Politics & Power Quote by Michael Polanyi

Polanyi is smuggling a political-economic argument into what sounds like a neutral description of laboratory life. By calling the “community of scientists” a “body politic,” he denies the comforting myth that science is just method plus microscopes. It’s governance: norms, legitimacy, informal constitutions, and power-brokers who decide what counts as a good question and who gets to speak with authority. The phrase is almost genteel, but the implication is sharp: scientific truth isn’t produced in a social vacuum; it’s stabilized by institutions that look a lot like civic order.

Then he tightens the screw with “economic principles.” He’s not saying science is for sale; he’s saying it runs on scarcity and allocation. Attention, prestige, jobs, grants, journal space, conference invitations - these are the currencies. Scientists “produce” knowledge the way markets produce goods: through competition, specialization, and decentralized coordination. Peer review becomes a pricing mechanism. Citations become demand signals. Priority disputes are property claims. Even “curiosity” starts to look like a rational response to incentives.

The context matters: Polanyi, a scientist-turned-philosopher writing in the shadow of fascism and Soviet planning, was deeply suspicious of centrally managed truth. This is a defense of scientific autonomy disguised as sociology. If science functions like a polity and a market, then top-down control doesn’t just threaten freedom; it breaks the very mechanism that lets reliable knowledge emerge. The subtext is a warning to technocrats and ideologues alike: you can’t command discovery without corrupting it.