The demolition of society

"To allow the market mechanism to be the sole director of the fate of
human beings and their natural environment, indeed, even of the amount
and use of purchasing power, would result in the demolition of
society. For the alleged commodity "labor power" cannot be shoved
about, used indiscriminately, or even left unused, without affecting
also the human indvidual who happens to be the bearer of this peculiar
commodity. In disposing of man's labor power the system would,
incidentally, dispose of the physical, psychological, and moral entity
"man" attached to that tag. Robbed of the protective covering of
cultural institutions, human beings would perish from the effects of
social exposure, they would die as the victims of acute social
dislocation through vice, perversion, crime, and starvation. Nature
would be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods and landscapes
defiled, military safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and
raw materials would be destroyed. Finally, the market administration
of purchasing power would periodically liquidate business enterprise,
for shortages and surfeits of money would prove as disastrous to
business as floods and droughts in primitive society. Undoubtedly,
labor, land, and money markets are essential to a market economy. But
no society could stand the effects of such a system of crude fictions
even for the shortest stretch of time unless its human and natural
substance as well as its business organization was protected against
the ravages of this satanic mill."

Polanyi, Karl (1944) The Great Transformation.