Karl Polanyi has followed an anthropological approach where a historical account of medieval England is presented to support his thesis of failure of market economy. He has used a very different methodology than currently employed in economics and social sciences. Polanyi has used historical experiences of medieval England to explain how first land was commodified, then it was labor’s turn and at the end money was commodified when it became part of the global gold standard. In this way, Polanyi’s thesis on market economy follows evolution of a society because according to him economic development and society can’t be studied in isolation.

A key part of his method is to assert the relationship between economic, political and social life of a society. His criticism of free market  is based on the idea that it tries to differentiate itself from the society of which it is a crucial part. Second, Polanyi has demonstrated that how gold-standard system specifically and free market generally allowed the peace to settle in Europe in the 19^th century because interests of key financial institutions were inter-linked with each other. From it, according to him, the idea that business can only thrive in a peaceful environment was produced and spread in the region.

A major contribution of Polanyi’s method is that environment is very much part of his thesis due to the relationship between economics, politics, society and nature. Someone who is finishing his book in 1944 when major capitalist institutions were about to take shape, predicts that this system is not only exploitative of humans but exploitative of nature as well and this key feature makes it improbable to survive in this world.