Economistic fallacy

The economistic fallacy is a concept originated by Hungarian-born economist Karl Polanyi in the 1950s. He developed the concept over time, devoting the first chapter of his posthumously-published book The Livelihood of Man to the subject. The concept elaborates on his concept of embeddedness, that humans are social creatures and that economic activity takes place in, and because of, social contexts. The economistic fallacy is critical of both Marxist economics and classical liberalism, focusing on their assumptions built on materialism and rationality. The economistic fallacy, akin to the concept of economic imperialism, is also used to reject the tendency of Marxists and classical liberals alike to separate economics from other fields of human life and study and to reduce those aspects and fields to mere aspects of economics.