Dr. Feinman Publishes Article in “Frontiers in Human Dynamics”
MacArthur Curator of Anthropology at The Field Museum Dr. Gary Feinman has co-authored a new publication in Frontiers in Human Dynamics: Institutions and Collective Action titled "New views on price-making markets and the capitalist impulse: beyond Polanyi." The article by Dr. Feinman and Dr. Richard E. Blanton (Purdue University) expands on prior arguments revolving around Karl Polanyi's substantivist thought both by highlighting critical perspectives on capitalism that long predated Polanyian views and by identifying a veritable bounty of new evidence and theory concerning premodern and contemporary marketplace economies. Together these lines of evidence enable us to question and transcend Polanyi's now-entrenched claims. The conceptual scheme that the author's present distinguishes between open and competitive marketplaces, on the one hand, and the capitalist impulse, on the other, thereby adding depth and breadth to the analysis of price-making markets and their divergent social and economic outcomes across time and space. Implications for the late second millennium CE rise of the Atlantic powers in the West are drawn. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Field Museum and its Vice President of Science, Thorsten Lumbsch, which facilitated publication.