[1] For Polanyi, the effort by classical and neoclassical economics to make society subject to the free market was a utopian project and, as Polanyi scholars Fred Block and Margaret Somers claim, "When these public goods and social necessities (what Polanyi calls "fictitious commodities") are treated as if they are commodities produced for sale on the market, rather than protected rights, our social world is endangered and major crises will ensue.
"[3] Fetishism in anthropology refers to the primitive belief that godly powers can inhere in inanimate things, e.g., in totems.
"[3] David Bollier wrote that, according to Polanyi, "prior to the rise of the market as an ordering principle for society, politics, religion and social norms were the prevailing forces of governance.
They were embedded in social relationships, and subject to the moral consideration, religious beliefs and community management.
Treating them as "mere commodities" creates "dangerous pressures" — as when too much carbon is emitted into the atmosphere or people lose their jobs because they are “redundant.”[4]