Michael Polanyi’s Theory of Spontaneous Orders

M ichael Polanyi is well known as a theorist of science but his social-economicpolitical writings have never received adequate coverage. This neglect needs to be remedied because his system of liberal ideas is deeply interesting, persistently relevant, and historically significant as the following discussion will show. Being an unfamiliar figure to thinkers outside of certain specialist academic circles, it may be helpful to introduce Polanyi with aid of a quick pen portrait. Born in Budapest in 1891, he entered the University of Budapest in 1908, graduating with a degree in medicine in 1913 and a Ph.D. in chemistry four years later. He served as a medical officer in the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I, worked as a researcher in physical chemistry at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Berlin, from 1920, and rubbed shoulders with some of the great scientists of the age: Planck, Schrodinger and Einstein. Disturbed by the rising tide of Nazism in Germany, and being of Jewish extraction, 1933 saw Polanyi resign from his position at the Berlin Institute and emigrate to England. In the mid-1930s at the height of his career as a scientist, with an international reputation for his research on chemical reaction rates, Polanyi began to write about science, society, economics and politics. These topics steadily assumed greater importance in his mind. For a time he continued to conduct research in the physical sciences while examining social subjects, but the last of his 218 natural scientific papers appeared in 1949 and his days as a scientist were over. From 1933 to 1958 Polanyi was on the staff of Manchester University, occupying the chair in Physical Chemistry for fifteen years then a personal chair in Social Studies. His final years were spent as a Senior Research Fellow at Merton College, Oxford. The following study is arranged around three prominent themes in Polanyi’s social writings: opposition to Soviet style planning of science and economics, explication of spontaneous orders in social and cultural life, and distinguishing features of the free society. The study chiefly covers Polanyi’s writings in the 1940s when he devoted most attention to these matters. The approach adopted combines theoretical interpretation with intellectual history.