The idea for this book is the result of a sustained interest, on the one hand, in elaborating concepts for coevolutionary political economy, and, on the other hand, in issues of globalization. But in striving to gain a deeper appreciation of these issues I came to realize that we are confronting a poverty of conventional metatheory. I laid aside my notes on globalization and entered a period of gestation, seeking to discover in the literature and in myself a metatheoretical basis for a critical inquiry into globalization, an inquiry that did not betray itself to a feckless pursuit. I am grateful to my family, colleagues, and friends for their patience and assistance in the preparation of this work. I am particularly indebted to Professor Paul I. Medow of York University for introducing me to the works and thought of Karl Polanyi, and to the extension of Polanyian thought present in his pioneering nonlinear simulation studies of structural dynamics.
I should like to thank: the staff of the Karl Polanyi Institute for Political Economy for their assistance in providing research materials from its archives; the International Network for Advanced Political Economy for its encouragement and assistance; and the Graduate School of International Relations, International University of Japan. Lastly, I wish to thank my wife, Rhonda, for the constancy of her encouragement and her patience, not a minor form of despair, but a virtue to be witnessed in other than my conscience.
These meager words of acknowledgment cannot recompense my indebtedness. For as Paul Medow once remarked: “debts cannot be redeemed, only new ones can be created.” That being so, I must find solace by encouraging those who follow and recklessly invite intellectual indebtedness. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle enjoined: “It is a duty not only to repay a service done, but another time to take the initiative in doing a service oneself."