How did "Great Transformation" realte to modernity?

Answer 1

"Though historians and social scientists would differ on an exact definition of the term, the two changes most central to the Great Transformation are the growth of modern market economies in economics, and in politics the development of the modern nation-states and a state-based system of international relations. Other changes potentially included would be the technological changes involved in the industrial revolution, advances in military technology and organization, and the expansion of the franchise and erosion of aristocratic privileges. Generally, the Great Transformation might be said to represent the development of modern society.

The phrase was popularized by its use as the title of historian Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, The Great Transformation. In this book, Polanyi argued that the development of the modern state went hand in hand with the development of modern market economies and that these two changes were inexorably linked in history. His reasoning for this was that the powerful modern state was needed to push changes in social structure that allowed for a competitive capitalist economy, and that a capitalist economy required a strong state to mitigate its harsher effects. For Polanyi, these changes implied the destruction of the basic social order that had existed throughout all earlier history, which is why he emphasized the greatness of the transformation."