Polanyi, Karl (1886–1964)

Karl Polanyi was born in Vienna and raised in Budapest. He founded the radical Club Galilei while at the University of Budapest, and actively engaged other leftist thinkers, such as Georg Lukács (1885–1971) and Karl Mannheim (1893–1947). He earned his PhD in philosophy in 1908 and earned a degree in law in 1912. He cofounded the Hungarian Radical Party. Polanyi worked in Vienna as a journalist writing economic and political commentary during the period leading up to the Great Depression and the rise of fascism. With Hitler's ascent to power in 1933, Polanyi left for England and worked as a lecturer for the Universities of Oxford and London. He taught as an adjunct professor at Columbia University in New York from 1947 to 1953. The ...