Karl Polanyi described disembedding as the ready relocation of people away
from a network of nonmarket relationships and direct participation in the
community into un-familiar (sharing a word root with family) surround-
ings. The person is resituated in an impersonalized milieu determined by
money, market abstractions, and industrial monoculture. 9 Polanyi said we
are re-embedded in that more impersonal milieu, where the market rules
as the only form of economy, and where we are now captive to that mar-
ket—which leaves us metaphysically disembedded in the sense used by Ma-
cIntyre. Instead of being embedded in community, kinship, and tradition,
we become “resources,” which can be bought and sold on the market. We
live in a society where nearly everything has been converted into a com-
modity, including ourselves. Want, even hunger, now impels us from place
to place like interchangeable parts. 10