Paradise Lost?

Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation tackles the alteration of society from the traditional economy of the ‘Age of Absolutism’ into the modern day market economy. One of the main characteristics of this change was the commodification of near everything, and most importantly: labour, land and money. From this assumption, Polanyi contends that industrialisation led humanity to become entirely materialistic, “[believing] that all human problems can be resolved given an unlimited amount of material commodities.” Moreover, as workers’ individuality became increasingly unimportant, this dislocation produced a disjoint in man’s relationship to both his body, self and those around him—relationships based on intimacy, trust and lifetime commitments shifted to short term impersonal commercial transactions. But if everything we do is an attempt to attain money through labour, and reciprocity, redistribution and householding has all but left society, is there any way to return to Polanyi’s simpler, better times? This issue arose in one of our lectures—is it possible to escape it all and live a happier, more fulfilling life without the market restrictions of a fictitious monetary system; to go off the ‘grid’? 

To take on this task, this essay will incorporate the 19th century Transcendentalist movement, whose leading intellectuals sought refuge in the sanctity of nature. Furthermore, it will attempt to answer whether this escape from alienation and the market is still possible today, and whether successful communities can be formed around this retreat. 

Operating under a similar sense as Polanyi—that a new era was at hand during the 1830s—a set of intellectuals in early 19th century America saw the progression of industrialisation as movement towards unthinking conformity. These literary, philosophical and political intellectuals (known as the Transcendentalists) attempted to break free from the increasingly industrialised society by absconding into the confines of the wilderness, where it seemed they might find peace, truth, and a connection with the divine.

The Transcendentalists saw the society around them as seriously deficient: “slave drivers of themselves,” as thinker Henry Thoreau noted in his book Walden. The only way to emancipate oneself from the ruthlessness of a society based upon material wealth was to enter into the restorative powers of nature. There, man would find his true self, and discover the suffocating restrictions of society. In Walden, Thoreau recounts living in a cabin in the wilderness of Massachusetts. The book’s opening chapter is labelled “Economy”, in which he ruminates about the trade-offs people make in society for life necessities, arriving at the conclusion that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” While his life is one of necessity, “Some [men], not wise, go to the other side of the globe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote themselves to trade for ten or twenty years, in order that they may live,—that is, keep comfortably warm,—and die in New England at last.” By being frugal and living not on the basis of capital, but on survival, Thoreau rediscovers another Polanyi conception: householding. Thoreau writes that in the current society, a farmer must not only be concerned with feeding himself, but also expanding his industry for material wealth—Thoreau on the other hand, need only concern himself with the use of a farm for himself. In his individual remoteness, Thoreau’s findings parallel Polanyi’s arguments. 

Just as it was then, it is still paradoxically both easy and hard to leave the ‘grid’ and continue to live off it. To truly escape, you must, as the Transcendentalists contend, immerse and isolate yourself completely in nature. While modern technology may make it easier to live at such a level, finding a place to live may be harder in an increasingly populated and governed world. This may be more difficult in some areas for both monetary and governmental reasons—the BBC recommends buying land, although, funnily enough, “A residential dwelling may not be allowed on the land you’ve purchased.” Moreover, it is still a dangerous and perhaps fatal life. One need only recall of the story of Christopher McCandless, encapsulated by John Krakauer’s Into the Wild, about an American man who died in Alaska, living off the land after university with only a gun, some rice, a camera and a small selection of reading material. Still, it would seem the ability to escape it all is there.

While it might appear that the Transcendentalists have may become successful in individual emancipation, there is still the question of being able to create a functioning community. An essential part of Polanyi’s argument rests on his criticism of the loss of community aspects like redistribution and reciprocity. These have been attempted often, however, in the later parts of the 1960s and 70s. A recent Netflix documentary Murder Mountain, for example, follows the story of California’s Humboldt County and the anarchist community that was founded there during the early 1970s. Humboldt County is a mountainous rural outpost, attracting hundreds of counter-culture enthusiasts to create an independent community based on ‘peace and love’. The community, however, centred itself around the (then) illegal production of marijuana. While initially reciprocity and redistribution seemed commonplace, this was only possible by funding itself through the American market society—which didn’t go unnoticed. When the government attempted to intervene, the community fell apart into chaos and gangs became prevalent. Today, Humboldt County has the largest amount of missing people in California.

Polanyi’s book decries the loss of a moral society in which communities helped one another and individuals retained their sense of self. As the Transcendentalists attempted to recreate this lost paradise individualistically, it still seems possible to evade the tendrils of society and market today—albeit at the potential cost of life. Contemporary examples of independent communities, on the other hand, still raise questions about whether they can survive, without either the encroachment of modern market society or government intervention. On this subject, I would side with Polanyi: that, “its partial eclipse may have even strengthened its hold since it enabled its defenders to argue that the incomplete application of its principles was the reason for every and any difficulty laid to its charge.”