A self-regulating market demands nothing less than the institutional separation of society into an economic and a political sphere. Such a dichotomy … - Karl Polanyi

Purely economic matters such as affect want-satisfaction are incomparably less relevant to class behavior than questions of social recognition. Want-satisfaction may be, of course, the result of such recognition, especially as its outward sign or prize. But the interests of a class most directly refer to standing and rank, to status and security, that is, they are primarily not economic but social.

Markets for labor, land, and money are easy to distinguish; but it is not so easy to distinguish those parts of a culture the nucleus of which is formed by human beings, their natural surroundings, and productive organizations, respectively. Man and nature are practically one in the cultural sphere; and the money aspect of productive enterprise enters only into one socially vital interest, namely, the unity and cohesion of the nation. Thus, while the markets for the fictitious commodities labor, land, and money were distinct and separate, the threats to society which they involved were not always strictly separable.

At the heart of the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century there was an almost miraculous improvement in the tools of production, which was accompanied by a catastrophic dislocation of the lives of the common people.