(Vienna, Austria, 1886 - Pickering, Canada, 1964) Austrian anthropologist of Hungarian origin, noted for his theories on social democracy, which led him to leave Hungary first, and later Austria, during the rise of Nazism. From Polanyi then went through England and Canada, where he settled to teach in New York, as the American government refused to grant his wife a visa because of his communist past.

Among his work should be highlighted titles such as The Great Transformation (1944), where he criticizes liberalism, as well as Trade and the Market in the Old Empires (1957), a fundamental work in the field of economic history. Polanyi is considered one of the intellectuals who have most sharply analyzed the relationships between society, culture and the economy. His critical studies on the history and structure of capitalism, in open conflict with the ideology of laissez faire of the liberals of his time, but also with orthodox Marxism, are endowed with an exceptional humanist dimension and erudition, and above all they are supported on solid anthropological and sociological bases.