Tradition and Discovery: The Polanyi Society Periodical

These remarks are an obituary for William T. Scott who worked for many years on a biography of Michael Polanyi. In addition to providing an overview of Scott’s own life and work, his connection with Polanyi is reviewed.

This essay provides some interesting elements of early Polanyi family history as well as comments on Budapest and Hungarian history and culture at the turn of the century. It presents the Polanyis as intellectuals immersed in a worldly environment, led by “Cecil-Mama,” the radical mother of Michael Polanyi.

In 1945, Michael Polanyi achieved, in Full Employment and Free Trade, the integration of Keynesian and monetarist economics that the economics profession did not ahieve until the 1970s. In yet another field, Polanyi saw the heart of important matters long before anyone else.