Very good text that I recommend reading from cover to cover. Polanyi is also an excellent introduction to non-Marxist, yet socialist theory. I also recommend reading a bit about Karl Polanyi's brother, Michael Polanyi – a polymath and philosopher of science, known for inventing the concept of 'tacit knowledge' and for his anti-positivist views. The ideologies of the Polanyi brothers couldn't be more different. Interesting case.
This is a great book about how our capitalist economy was very much designed. It's cited heavily in Graeber's Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value and supports his general push revealed by the quote in Adam Curtis' docuseries Can't Get You Out of My Head: "The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make. And could just as easily make differently."
What we can make depends largely on human nature. People who want to make a radically different world tend to also believe that human nature is highly malleable, and that it can be changed to support their new value system.
