The paper proposes an interpretation of Polanyi's Great Transformation based on a distinction between two meanings contained in the concept of the embedded economy (and its opposite - the disembedded economy). Polanyi's thesis that the market economy is a disembedded economy in fact comprises...

I argue that in its adaptation from Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation, the concept of embeddedness has itself undergone a great transformation. In the process, significant meanings of the concept have vanished, while others have been added. First I explore the different meanings the...