Repatriating Polanyi: Market Society in the Visegrád States

390 Pages·2019·13.873 MB·English

by  Chris Hann

Repatriating
A b o u t t h e A u t h o r C
h
r
Repatriating Polanyi is a fascinating book that shows the relevance of Karl is Karl Polanyi’s “substantivist” critique of market
Polanyi
Chris Hann was born and raised in Wales Polanyi (born and raised in the Habsburg Empire) to the study of socialist and H society has found new popularity in the era of
A
and educated at Oxford and Cambridge. He has postsocialist Eastern Europe. Polanyi—a major inspiration worldwide for all neoliberal globalization. The author reclaims
N
carried out fieldwork in Central Europe as a those who are critical of neoliberalism—is now “repatriated” by Chris Hann, N this polymath for contemporary anthropology,
social anthropologist since 1975. After teaching who has deep ethnographic knowledge of provincial worlds in Hungary and especially economic anthropology, in the context
at the Universities of Cambridge and Kent Poland. This book is a must for all those interested in socialism, postsocialism, of Central Europe, where Polanyi (1886–1964)
Market Society
(Canterbury), Hann moved to Germany in 1999 and the critical study of neoliberalism. grew up. The Polanyian approach illuminates
to co-found the Max Planck Institute for Social in the Visegrád States both the communist era, in particular the
Ivan Szelenyi, William Graham Sumner Emeritus Professor
Anthropology (Halle/Saale). He is an Ordinary of Sociology and Political Science, Yale University “market socialist” economy which evolved
Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy under János Kádár in Hungary, and postsocialist
R
of Sciences, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, e transformations of property relations, civil society,
In this book, Chris Hann contends that Karl Polanyi’s intellectual repertoire
p
Cambridge, and of the World Academy of ethnicity, and national identities throughout
is more relevant than ever. Long an insightful observer of Hungarian rural a
Rusyn Culture. He is also an Honorary Fellow t the region.
society, Hann makes a convincing argument by providing an invaluable selec- r
i
of the Hungarian Ethnographical Society. a
tion of his writings old and new on the cultural and economic dilemmas faced
t Hann’s analyses are based primarily on his own
by Polanyi’s compatriots over the last half century. i
n
ethnographic investigations in Hungary and
g
Martha Lampland, Professsor of Sociology and Science Studies, southeast Poland. They are pertinent to the rise

University of California San Diego P
of neo-nationalism in those countries, which is
o
theorized as a malign countermovement to the
l
Three decades of postsocialism have been no “end of history.” Chris Hann a domination of the market. At another level, Hann’s
guides us through the twists and turns of postsocialist life in Central Europe, n adaptation of Polanyi’s social philosophy points
y
from Polish Greek Catholics to Hungarian Mercedes factories, never losing beyond current political turbulence to an original
i Chris
sight of the human drama. This is what anthropology is all about. concept of “social Eurasia.”
HANN
Steven Sampson, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, Lund University
ISBN 978-963-386-287-2
90000 > Central European University Press
Budapest – New York
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Website: http://www.ceupress.com
cover design by sebastian stachowski
9 789633 862872
Hann_cover.indd 7 2019. 05. 29. 14:26:13
REPATRIATING POLANYI
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by the same author
Tázlár: A Village in Hungary
A Village Without Solidarity: Polish Peasants in Years of Crisis
Market Economy and Civil Society in Hungary (ed.)
Tea and the Domestication of the Turkish State
Socialism: Ideals, Ideologies and Local Practice (ed.)
When History Accelerates (ed.)
The Skeleton at the Feast. Contributions to East European Anthropology
Civil Society: Challenging Western Models (ed. with E. Dunn)
Property Relations: Renewing the Anthropological Tradition (ed.)
Turkish Region (with I. Bellér-Hann)
Teach Yourself Social Anthropology
Postsocialism: Ideals, Ideologies and Practices in Eurasia (ed.)
The Postsocialist Agrarian Question (with the “Property Relations” Group)
Galicia: A Multicultured Land (ed. with P.R. Magocsi)
Studying Peoples in the People’s Democracies (ed. with M. Sárkány and P. Skalnik)
Not the Horse We Wanted! Postsocialism, Neoliberalism and Eurasia
The Postsocialist Religious Question (with the “Civil Religion” Group)
Market and Society: The Great Transformation Today (ed. with K. Hart)
Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective (ed. with H. Goltz)
Economic Anthropology: History, Ethnography, Critique (with K. Hart)
The Anthropological Field on the Margins of Europe, 1945–1991 (ed. with
A. Bošković)
Economy and Ritual (ed. with S. Gudeman)
Oikos and Market (ed. with S. Gudeman)
Industrial Labor on the Margins of Capitalism (ed. with J. Parry)
Anthropology and Civilizational Analysis: Eurasian Explorations (ed. with
J.P. Arnason)
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REPATRIATING
POLANYI
Market Society
in the Visegrád States
C h
hris ann
Central European University Press
Budapest–New York
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Copyright © by Chris Hann 2019

Published in 2019 by
Central European University Press
Nádor utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary
Tel: [phone] or 327-3000
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.ceupress.com
224 West 57th Street, New York NY 10019, USA
Tel: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the permission of the Publisher.
ISBN 978-963-386-287-2
Library of Congress CataLoging-in-PubLiCation Data
Names: Hann, C. M., 1953- author.
Title: Repatriating Polanyi : market society in the Visegrád states / Chris Hann.
Description: Budapest ; New York : Central European University Press, 2019. | In-
cludes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019002066 (print) | LCCN 2019013848 (ebook) | ISBN
978-963-386-288-9 (Pdf) | ISBN 978-963-386-287-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Polanyi, Karl, 1886-1964. | Economists—Hungary—Biography. |
Capitalism—Europe, Central.
Classification: LCC HB102.P64 (ebook) | LCC HB102.P64 H36 2019 (print) |
DDC 330.15/42092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002066
Printed in Hungary
Prime Rate Kft., Budapest
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To the memory of Ernest Gellner, an inspirational Central
European of a later generation than Karl Polanyi, but no more
sympathetic to militant (neo)liberalism
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Of course, most citizens of socialist countries were perfectly aware
that propaganda was just that. Some responded by viewing the
countries of the “class enemy” as virtual paradises of abundant
consumer goods and freedom. The bitterness they felt after the col-
lapse of socialism and the emergence of “predatory capitalism”
which left them “the losers” of the transformation is perfectly cap-
tured in an East German joke about the socialist rulers and their
propaganda that circulated in East Germany in the 1990s: “They
had been lying to us for forty years. How could we have known
that they told us the truth about capitalism, of all things?”
Carla Bethmann (2013, 250n202)
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations ............................................. ix
Preface: Forwards (n)ever! ..................................... xi
Note ........................................................... xvi
Acknowledgements ............................................ xvii
chapter one
Introduction: Karl Polanyi and the Transformations of Socialism
and Postsocialism .............................................. 1
chapter two
Market Principle, Marketplace and the Transition in Eastern
Europe ........................................................ 33
chapter three
From Production to Property: Land Tenure and Citizenship in
Rural Hungary ................................................. 61
chapter four
A New Double Movement? Anthropological Perspectives on
Property in the Age of Neoliberalism ........................... 101
chapter five
Awkward Classes in Rural Eurasia .............................. 129
chapter six
Civil Society at the Grassroots: A Reactionary View ............ 167
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viii Table of Contents
chapter seven
Socialism and King Stephen’s Right Hand ..................... 187
chapter eight
Ethnicity in the New Civil Society: Lemko-Ukrainians in Poland 213
chapter nine
Postsocialist Nationalism: Rediscovering the Past in Southeast
Poland ......................................................... 239
chapter ten
Polish Civil Society, the Greek Catholic Minority, and Fortress
Europe ........................................................ 269
chapter eleven
The Visegrád Condition (Freedom and Slavery in the Neoliberal
World) ......................................................... 293
chapter twelve
Conclusion: Building Social Eurasia ............................ 319
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Index .......................................................... 359
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List of Illustrations
Figure 1. Karl Polanyi with his daughter Kari (1938, photo
courtesy of Kari Polanyi Levitt) ............................. 5
Figure 2. An informal “Little Comecon” marketplace in Budapest,
1990 (source: 76176:Fortepan/Erdei Katalin) ............... 40
Figure 3. The Ukrainian bazaar in Przemyśl, (photo by Chris
Hann, 1994) ............................................... 56
Figure 4. Typical flat landscape near the center of Tázlár (photo
by Chris Hann, 2001) ...................................... 74
Figure 5. A street in the village center developed under socialism
(photo by Chris Hann, 2013) ............................... 82
Figure 6. A street built in the 1990s (photo by Chris Hann,
2015) ...................................................... 91
Figure 7. Threshing wheat in Wisłok Wielki (photo by Chris
Hann, 1981) ............................................... 146
Figure 8. Berci at home on his farm with his favorite horse
(photo by Chris Hann, 2014) ............................... 161
Figure 9. Discarded plaques of the socialist village (photo by
Chris Hann, 2015) ......................................... 171
Figure 10. The current symbol of the village government of
Tázlár (photo by Chris Hann, 2015) ........................ 175
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