effects of

capitalism, as the history of the double movement shows. Then, the state itself becomes

22

embodiment of a contradiction, although it is by no means the only institution that has the same

contradiction: it both promotes and obstructs capitalist relations at the same time. However, such

a position also implies that in a capitalist society, the state plays a dual role; while it is the

governing organ of the �ruling classes,� it also claims to represent the whole society. For

example, according to Tönnies (1988: 216-17), the state, as a characteristic association of

Gesellschaft, is on the one hand established for the purpose of �protecting freedom and property

of its subjects, i.e., implicitly, of representing and enforcing the natural law based on the validity

of contracts,� and therefore like any special interest-group it is subject to the natural law which is

conceived as �the will of Geselschaft.� But on the other, the state is above the law, for it claims

to be the society itself.

Yet, the fact that the state, i.e. the bureacracy, claims to represent the whole of the

society9 implies that the state is an agent which at the same time both promotes and is forced to

restrain market relations. Since even the very existence of the state depends upon capital

accumulation in a capitalist society, it is quite understandable that the state would promote

capitalist relations by all means. In this regard, it should be noted that state�s centralized power,

which actually is a result of the fact that the state has the monopoly over the means of violence in

capitalist societies, gives it a unique position in both enforcing and protecting property rights and

the formation of money and the credit system (Giddens 1986: 152-54). In this regard, Polanyi

argues that from the very beginning the market system required active state intervention, even to

the extent that the system itself was a product of state intervention. But such a position that the

state has also gives it the power to intervene directly into the economic sphere by political means.

That is to say, while on the one hand the state has the function to maintain the separation between

economic and political spheres, it also becomes an agent that carry out the �protective

23

countermovement� directed to prevent the social fabric from disintegrating under the dominance

of the market.

Nevertheless, the state is not the only institution that functions to promote and obstruct

the working of the market system. For Polanyi, human beings are �humanized� by the plurality of

institutions, like church, family, work, through which they can both express their essence and

acquire an identity based on those �human� traits. Since the social institutions are in part

embodiments or expressions of human essence, even in a market society, those institutions that

are not exclusively characterized by their economic factors can function for individuals to affirm

their connectedness with other individuals through having personal, direct relationships. In other

words, these institutions, together with deliberately created associations or communities,

aggregates, etc., including political parties and the trade unions, can function as �safe havens� to

escape from the destructive, i.e., alienating, reificatory, effects of capitalism. Although this is for

the most part an individual act, it nevertheless presupposes some form of collectivity, for the

function of these institutions are to affirm sociality, direct, personal relationships. To the extent

that these institutional structures have the power to transcend the economic-political separation,

like the working class organizations, they can be successful in counteracting to the destructive

effects of the extension of the market. Such an attempt to form Gemainschaft-like communities,

as it seems, is exactly what is being done in the contemporary, �global� phase of the market

system.

2.2. Globalization and the “Human” Rights

2.2.1. The Social Effects of Globalization Although the �dusk� of the phenomenon of globalization does not seem to be here yet,

it seems clear that the golden age of the �welfare capitalism,� or, as it is sometimes called, the

24

�Fordist� accumulation regime has come to the end, since the early seventies. From the beginning

of eighties onwards, the world seems to have been �launched on another disastrous attempt to

realise the utopian and socially destructive idea of the self-regulated market� (Bienefeld 1991:

16). This new �global� setting10 heralds the �death� of the welfare state, an institution which can

be asserted to be a more �peaceful� way to maintain the institutional separation between the

economic and the political spheres, and its �social contract� with the workers in the form of full

employment and comprehensive welfare (Kapstein 1996: 16-17).11 With this new phase in which

this �social contract� is broken, the optimism regarding the possibility of living in a �post-

industrial society� has been gradually being replaced by a pessimism regarding the economic and

social security of ordinary people. As one of the commentators put very lucidly,

The dream of a leisure society in which material affluence allows people to turn more and more of their attention to their family, to culture and to a renewed respect for nature and conservation, has been gradually displaced by a neoconservative nightmare in which the best we can hope for in which alienated individuals �live to work� rather than �work to live�; a world in which people derive more than ever their identities, their sense of self and their sense of social worth through an impersonal, increasingly volatile market; a world in which family and community ties are often regarded as anachronistic, sentimental impediments to efficiency that �we� can no longer afford in the face of the challenge of international competition. Indeed, the demands for increased labour market flexibility grow more strident by the day while assorted management gurus tell our young people that regular, life time employment is a luxury they cannot expect to enjoy in this brave new world. (Bienefeld 1991: 4)

However, one should bear in mind that this tendency has actually started after the World

War II, and the causes should be sought within the properties of the �welfare� capitalism, if not

in the very beginning of the market system. The reason for this is that the institutional separation

between the economic and the political spheres, which follows from the creation of fictitious

commodities, and the resulting process of atomization, or the extension of the market into all

spheres of life, creates the tendency of the emergence of increasingly fragmented, isolated

25

individuals.

Now, the double movement in this global phase of the market system can still be helpful,

because although this phase is identified by such a fragmentation as a result of the extension of

the market, individuals still try to reclaim their own humanity, by forming some Gemeinschaft-

like �communities� within which they can not only define their own identity, but also affirm their

connectedness as a �social� being. The growing emphasis upon minorities or even religious

communities can also be partly regarded as such an attempt to find some �safe havens.�

Nevertheless, the extension of the market into every aspect of life makes it illusory to refuge into

these types of communities.12 For it is not very easy to distinguish between the two conflicting

tendencies in the double movement, extension of the market and resisting to it, for even the very

human properties can be so distorted in discourse, through the reproduction of the �market

mentality,� that they can be used in reproduction of market relations.13 And it appears, to me, that

such a tendency is prevalent and increasingly dominates in the contemporary, �global� system.

The problem with the search of the community is that the advance of the market system

has made obsolete the conditions of the �Gemeinschaft.� For example, �never was the word

�community� used more indiscriminately and emptily� says Eric Hobsbawm (1994: 428), �than in

the decades when communities in the sociological sense became hard to find in real life ��the

intelligence community�, �the public relations community�,...� For him, the �extraordinary

dissolution of traditional social norms, textures and values� in especially the last three decades of

the twentieth century led to the attempts to form Gemeinschaft-like associations, which becomes,

actually �pseudo-Gemeinschafts� (Pappenheim 1959: 68).

Furthermore, the rhetoric of the return to the �lost community� is no less futile, if not

dangerous as the fascist period itself has shown.14 Of course, what happened in this period was

26

the creation of utmost impersonal relations, insignificant atoms, and destruction of human

spontaneity. Then, it is no accident that, despite all the rhetoric, National Socialism �has

annihilated every institution that under democratic conditions still preserves remnants of human

spontaneity: the privacy of the individual and of the family, the trade union, the political party,

the church, the free leisure organization� (Neumann 1944: 367). But the real danger in the

rhetoric of the �lost community� is so aptly characterized by Eric Hobsbawm that I cannot not

resist to quote:

Increasingly one�s identity had to be constructed by insisting on the non-identity of others. How otherwise could the neo-Nazi skinheads in Germany, wearing the uniforms, hair-styles and musical tastes of the cosmopolitan youth culture, establish their essential Germanness, except by beating up local Turks and Albanians? How, except by eliminating those who did not �belong� could the �essentially� Croat or Serb character of some region be established in which, for most of history, a variety of ethnicities and religions have lived as neighbors? (1994: 429)

In other words, the rhetoric of �lost community� eventually amounts to the emphasis of

the bonds within the new �clan�, �tribe�, �community�, etc. at the expense of the development of

the �species-consciousness,� which presupposes the individual who accepts the reality of both

herself and of the society, or, �the person in community�, to use Rotsein�s (1990: 104) metaphor.

Unfortunately, the growing emphasis over the efficiency of the market system and over the

�communities,� prevents the possibility of being optimist, especially with regard to �human�

rights.

2.2.2. Epilogue: The �Human� Rights If the argument of this paper makes any sense, then the implications of this framework

regarding human rights are rather straightforward. First of all, if the market system, by making

the society subordinate to itself, is characterized by a �dehumanization� process, a la Polanyi,

27

then the very phrase of the �human rights� may become devoid of meaning. If we are to

understand by human rights as those rights which allow individuals to �develop their human

potentialities, ... so that they may, if they can and as far as each one can, carry out certain

activities proper to human species� (Kuçuradi 1995a: 11), it seems, to me, essential to resist

against the temptation of the �market mentality� which treats human beings as optimizing agents

and thus sees them as mere means that could be used to achieve one�s own �economic� ends, for

such a vision is in contradiction with the universal character of human rights.15 In other words,

under such a vision, human beings becomes just functional units in maintaining an �illusion,� the

market society, who are allowed to realize their �potentialities� only within the boundaries of the

market, as conditioned by the hope of gain and the fear of starvation. Of course, what I mean is

not that the market economy is wholly incompatible with human rights but that there is no

necessary connection, as most Liberals would like maintain, between the market economy and

democracy and human rights. In fact, to assume the existence of such a connection, implies that

the concept of human rights is considered as a historically specific, contingent one, which applies

only to market society. For such a connection, in its implication that the �human condition� is

given by the historically specific economic and social conditions within which human beings

live, is in contradiction with the universality of human rights as referring to human

developmental potentialities. If this is the case, this means that not only the notion of human

rights, but even the very the notion of freedom can be understood only within the boundaries of

the market in which human beings are treated as �things� which are to be used to achieve some

�economic� ends.

A possible �solution� to escape from this setting is, as Polanyi warns us, the extension of

the democratic principle into economic sphere by abolishing this separate, autonomous sphere.

28

But this, in turn, requires a solution of the problem of �freedom in a complex society,� as it is

discussed in the closing chapter of the Great Transformation. A complex society is the one which

has to live side by side with the machine. Such a society, irrespective of its institutional format,

rests upon an extensive division of labor and thus should contain an extended bureaucratic

network to fulfil the purposes of the state and of the society (Rotsein 1990: 100). Capitalist

society, or Gesellschaft, is such a complex society; in fact, argues Polanyi, capitalist society had

arisen as the response to the challenge of the �machine age� (BED, 117; LM, xlviii). Such a

notion suggests that there could have been other adjustments to the challenge of the machine

other than capitalism; in other words, despite the fact that such a reasoning sounds like both

technological determinism and voluntarism at the same time, it seems to me that the claim that

the same level of technology can sustain different, if not opposite, social relations of production

should be taken serious, for the problem with the nineteenth century �was not that it was

industrial but that it was a market society.� (GT, 250) This society could not sustain freedom

because it was based on the purpose of creating profit and welfare, not peace and freedom (GT,

255). And because of this, the result would be the denial of the reality of society:

Freedom�s utter frustration in fascism is, indeed, the inevitable result of the liberal philosophy, which claims that power and compulsion are evil, that freedom demands their absence from a human community. No such thing is possible; in a complex society this becomes apparent. This leaves no alternative but either to remain faithful to an illusory idea of freedom and deny the reality of society, or to accept that reality and reject the idea of freedom. The first is the liberal�s conclusion; the latter the fascist�s. No other seems possible. (GT, 257)

In this quote, we can see the Polanyi�s belief that liberal economists had (still have)

simpleminded conception of freedom and power, both being limited to the market sphere, and

never considering the state as an important actor. Also, his belief that this conception led to the

illusion of market society (society that is subordinated by the market) in which �the reality of

29

society� is denied.

Therefore, freedom should be extended to the whole of the society by �reembedding� the

economic sphere into the society again. Only by doing so, could individuals be emancipated from

the alienating, dehumanizing effects of capitalism. In this regard, Polanyi emphasizes the point

that the issue of freedom in a complex society becomes an institutional problem; namely freedom

must be institutionally protected. The �hallmark� of a free society would be �the right to

nonconform� which is to be protected institutionally (GT, 255). The attempt to achieve and

maintain such an institutional protection, on the other hand, requires active participation of

individuals in their struggle to resist dehumanizing aspects of the market system; the double

movement, as we have seen, is nothing but the description of this struggle on the social plane.

However, today, the double movement seems to have been undermined to the extent that

reification dominates every sphere of life, including the mode of thinking of the modern

individual. Thus, the success of the counter-tendency to protection depends crucially upon

conscious rejection of the mode of thinking that capitalism dictates. To the degree that this

reificatory aspect of capitalism deepens, the chance to success of the double movement decreases.

That is, double movement will be paralyzed to the extent that it is �suppressed by the power of

international capital on the one hand and inhibited by the incapacity of increasingly divided,

fragmented and individualized societies to organize themselves to act in the interests of society as

a whole� (Bienefeld 1991: 26). Such a society, in which �the concept of a �perfect market for

babies� as the �solution� to the abortion debate may be deemed perfectly acceptable�, argues

Bienefeld (1991: 27), �was deemed �impossible� by Polanyi and defined as �barbaric� by Marx

many years before, but it will not be regarded in this way by those who have come to accept it as

the best that is humanly available.�

30

Therefore, resistance to the extension of the market by affirming our very humanity, that

is both individuality and sociality, becomes a moral responsibility in order to regain our own

humanity. In this regard, we should remember the fact that, according to his daughter, Polanyi�s

lifelong commitment to social thought is to be explained �by a quasi-religious sense of

responsibility for the fate of man� (Polanyi-Lewitt 1990: 119). The �fate� of man, it seems,

depends on the conscious use of the double movement, maybe even independent of the section of

society to which we belong, for such a move could give a hope to escape from the mode of

thinking that capitalism dictates so that eventually transcending of capitalism would be possible.

This might be the only possible alternative, as the very period of fascism, a period within which

people were subjected �to a re-education designed to naturalize the individual and make him

unable to function as the responsible unit of the body politic� (GT, 237) had shown. Against to

this, conscious use of double movement is more urgent today because the process in which

capitalist mode of thinking which destroys the idea of the �brotherhood of man� is much more

effective today that it was in the past, though achieved by not using brutal force, but through

�peaceful� means. The key to the success in this attempt is the �resignation to the reality of

society�, as Polanyi argues in the closing page of the Great Transformation, for

uncomplaining acceptance of the reality of society gives man an indomitable courage and strength to remove all removable injustice and freedom. As long as he is true to his task of creating more abundant freedom for all, he need not fear that either power or planning will turn against him and destroy the freedom he is building by their instrumentality. This the meaning of freedom in a complex society; it gives us all the certainty that we need. (GT, 258B)

According to Polanyi, the �Christian discovery of the uniqueness of the individual and of

the oneness of mankind is negated by fascism. Here lies the root of degenerative bent� (GT, p.

258A). I believe, therefore, it is the recognition of these two inseparable characteristics of the

31

human species, the �uniqueness of individual� and the �oneness of mankind,� which is required

in the first place for the protection of the �human� rights.16

32

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Polanyi-Lewitt (ed.), The Life and Work of Karl Polanyi, Montréal: Black Rose Books, pp. 98-110.

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Notes 1. Cf. Sievers (1949: 81-85), for an interesting discussion of the terms �market system�, �market economy�, and �market society, and their differences.

2. However, one should be careful about this commodification regarding labor; what is being reduced to the commodity status here is not really this activity, namely labor, itself, but man�s abilities which he uses in engaging this life activity, namely, labor power.

3. Polanyi�s use of the terms �labor� and �labor power,� incidentally, is quite similar to that of Marx. Marx argues that the term �labor,� as a �metabolic interaction between man and nature, the everlasting nature-imposed condition of human existence� (Marx 1976: 290), is a process within which �labor power,� in the sense of �the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in the physical form, the living personality, of a human being� (Marx 1976: 270), is expended. Based on this proposition, one could argue that the term �labor power� characterizes the power of �agency.�

4. It should be noted that Polanyi�s social theory always emphasizes moral aspects of human existence. For good discussions of this feature of Polanyi�s theory, see Abraham Rotstein (1990, 1994) and Gregory Baum (1996).

5. In such societies, the danger of starvation is not an individual matter, because the community will never let one of his members to die from hunger, unless all community is facing with this threat. (GT, 46; 163-64)

6. For Polanyi�s own position upon Aristotle�s �economic� understanding, see his �Aristotle Discovers The Economy� in TMEE, pp. 64-94.

7. Sievers (1949: 344-47), characterizes of the history of the market capitalism with the following turning points: strain, which begins in 1879 marking the date at which the protectionist movement started to inhibit the self-regulating character of the market mechanism; collapse, referring to the collapse of the Concert of Europe, thus triggering the events that led to the war; rejuvenation (attempt to establish the international political order and the gold standard); almost immediately followed by the fourth phase: strain, characterized by the crisis and the rise of the popular government, and finally, collapse and abrupt transformation in the form of fascism, Russian five-year period, and the New Deal.

8. This process is also characterized by Marx in a dramatic way: The more deeply we go back into history, the more does the individual, and hence

also the producing individual, appear as dependent, as belonging to a greater whole.... Only in the eighteenth century, in �civil society,� do the various forms of social connectedness confront the individual as a mere means toward his private purposes, as external necessity. But the epoch which produces this standpoint, that of the isolated individual, is also precisely that of the hitherto most developed social (from this standpoint, general) relations. The human being is in the most

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literal sense a ζϕov πoλιτιχόv [political animal], not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society. (Marx 1973: 84)

9. There has always been a close association between the nation-state, itself product of capitalism, and �society,� even to the extent that the ��capitalist society� is a �society� only because it is a nation-state� (Giddens 1986: 141). That is to say, the term �society� has come to be identified with the people living within the boundaries of a nation-state and thus the �discovery� of the society goes hand in hand with the establishment of the nation-state. For a discussion of the ambiguities of the term �society� and its relation to nation-states, see Giddens (1986: 135-36).

10. The basic unit of this global setting, arguably, is the �information economy� which is distinguished by five properties (Ü∏ür 1998: 317-18):

1) Science and technology is increasingly applied to the production, consumption and trade processes, a fact which is made possible by the �information revolution� which started the �computer age.�

2) In both reel GNP and employment, there is a shift from material production to information processing activities.

3) In the production process, there exists a shift towards flexible production instead of the mass production, which gave rise the tendency that more dynamic small and medium-scale firms using high technology are replacing the large scale conglomerates, even though multinational corporations maintain their dominance over the world economy, which are forced, however, to adapt themselves to the changing conditions of the markets by trying to be more flexible in their strategies.

4) In this global setting, the mobility of the factors of production such as capital and labor, production, management, markets, information and technology defies the national boundaries.

5) All of these tendencies are associated with one of the most important technological revolutions in human history, centering around informational technologies (microelectronics, information processing, telecommunication etc.), which has been the impulse for the changing production processes.

For a more detailed exposition of the globalization process, and of its difference from the

early, nineteenth century industrialization experience, see (Ü∏ür 1998), and the references cited therein.

11. Although Kapstein believes that the nation-state is abandoning the working people exactly at a time when they need the state most as a buffer from the world economy in its globalization phase, and argues that in order for the political support for the globalization phenomenon continue this social contract should not be broken (1996: 17), such a prospect does not seem to be possible in the near future.

12. For example, according to Christopher Lasch (1977), the family loses its function of being a

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�haven in a heartless world�, which is used to escape from the harsh realities of the market, because of the extension of the market relations even to family and because of the increasing �welfare� state interventions into family.

13. For example, Daniel Fusfeld (1993: 8) criticizes the Republican conservatives who glorify both the free market and what they call �family values� in that they cannot see the destructive effect of the free market on the family values. But to the extent that individuals� minds are �reified� enough to sustain market relations, this contradiction can be asserted to be a �necessary� contradiction.

14.In fact, as Franz Neumann (1944), who had conducted one of the most comprehensive studies on National Socialism, indicates in many places that National Socialism had frequently been presented as the �return� to the Gemeinschaft, as a revolt against the fetish character of money and capitalism by emphasizing the �whole�. For example, Bernhard Köhler, one time chairman of the economic committee of the National Socialist party, says: �From the very beginning, National Socialism was a revolt of the living feelings of the people against the fact that the whole life of the people was determined by economics, by material existence.� (quoted in Neumann 1944: 232).

15.I must express my indebtedness to Ioanna Kuçuradi for the idea that the very notion of human rights, as referring to the development of human potentialities, contradicts the fact that human beings become mere means for each other.

16. It appears that what Ioanna Kuçuradi (1988; 1995b) suggests regarding human rights can be a solution: The State as a legal, �human� institution. Such a solution, it seems, requires a comprehensive rethinking the whole existence of human beings at the most basic level, which yet seems inevitable in our contemporary world. However, I am convinced that escape from the market mentality would be an important ingredient of such an attempt.