Polanyi makes an incursion into the non-trading societies (by often quoting works of economic anthropology) and describes the economic activity embedded in society’s forms, an instituted economic process which can only be understood in the broader societal context. The Polanyi specialists know this concept well. What they know perhaps less better, and which echoes with the objectives of this article devoted to the processes of institutionalization and of desinstitutionnalization, are these texts that Polanyi wrote before studying the process of social transformation, and where he approaches the subject from another angle.