Polanyi's writing is attracting more attention in the 1990s than in earlier decades. Not easy to categorise, his best known work is both conservative and socialist in outlook. Polanyi's central insight is that governments have been pro-active in both initiating and seeking to perpetuate the pure market system. Economic liberals are not simply pro-market. They have a simple utopian vision that has no place for any organising principle other than competitive markets.
Market society is the outcome of an economic machine that they liken to clockwork.
While Polanyi was himself far from being an economic liberal, he believed markets have a legitimate place within society. Humans are motivated primarily by a quest for social standing, he argued, and not material gain. Hence markets are a peripheral feature of normal society. The pursuit of material gain only takes place where wealth determines social status. Affluence is to be displayed rather than enjoyed.