Fred Block

Research Interests

• Economic and Political Sociology
• Sociological Theory
• Sociology of Welfare

Current Research Projects

The Hidden Developmental State in the United States
Funded by the Ford Foundation

For the last four years, I have been researching the activities of the U.S. government in support of the commercialization of new technologies. In a series of papers, I have documented that these efforts are far more widespread and more successful than most analysts have recognized. The programs are “hidden” because they are rarely discussed by journalists or academics, they run counter to the prevailing “free market” ideas, and they operate in a decentralized fashion that makes it difficult to track their impact. With a group of collaborators, I am currently working on an edited book on these programs and I am beginning to explore their implications for successful development in other parts of the world.

Free Market Utopianism: From Market Fundamentalism to the Reality of Society

In collaboration with Margaret Somers, I am preparing a volume to be published by Harvard University Press on the social and economic theory of Karl Polanyi who is increasingly recognized as one of the major social scientists of the 20^th century. Polanyi is particularly important for understanding the economic crisis that began in 2007 because of the originality and power of his analysis and critique of the ideology of the free market that has dominated U.S. politics for the last thirty years.

Publications

• Block, Fred. 2008. "Swimming Against the Current: The Rise of a Hidden Developmental State in the United States," Politics & Society.
• Block, Fred, and Margaret Somers. 2003. "In the Shadow of Speenhamland: Social Policy and the Old Poor Law," Politics & Society.
• Block, Fred. 2003. "Karl Polanyi and the writing of The Great Transformation," Theory and Society.
• Block, Fred. Forthcoming "The State and the Economy," with Peter Evans in Neil Smelser and Richard Swedberg, eds., Handbook of Economic Sociology, 2nd edition.
• Block, Fred. 2002. "Rethinking ‘Capitalism’" in Nicole Woolsey Biggart, ed., Economic Sociology, Blackwell.